Capital One Just Changed Its Welcome Bonus Rules — Here’s What You Need To Know
If you’re thinking about opening a Capital One credit card and you’re excited about the welcome bonus, there’s a new rule you need to know before you apply! Otherwise, you risk missing out on hundreds of thousands of points.
As of late 2025, Capital One introduced stricter eligibility language that limits how often you can earn welcome bonuses on certain cards — particularly in the Venture family. This isn’t entirely too surprising, considering many other issuers—like American Express and Chase—already have similar family language in some of their card terms.
So let’s break it down in simple terms: what changed with Capital One, who it affects, and how you can plan your card strategy going forward.
What Changed?
Capital One added a 48-month “family rule” to its Venture-branded consumer cards. That means if you’ve earned a welcome bonus on certain Capital One Venture-family cards within the past 48 months (or 4 years), you may not be eligible for a new bonus — even on a different Venture card.
This is meant to prevent people from hopping between cards to earn multiple bonuses quickly. It specifically prevents cardholders from stepping “down” to lower-fee Venture cards if they’ve earned a bonus on another (higher-feed) Venture-family card in the last 48 months.
Which Cards Are Affected?
These personal cards fall under the new restriction:
- Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card
- Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card
- Capital One VentureOne Rewards Card
While all three are great travel cards, they now share a combined eligibility window that limits how often you can earn bonuses across the group.
What Are The Current Bonuses?
If you’re eligible for a new Capital One card in its Venture family, these are the bonuses you should know about:
| Card | Sign-Up Bonus Terms | Annual Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Capital One VentureOne Rewards Card | Receive $100 to use on Capital One Travel in your first cardholder year (no minimum spending required), plus earn 20,000 miles after spending $500 on purchases in the first three months of account opening. | $0 |
| Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card | Earn 75,000 miles after spending $4,000 on purchases within the first three months of account opening. | $95 |
| Capital One VentureOne Rewards Card | Earn 75,000 miles after spending $4,000 on purchases within the first three months of account opening. | $395 |
How the 48-Month Rule Works
Here’s how this works in practice:
- Applying for the VentureOne?
You’re not eligible for the card or the bonus if you’ve earned a bonus on the VentureOne, Venture, or Venture X within the past 48 months.
- Applying for the Venture?
You’re not eligible for the card or bonus if you’ve earned a bonus on the Venture or Venture X in the last 48 months.
However, if you’ve only earned the VentureOne bonus, you are still eligible.
- Applying for the Venture X?
You’re not eligible for the card or the bonus if you’ve earned a bonus on the Venture X in the last 48 months.
However, if you’ve only earned the Venture or VentureOne bonus, you’re still eligible for Venture X‘s bonus.
Bottom line is: if you got one bonus recently, you could be blocked from getting a lower-tier card’s bonus because these cards are now part of a shared bonus family.
- If you’ve earned a bonus on the Venture X, you may not be eligible for a bonus on VentureOne, Venture Rewards, or Venture X for another 48 months.
- If you’ve earned a bonus on the Venture, you might not be eligible for a bonus on VentureOne for another 48 months.
When Does the 48-Month Clock Start?
This is a big one — the clock does not start when you opened the card.
It starts when the sign-up bonus posted to your account.
So if you opened a Venture card in January 2022 but hit minimum spend and earned the bonus in February 2022, your 48-month timer runs from February 2022 to February 2026. For added caution, add an extra month and ensure that statement cycle fully closes before you apply for another Venture card.
Does Closing a Card Reset the Clock?
No. You can close the card, downgrade, or upgrade, but it doesn’t reset the 48-month restriction.
(Also, we typically do not recommend upgrading cards!)
This is important because someone might try to close a card thinking it makes them eligible sooner… but the bank is tracking the bonus, not the account status.
Does This Apply to Business Cards?
The rule is specifically written around personal Venture-family cards. If you want to apply for the Capital One Busines Venture X, your eligibility for the sign-up bonus won’t be impacted by activity on your personal Venture accounts.
Beyond that, the Capital One Spark Miles for Business Credit Card and the personal Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card, Capital One Spark Cash, and Capital One QuicksilverOne Cash Rewards Credit Card are not impacted by this new restriction and have separate bonus rules.
If you’re a business owner, this actually gives you more flexibility — you may be able to earn a business card bonus even if you’ve recently earned a personal Venture bonus.
HOWEVER:
Remember that Capital One’s other application restrictions require you to wait six months between approvals for new Capital One cards. This includes both personal and business cards.
Bottom Line…
The new rule prevents cardholders from stepping “down” to a lower-fee Venture card if they’ve earned a bonus on another Venture-family card in the last 48 months. Put simply, if you’ve earned a bonus on a Venture-family card in the last four years, the new terms block you from earning another by moving to a cheaper Venture product.
On the flip side, Capital One does allow upward movement: if you currently hold a lower-fee Venture card, you can still be approved for one with a higher annual fee. If you want to maximize your points-earning potential, this “upward” movement should be a key part of your credit card application strategy!
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Note: Opinions expressed here are ours alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.
