The Venture X card keeps getting better with new lounges and features. Read up on the latest the card has to offer!
Enough already. If I wanted to spend my weekends using Excel spreadsheets I’d become an accountant. I don’t want any more rewards credit cards that require me to keep detailed books and tabs on my “benefits”, just to justify the annual fee.
I just want an awesome credit card that rewards my spending handsomely, and gives me easy travel wins I can justify carrying the card for, from day one and every day after that.
No more math, no more making me sign up for things I don’t really want or need, but feel like I need, just to get better value out of my credit card. Just make it great, right?
Capital One has given us the premium rewards credit card we all deserve, which pretty much does just that — and more. If you’re on the fence, here’s all the details to ponder and see if it makes sense for you.
Capital One Venture X
The Capital One Venture X is about to turn two, but already, it really is the credit card we deserve. The annual fee is $395, but each year you get $400 in card value right away — and each year thereafter too.
If you do it right, you get so much more. There’s no proverbially clipping through silly coupons via the offers portion of your online account every weekend, just to justify the card.
For a limited time, the welcome bonus and benefits are extra incredible! The TL;DR version is that this new Capital One card is…
- Big Earning: Up To 10X Points Per Dollar.
- Easy Rewards: Simple Credits And Perks, Including Exciting Lounge Access.
- Revolutionary: New Travel Protections And Help You Might Actually Use!
- Perks For Family: Benefits For Users Without Fees.
Venture X: The Initial Rewards
Ok, so first off, there’s currently 75,000 points on the table as a welcome bonus. That’s amazing. But as to the long term viability of this card, there’s a lot more to it that keeps it interesting.
Each year, Capital One Venture X offers a simple $300 travel credit, which covers $300 of any travel purchase made on Capital One Travel, even if the overall amount is more. The $300 will apply to whatever the total is. This can include flights, cruises, car rentals.
On top of this, each year you hold the card, you’ll also get 10,000 points, annually, which is enough to erase up to a $100 purchase on your account, or you can simply use as 10,000 miles with the Capital One airline or hotel transfer partner of your choosing, like Emirates or British Airways.
My Experience: a year later, this card is even better.
Capital One Venture X includes generous airport lounge access, not just for Capital One Lounges including the Dallas and Washington Dulles Lounges, but also with Priority Pass and some Plaza Premium.
It’s a phenomenal way to transform the airport experience in most airports around the world. You’ve got a space to relax, and yeah, probably to grab a drink and toast, too! These lounges are particularly clutch abroad.
Since the launch of the Venture X Card, Capital One has also added more 1:1 points transfer partners, including Virgin Red — better known as the umbrella program for the likes of Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Hotels is one. Virgin Red gives access to things like Voyages. You can convert Capital One Miles into points or miles with so many airlines.
This means, among others, you can transfer your Venture Miles to Air Canada, Air France, or Virgin Atlantic with ease. Virgin is one of the best opportunity to book premium and upgrade to business class to Europe, or use miles on partners like ANA to Asia. Here’s all the transfer partners for Capital One…
- Aeromexico Club Premier
- Air Canada Aeroplan
- Air France-KLM Flying Blue
- Avianca LifeMiles
- British Airways Executive Club
- Cathay Pacific Asia Miles
- Choice Privileges
- Emirates Skywards
- Etihad Guest
- Finnair Plus
- Qantas Frequent Flyer
- Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
- TAP Air Portugal Miles & Go
- Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles
- Virgin Red (Virgin Atlantic)
- Wyndham Rewards
75,000 Points Is Phenomenal!
As noted, Capital One is offering a generous 75,000 point card welcome bonus after spending $4,000 within the first 3 months of holding the card. All approvals will be able to take advantage of the annual $300 Capital One Travel credit.
There’s also now a Capital One Venture X Business card with a whopping 150,000 point welcome bonus too.
There’s most of your annual fee back right away, plus 75,000 transferrable points, so then it’s all about what the card can do for you long reem and why it matters. Answer: quite a lot. Some things, 10X Miles at a time!
More Capital One Venture X Perks
Capital One has historically offered limited time strategic partnerships with brands like Turo, where all Venture X members received a huge 10X points per dollar spent with those unique merchants. A $1,000 car rental would earn 10,000 miles, which could be transferred to airlines, or used as cash back for $100 back.
Capital One also announced a variety of new memberships and credits.
As part of the unveil, a new “Premier Collection” of hotels with added VIP stay perks has been introduced. A new membership to PRIOR, a trip planning service valued at $149 a year is also included with the $395 a year card fee.
There’s an additional $220 value on Cultivist, which gets free museum access. The complimentary six months to ‘The Cultivist’ allows free access to over 100 museums, including the Guggenheim and Musee D’Orsay.
New “Premier” Collection Of Hotel Perks
As part of this year’s unveils, a new “Premier Collection” of hotels has also been introduced.
At these hand selected properties, Capital One Venture X members who book through Capital One Travel will receive a $100 hotel credit, breakfast for two and other features on all stays is now a fixture of the program. Any standard Venture cardholders don’t receive access to this curated new collection, which adds value to the “X” factor card.
Tons Of Value
Those new things alone are worth up to $540 — not bad for a $395 a year card. Plus, add up $100 in credit for dining or hotel services on each stay, and that can stack up — fast! You’re not even factoring in the value of lounge access, or the $300 travel credit.
Getting Approved For A Capital One Venture X Card?
Most reports suggest that it’s much easier to get this incredible travel rewards card than it’s been to get many other Capital One cards, historically. It didn’t use to be that way!
Even people with more than one new Capital One Card in the last six months are being easily approved, as are people who already have two or more card total Capital One cards.
If you’ve got excellent credit and don’t mind adding a new inquiry, that seems to do the trick for applications, based on the data points we’ve seen. This is an exciting update, and most people are being approved with credit lines north of $20,000, since the minimum line is $10k!
Yep, the Capital One Venture X is a Visa Infinite Card, which means there are great little cardmember extras on top of the specific benefits offered by Capital One.
Venture X: The Card Perks
What separates Capital One’s Venture X from the Venture Card? Massive earning, airport lounge access and a $300 annual travel credit, among others. The travel delay protections are also phenomenal.
A big difference with this Venture X card versus others, is that the included travel protections are things you actually want to use, rather than just things like collision coverage or trip delay insurance, which you really don’t want to need to use.
Points Earning
Capital One Venture X will earn 10X on hotels and car rentals through Capital One Travel and 5X on airfare via the same. For everything else, it’s 2X everywhere. There’s a lot more to this than just points earning though, as you’ll soon see.
Since Capital One Venture Miles can be redeemed at 1 cent per point of value toward travel, this effectively makes for a minimum of 2% cash back on all of your purchases, since the card earns at least 2X.
On hotel purchases through Capital One Travel, you’re earning 10% back, which is big.
Again, for what it’s worth, Capital One has also offered increased earning rates throughout the years on bespoke partners, with offers like 5X on UberEats, so it’s always possible to earn more on non travel spend with the card, via these opportunities.
Travel Protections: No Hassle Cancellation, Price Drop & Freeze
Capital One is taking a different approach to the “use our travel site” game than Amex or Chase has, so far. And yes, they all want you to use their travel booking sites very much.
Instead of just creating a decent travel booking site and offering more points for using it, Capital One bought travel tech company ‘Hopper’ to offer a world class travel booking site, and new and unique benefits for cardmembers who do use it, in addition to the extra points.
Basically, there is real reason to use it, beyond points. One of those? Hassle free, no reason cancellation options on airline tickets. It’s not too good to be true!
The two most blockbuster Capital One features are the price prediction tool, which dishes out partial refunds to cardmembers when it’s wrong, and the ability to purchase “no reason” cancellation for a small fee.
Capital One’s price prediction tool gives cardmembers a refund on the difference in price, if the flight booking engine tells someone to book a flight and then the flight price goes down.
There are also bespoke features like price lock, which lets you freeze a good flight deal for up to 14 days to lock in a good price, and features like no hassle cancellations for a full refund.
If you book a flight and no longer can, or want to travel for any reason, you get money back, minus the fee paid for the cancellation protection or terms of the deal. It’s kinda like travel insurance, but actually much better.
GSTP would argue that Capital One Travel offers one of the most consumer friendly air travel user experience of any travel booking website, thanks to these customer centric price drop and lock features. Who wouldn’t want a price tracker and predictor that gives money back? It’s far better than what airlines offer their own customers.
Trip Delay & Other Protections Too
As you can see, there are lots of features that are really handy to use regularly within the travel protection space. But as one might hope, there’s plenty of coverage for the things you don’t want to use, like…
- Primary Rental Car Collision Waiver: This counts as up to $75,000 toward collision or damage as the primary cover for rentals.
- Trip Delay Coverage: Up to $500 per person for necessary items and hotels during trip delays. Super handy, as airlines continue to cut customer service policies!
- Lost Luggage Protection: If your bag fails to turn up, and the ticket was paid for using your Capital One Venture X Card, you can claim up to $3,000 for your lost items.
- Mobile Phone Protection: By paying your mobile phone bill with your card, you can claim up to $800, up to two times per 12 months, for lost, damaged and other phone issues.
Here’s a link to all the benefit fine print from Capital One, for reading another time.
Access To Card Perks For Your Family, And Other Users Too
One of the annoying features of many premium credit cards is paying for extra users like spouses, children or trusted friends to have access to the key cardmember perks.
Capital One will not charge any fees for supplementary cards, and things like lounge access to the new Capital One Lounges will be open both to the primary cardholder and also any authorized users. So yep, if you get a card, family or friends can benefit without paying more for their cards. Unless of course they want their own bonus.
Cardholders are also welcome to bring two guests into the Capital One Lounges per visit, free of charge — and any guests after that would be charged at $45 per visit — a discount on the standard walk in price of $65 per visit for non-cardholders.
FYI the Capital One Venture X card also offers PriorityPass access.
In other words, a parent could sign up for the card and order authorized user cards for all the kids and everyone would be able to use the benefits of the lounges when they travel, without any fees.
Top Tier Hertz Status Too!
Hertz Presidents Circle is the best elite status offered by the dynamic car rental company and it comes with your Venture X Card. This is particularly exciting, given that Hertz just signed a deal for 100,000 Tesla’s.
As rental car shortages continue to create havoc, having elite status gives you a better chance of your rental car actually being there when you turn up, and even perhaps a nicer one, too!
Venture X: Why This Card Is A No Brainer
This card is a no brainer for a few reasons. It’s actually harder to think of an argument why not to get the card, than it is to drum up reasons to add the card to any portfolio.
The fact that you can combine your Venture Miles from the Capital One Venture X, with any other Capital One Venture Mile earning balances is pretty cool too! Here’s why this card makes sense, for just about everyone who actually travels at least a couple times a year…
- Access to 15 1:1 Transfer Partners: transfer points into airline miles with top loyalty programs, with a minimum of 2 miles earned per dollar spent on these partners.
- $400 of Value Toward $395 Annual Fee Every Year: Most credit card require you to do a bit more work before you break even on your annual fee. With this card, you’re getting 10,000 points worth at least $100 and $300 travel credit each year.
- Lounge & Guest Travel Benefits Too: Being able to get authorized user accounts for trusted family and friends allows perks to be shared with ease, and without annoying fees. Plus, the new Capital One Lounges are seriously nice.
- 10X Earning On Hotels And Car Rentals: As hotel loyalty programs become less rewarding, booking any hotel you want and earning 10X points, or the equivalent of 10% cash back is phenomenal.
This card is valuable purely on the basis of flight price drop protection, so when you add in rapidly expanding lounge access, crazy earning rates and this limited time VRBO and Airbnb credit, this is one of the best offers we’ve ever seen.
Capital One Venture X applications are live, and you can apply here.
I haven’t had much success in recent years getting approvals from Cap1. Are there any thresholds where rejection is guaranteed (i.e. something along the lines of 5/24)?
I don’t know of anything specific, and I think this card will have potentially wider acceptance than others historically, but I can’t say for sure. We’ll find out next week. I certainly will hah!
Lol yeah probably me too. I just get irrationally annoyed when Cap1 rejects me due to all the hard inq’s from triple-pulling all 3 bureaus. I told myself I was done with them last time that happened but this card may be too tempting.
It sounds great but I agree with a previous comment from HoKo about Capitol One being very tight with their offerings to their customers and new applicants. I’ve had a Capitol 1 Savor card for many years and even though I maintain a 800 credit score, I’ve rarely gotten offers from them for any upgrades or line of credit increases, yet I get flooded (almost daily) with offers and incentives from other cards companies.
Hey Steve, I put together a post on approvals. Lots of people previously with issues getting instant approval, etc!
https://www.godsavethepoints.com/getting-approved-capital-one-venture-x/
Would you drop your Chase Sapphire Reserve for this? Seems compelling…
It’s very compelling. I’m a CSR holder myself… definitely getting this too… unsure of whether I’ll drop. I generally think I can make both work, but if one was out it’d likely not be this.
As someone who books his own travel for work, this could be super lucrative. Was already thinking about downgrading the CSR, so this could be a good one to add.
idk if capital one will let Capital one venture user to upgrade to Capital One Venture X.
Unsure about upgrades, but you can definitely carry both. Lots of people who recently got Venture who also got approved for this card!
Do you get hotel credit by using their booking service or do you lose the hotel loyalty benefits?
Exceptions can happen, but typically when booking anywhere other than direct with the hotel property or loyalty program you lose out on earning hotel points for sure, and sometimes loyalty benefits.
I think you need to mention this aspect for all reviews as many (most) of us have high level status at hotels where the perks can be better. Best to use for places/rentals where you do not have high loyalty status.
10K spend for 100K points!!! That seems like a overly inflated spend threshold for 100K points! My return on spend is dwindling down at the thought…
The card is spectacular in many ways but the “Price Drop” feature is a bit misleading. When going through the CapOne Travel site last night to book a r/t LAX-AMS business class seat for next summer, I received a quote of just under $3,300. I was told to ‘book now’ and that if the price dropped, I’d be eligible to receive “as much as” a $50 refund. Huh??? What if price drops by $500? I only get $50? So a bit oversold on this feature.
I guess my only question is: what’s fair? A $395 card with over $400 in annual value giving each ticket holder $500 per ticket on an uncapped basis? I don’t believe hard caps are in place, but there has to be a happy medium. On a purchase like that you’d be receiving $100 in value over 2 tickets if it does drop, which is a value no other card is offering. Just a thought.
Good point! And now, in late January, I am loving this card!
Can you buy Southwest tickets at Cap One Travel (like calling in)?
Great card! Benefits are huge and more than offset the annual fee. Thanks in advance for using my referral link to spread the sign-up miles around! https://capital.one/3tL5tAa
Game changer for me. Venture X instant approval, arrived in 3days.
First dumped the CSR due to overlapping features (with my other Chase cards in place I am only losing the 1.5 cpp travel/pay yourself back)
Then with Marriott deteriorating, less value out of free night cert upcoming/related hassle, that is gone. Was holding the Ritz otherwise due to having 4 family members as free AUs for Priority Pass.
There is obvious overlap between the Ritz and the CSR with respect to benefits, etc but at the end of the day this one card replaces both for all features, at essentially a zero annual fee.
If only there was a UK equivalent
True words! UK competition needs to continue growing.
Capital One has TWO major issues that make this card garbage for everything except priority pass.
1. The Travel portal…It is GARBAGE! the bottom of the garbage where all the nasty stuff goes.. Worst travel portal I have ever used.
2. There is no support for fraud/improper charges. I have been fighting a $150 charge for a hotel for months that did not have my reservation. AMEX/Chase have superior support.
Can someone who has the Venture X card refer someone to the regular Venture card w/ the $95 fee? We have the Venture X card already and don’t really need two….but would love another 75k points plus the 25k referral if possible.
I booked first/business class via the venture x travel portal and when I arrived at the airport I was told I was in premium economy. I had to pay to get the upgrade and then spent hours on the phone with Venture X trying to get a refund (which no agent will confirm in writing).
Our return flight is in 4 days and I spent 3 hours in the phone trying to ensure this won’t happen again. The agents are incompetent – and blame the portal for not being able to fix their mistake. See my screen grabs below. Capital One shows business / First. And United app shows premium economy. I’ve tweeted and sent messages in Instagram. Both tell me to call an agent and ask for supervisor. This is beyond stressful when it is a very simple fix on their side.
And public press you can share to help me and let Capital One know that this service is horrendous would be awesome.
There is nothing like the AMEX service.
On top of that, my last trips from DFW (I go to the AA Flagship and the Venture X lounge is next to each other), the lounge was crowded up to the point the lounge dragons were downstairs adding people to the waitlist.