Capital One Savor Review: Supersized Rewards on Food and Fun

If a night out is just another night for you, the Capital One® Savor® Cash Rewards Credit Card might be calling your name. This card offers an impressive — and unlimited — 4% cash back rate on dining, streaming and entertainment spending, not to mention a rich 3% back at grocery stores, plus 1% back on everything else. It also carries one of the biggest sign-up bonuses currently available from a cash-back card.

The catch? There's an annual fee of $95. And that's expensive for a cash-back product, especially since similar foodie-focused cards exist for no fee at all.

But for those who spend plenty of money dining out at sit-down restaurants and fast-food joints, going out to movies and shows, and hanging out at nightclubs, coffee shops or even bowling alleys, the rewards can make it worth the fee.

» MORE: NerdWallet's best credit cards for restaurants

Capital One® Savor® Cash Rewards Credit Card: Basics

Card type: Cash back.

Annual fee: $95.

Sign-up bonus: Earn a one-time $300 cash bonus after you spend $3,000 on purchases within the first 3 months from account opening.

Rewards:

• 4% cash back on dining, eligible streaming services, and entertainment.

• 3% cash back at grocery stores.

• 1% cash back on all other purchases.

Interest rate: The ongoing APR is 15.99% - 24.99% Variable APR.

Foreign transaction fees: None.

Minimum redemption requirement: None.

How this card defines 'dining and entertainment'

• Dining includes purchases at restaurants, fast-food places, coffee shops, cafés, lounges, bakeries, bars, nightclubs and more, according to the issuer.

• Entertainment includes tickets purchased for a movie, play, concert, sporting event, tourist attraction, theme park, aquarium, zoo, dance club, pool hall or bowling alley, as well as purchases at record stores or video rental locations, the issuer confirms. "Entertainment" doesn’t include purchases like cable, digital streaming or subscription services — but again, streaming is its own separate 4% bonus category.

How this card defines eligible streaming services

Unlike American Express, which maintains a comprehensive list of services that qualify for bonus rewards on streaming, Capital One has yet to publish such a list. As of May 2021, its website was describing eligibility this way: "Streaming purchases made from eligible music and video streaming services, including Netflix, Hulu and Disney+. Some services, such as Prime Video, AT&T TV and Verizon FIOS On Demand, are excluded, as well as audiobook subscription services and fitness programming."

» MORE: NerdWallet's best credit cards for entertainment spending

Savor vs. SavorOne

If you're looking at the Capital One® Savor® Cash Rewards Credit Card, one of the first questions to answer is whether you would be better-served by its $0-annual-fee cousin, which goes by a similar name: the Capital One SavorOne Cash Rewards Credit Card. The cards at a glance:

If you evaluated these cards by the 1-percentage-point difference in their top cash-back rates and the difference in their annual fees, you'd have to spend more than $9,500 a year on dining, streaming and entertainment before the regular Savor comes out ahead.

The math changes a bit once you consider the regular Savor's bigger sign-up bonus. But you have to spend a good bit more to get that bigger bonus — and, of course, sign-up bonuses can vary over time.

Long term, you'd want to choose the card that best fits your spending habits, which is relatively easy to evaluate since both cards offer the same rate at grocery stores and on "all other spending." Do you spend enough each year on dining, streaming and entertainment to make the $95-annual-fee card more valuable than the $0-annual-fee card?

Oh, and one final consideration: If you want a 0% introductory APR period, you'll get one only with the SavorOne.

» MORE: Capital One credit cards mobile app review

Why you might want the Capital One® Savor® Cash Rewards Credit Card

good for those who spend big on night life 

This card pays for itself with $2,375 a year in dining/streaming/entertainment spending. If you're out on the town several nights a week or you frequently cover the dining and entertainment costs for a crowd, that might not be a very high bar to clear. Maybe you entertain clients for business, or you like to pick up the group tab at a restaurant or bar and have your friends Venmo you their share.

How can you know what counts as a dining or entertainment purchase? It comes down to the merchant classification code used by the business. If the merchant is using a code that Capital One defines as dining, entertainment or streaming, you should get 4% cash back for it.

there's a big sign-up bonus

The Capital One® Savor® Cash Rewards Credit Card has an excellent sign-up bonus for a consumer cash-back card: Earn a one-time $300 cash bonus after you spend $3,000 on purchases within the first 3 months from account opening. Although the ongoing rewards on this card are the main dish, the generous upfront offer makes for quite the appetizer.

cash back is more flexible than travel rewards

Many top-shelf dining credit cards offer rewards in the form of points that can be redeemed for travel. If you don't travel much — or just don't want to use your rewards for it — they're not a great fit. This card's dining rewards come in the most flexible form of all: cash, which you can use for anything (yes, including travel). While this card could be a great pick for a frequent traveler who spends plenty on dining and entertainment, it's just as good for someone who prefers adventures closer to home.

Why you might want a different card

the fee may be hard to swallow

If a $95 annual fee is a dealbreaker, you have other options when it comes to dining rewards. In addition to the no-fee version of this card discussed above, take a look at the U.S. Bank Altitude® Go Visa Signature® Card. It, too, earns 4X back on dining purchases, but unlike the Savor, the card's annual fee is $0*. Notably, however, it does not earn bonus rewards on "entertainment" purchases. If that's a big category for you and you still want to avoid a fee, also consider the U.S. Bank Cash+™ Visa Signature® Card. It earns 5% cash back in two categories of your choice, on up to $2,000 spent per quarter on combined purchases. As of May 2021, some of those eligible 5% categories included fast food, movie theaters, as well as TV, internet and streaming services. The card also offers an uncapped 2% back in an everyday category of your choice, including restaurants. You'll get 1% back on all other purchases.

» MORE: U.S. Bank Altitude Go vs. Capital One Savor: Which one wins?

TRAVEL BENEFITS could be a better fit

The fact that the Capital One® Savor® Cash Rewards Credit Card is not specifically a travel card can be either a benefit or a drawback, depending on your style. If you're looking for a card that offers both dining rewards and travel benefits, the Bank of America® Premium Rewards® credit card could be a stronger choice, despite its more modest dining rewards.

This card offers 2 points per dollar spent on travel and dining purchases, and 1.5 points per dollar spent on all other purchases. Plus, you'll receive 2 points per dollar on grocery store spending now through Dec. 31, 2021. (You could boost your rewards higher if you qualify for the Bank of America® Preferred Rewards program.) Points are worth 1 cent each whether they’re redeemed for cash back, travel purchases or other options. The card comes with an airline incidental statement credit worth up to $100 every year (for expenses such as seat upgrades and baggage fees) and a reimbursement for TSA Precheck or Global Entry application fees worth up to $100 every four years. It also features a generous sign-up bonus: Receive 50,000 online bonus points - a $500 value - after you make at least $3,000 in purchases in the first 90 days of account opening. The annual fee is $95, and the card doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees.

Another alternative for those who enjoy both dining out and traveling: the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card. If gives you 2 points per dollar spent on travel and dining and 1 point per dollar on all other spending. Points are worth 1.25 cents apiece when redeemed for travel booked through Chase, so your effective rewards rate on dining can be 2.5%. It has an annual fee of $95, charges no foreign transaction fees and offers a tremendous sign-up bonus: Earn 100,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That's $1,250 when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards®.

Is the Capital One® Savor® Cash Rewards Credit Card right for you?

If you spend plenty on food and fun, this card has your name written all over it. The hearty dining and entertainment rewards can outweigh the annual fee, and you can spend those cash rewards any way you'd like.