Capital One’s New Spark Travel Elite Won’t Show Up On Personal Credit

by Gary Leff

I receive compensation for content and many links on this blog. Citibank is an advertising partner of this site, as is American Express, Chase, Barclays and Capital One. Any opinions expressed in this post are my own, and have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by my advertising partners. I do not write about all credit cards that are available -- instead focusing on miles, points, and cash back (and currencies that can be converted into the same). Terms apply to the offers and benefits listed on this page.

Capital One launched the new Spark Travel Elite card this week. It’s the ‘small business version of Venture X’ and has an initial bonus offer to earn up to 250,000 miles.

Currently the card is only available through Capital One business relationship managers, though that’s expected to change and the card should become available more broadly. Existing customers of Capital One business cards except for Spark Cash Plus are eligible to apply for the product.

One interesting thing about the card that I’ve learned is that Capital One will not report Spark Travel Elite accounts to personal credit bureau reports (provided that the account remains in good standing). This is a departure from standard Capital One practice.

Most card issuers – like American Express, Chase, and Citibank – do not report small business cards on personal credit reports. Capital One does. I don’t like the practice because,

  • If you put heavy business spend on the card, as banks hope you will, it’ll mean a higher credit utilization rate which is bad for your credit score

  • It shows up as a new account, which keeps you from getting new personal cards (especially from Chase) even though it’s a card for your business

Not reporting this card to your personal credit is a win, and something that will make some readers more comfortable in getting the card.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Editorial note: any opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any card issuer. Comments made in response to this post are not provided or commissioned nor have they been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any bank. It is not the responsibility of advertisers Citibank, Chase, American Express, Barclays, Capital One or any other advertiser to ensure that questions are answered, either. Terms and limitations apply to all offers.

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  2. Scale of 1 to 10 how sure are you?

    As sure as you were that cardless wouldn’t show as 5/24?

  4. What am I missing in that my AmEx Platinum Corporate Card shows up on my credit report?

  6. @Larry – I was just told by cap one officially, but I haven’t verified it myself directly (no one has yet the card just came out tuesday)

  7. I just applied and got approved today. It did hit my personal credit reports. The service emails started pouring in immediately. My manager told me this wouldn’t happen as well. I better report back to him.

  8. I misunderstood. Upon applying they do check credit. They do not report monthly like they do on other business cards.

  9. The Capital One Spark Cash Plus doesn’t report to personal credit either. And the Spark Cash before it didn’t if it was opened after October 2020). The lesser Spark products (i.e. Select) and the Spark Miles still do. Of course, they all check personal credit for the application.

  10. Thanks for the answer, Gary. And for letting me vent a little saltiness about cardless.

  11. I love everything about this article. So true!

    AMEX reporting our “Business” card has KILLED me before. The AMEX “Business” card is just a glorified personal card because the applicant(s)/Founders like me are the ones who get approved and carry the reporting. Sure, they offered my company to switch to the Corporate card, but the rewards are so much less it’s crazy. So instead we have an AMEX Business Platinum with 18 authorized users and we run $1M in charges through it every month. That’s great for the MR points, but in reality when you try to qualify for a mortgage and your credit score is like 620 because of the debt load (when you’re running a $50M+ company) it looks horrible to lenders and you can’t “explain” stuff away these days. You’re just a number.

    So a card like this, with the rewards Cap 1 is offering and their push into this market, is crazy attractive to me. I’m willing to switch my entire company over.

    PS. I only have a Business Spark now which I don’t use much because we run everything through AMEX, so we don’t have a Cap 1 relationship manager. If anyone at Capital One is reading this, reach out and I will give you a seven figure account easily. 🙂

  12. ^^^ And no, they offered a Centurion a bunch of times but it just isn’t worth it for me personally. I’d rather have a card that doesn’t report on my personal credit report over a Centurion Business card any day.

  13. @ Mike — AMEX small business cards do NOT get reported by AMEX to your personal credit report. What you say above is not correct and makes no sense.

  14. Is this a visa business signature or visa business infinite? If the latter, this would be the first of its kind in the US? I know the business visa infinite product category was announced a while back but haven’t heard of one actually being issued yet:

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