Capital One Platinum Credit Card benefits guide

The Capital One Platinum Credit Card comes with simple, straightforward benefits targeted toward those with less-than-perfect credit. While it doesn’t have a sign-up bonus or ongoing rewards for spending, the card’s perks could be useful in certain situations.

Here’s a detailed guide to various Capital One Platinum Credit Card benefits — including credit-related perks and basic travel and card protections — so that you know what to take advantage of as a cardholder.

Credit-building benefits

A few Capital One Platinum benefits that may be most useful to you are aimed at helping you build credit — especially considering this is a credit card designed for people whose credit is a work in progress.

Capital One markets this card to people with fair credit, which generally means a FICO score between 580 and 669. People whose credit score is in this range typically have some blemishes on their overall credit report and are working on improving their credit.

Thankfully, this card offers a handful of tools to help.

Regular credit line reviews

Probably the most useful of these credit-building benefits is the regular credit line reviews. Starting at six months, Capital One will automatically review your credit line and potentially increase it. So, even though you may start with a fairly low credit limit, if you follow good financial practices — like paying your bill in full each month — your credit line can increase. And since the total amount of available credit is one factor that makes up your FICO credit score, having a higher credit limit can help raise your score.

Access to CreditWise

Capital One also offers access to CreditWise, which can give you additional tools to help you understand, monitor and raise your credit score. With this service, you can get email alerts whenever your credit report changes, notifying you of potentially fraudulent or unexpected charges. Capital One will also monitor your Social Security number and identity information on the dark web. Another nice benefit of CreditWise includes a credit simulator that allows you to analyze the potential impact of certain financial decisions before you actually make them.

Travel and card protections

$0 fraud liability

Like most rewards credit cards, the Capital One Platinum offers $0 fraud liability. This means that if your card is lost or stolen, you won’t be liable for any charges made by unauthorized users.

Card locking and emergency card replacement

If your card is misplaced or stolen, you can immediately lock your card through your online account, the Capital One mobile app or by calling 1-800-227-4825. Further, you can get a free replacement card that will arrive within a few business days.

Security alerts

You can rest easy knowing Capital One is always monitoring your account information. If the issuer sees any suspicious transactions on your account, it will notify you by phone, text or email. That way, you can either confirm the transaction or take decisive action to lock your card if it is being used fraudulently.

Virtual card numbers

If you’re concerned about giving your credit card information out, another nice feature is the ability to get a virtual or one-time card number through Eno. This allows you to keep your actual credit card number to yourself while using virtual card numbers for online purchases.

Low fees

While the Capital One Platinum doesn’t offer rewards for your purchases or a first-year welcome bonus, this credit-building card is low on fees. As a cardholder, you won’t owe an annual fee or foreign transaction fees for purchases made outside of the United States.

By using this no-annual-fee card responsibly, you can work to build your overall credit profile, raise your credit score and eventually qualify for a better rewards credit card once your score has increased.

Ease-of-use perks

Capital One makes it easy to use the Platinum Card, especially through its mobile app. Capital One Mobile allows you to access account information like your balance, spending history and more, from wherever you are.

And if you have other Capital One accounts, like checking or savings accounts, your account information will all be displayed together — making it easy to pay your credit card bill directly from your Capital One checking or savings account.

Maximizing the Capital One Platinum Card benefits

Since the Capital One Platinum is designed to help people improve their overall credit profile, the main Capital One Platinum Card benefits that you’ll want to maximize are the ones that help you do just that. The regular credit line increases start after six months of having the card and are automatic, so there is no need to enroll or do anything to receive this benefit. Still, it’s something that you’ll want to keep an eye on so that you can be aware of your total credit line and how that might affect your credit score.

If you’re working on building up your credit score, you’ll definitely want to take advantage of the Capital One CreditWise benefit as well. CreditWise offers a ton of articles and information about credit and what’s affecting your credit score specifically. You can see which items on your credit report are causing the biggest impact to your actual score, and the simulator function will even allow you to forecast how certain decisions will impact your score. Lastly, as noted, CreditWise also allows you to monitor your credit score and credit report, so you’ll be the first to know if your credit score changes.

Bottom line

The Capital One Platinum is a basic credit card targeted to those with fair credit. While it doesn’t come with any sort of sign-up bonus or rewards program for spending, it can be a decent option for those needing access to credit and a way to improve it.

Whether the Capital One Platinum is worth it is up to you, but before you apply, consider reading through our list of credit cards for fair and average credit.