Head to head · issuer terms as read 2026-08-30
Venture vs Sapphire Preferred
Both charge $95 a year. Venture earns Capital One miles; Sapphire Preferred earns Ultimate Rewards points. Both have a cash floor we can stand behind at 1.0¢, so the receipts below compare them in the same unit.
On the published earn tables, Venture leads on everything else; Sapphire Preferred leads on dining & restaurants, gas, ev charging & transit, travel booked direct, streaming, phone & online shopping; the rest tie. Credits, as the issuers state them, add up to $0 a year on Venture and $406 on Sapphire Preferred — if you would have spent that money anyway. Monthly credits have breakage; count only the ones you'd really use.
Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card
Chase Sapphire Preferred
The terms, side by side
| Venture | Sapphire Preferred | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual fee | $95 | $95 |
| Foreign transaction fee | No foreign fee | No foreign fee |
| Earns | Capital One miles | Ultimate Rewards points |
| Transfers to partners | Yes · 22 on the official list | Yes · 14 on the official list |
| Credits stated | 2 | 4 · $406/yr if fully used |
| Welcome offer, as stated | 75,000 bonus miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within the first 3 months | Earn 75,000 points after you spend $5,000 in purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. |
Earn rates by category, as stated
| Category | Venture | Sapphire Preferred |
|---|---|---|
| Dining & restaurants | base rate | 3X |
| Gas, EV charging & transit | base rate | 3X |
| Travel booked direct | base rate | 2X |
| Travel booked through the issuer's portal | 5X | 5X |
| Streaming, phone & online shopping | base rate | 3X |
| Everything else | 2X | 1X |
Green = the higher stated multiplier. Brand-specific, promotional and rotating rates are on each card page, not modeled here.
What each nets at sample spend
Three sample monthly budgets, every point at 1.0¢ (the Pay-with-Points floor we paid), fee subtracted, no credits counted. Estimates, not promises — your spend is the input that matters.
Run your own spendQuestions people ask
- Which has the lower annual fee, Venture or Sapphire Preferred?
- They're the same: $95 a year, as stated on the issuers' pages on 2026-08-30.
- Does Venture or Sapphire Preferred charge foreign transaction fees?
- Venture: no foreign fee. Sapphire Preferred: no foreign fee. Read off each issuer's page on 2026-08-30.
- Which earns more on dining?
- Venture states no dining rate; Sapphire Preferred states 3X.
- Can I transfer points to airline and hotel partners?
- Venture: yes (22 partners on the official list). Sapphire Preferred: yes (14 partners on the official list).
- Which is better for me?
- It depends on where your spend goes. The receipts on this page use sample spend profiles at 1.0¢ per point; the Card Stack Optimizer runs your own numbers against every card we track, net of the annual fee.
- Venture: Card network (Visa/Mastercard/Discover) could not be confirmed from the fetched issuer page — no network name appeared in the fetched content, and a dedicated pricing-terms URL returned 404. Set to null pending direct confirmation. Note: Capital One has been migrating some Venture-family accounts to the Discover network industry-wide per news reporting, but this was not confirmed on the fetched issuer page, so it is not used here.
- Venture: Transfer partners: page states 'Transfer your miles to your choice of 15+ travel loyalty programs' but individual partner names were not listed in the fetched content.
- Venture: 2026-08-30 re-read: the Capital One Café beverage discount no longer appears on the issuer page; removed from credits.
- Sapphire Preferred: Network confirmed as Visa Signature via Chase's own 'Guide to Benefits Chase Sapphire Preferred, Visa Signature' PDF title and via Chase's /visa-credit-cards listing page (not stated in plain text on the main product page itself).
- Sapphire Preferred: 5x Peloton (over $150) and 5x Lyft earn promos are time-limited (through 12/31/2027 and 9/30/2027 respectively per issuer page) and were left out of the core earn-rate table since they are promotional, not permanent, categories — flag before publishing if precision on these is needed.
- Sapphire Preferred: Apple TV and DashPass credits are also time-limited promotional benefits as stated on the issuer page (activate by 12/31/2026); may not persist beyond that.
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