Capital One Travel App Now Makes Lounge Access, Rebooking And Flight Updates Easier

Capital One has refreshed its travel experience to make bookings, rewards, lounge access and trip updates clearer and easier. There’s no longer a need to navigate through banking to get to travel with the Capital One Travel app, and they keep users signed in for up to 75 days (although I don’t mind being signed out with biometric sign-on enabled).

• They integrate trip planning and points-redemption at checkout for those who want to use their points to travel without transferring them to an airline or hotel.

• There’s better personalization, with saved home airports and loyalty program information – things they’ve been gradually adding to the web experience already, as well as “a journey-aware experience that adapts based on where travelers are in their trip.” That means highlighting flight updates, nearby lounges and gate changes up front in the app.

• The Live Lounge Locator allows viewing real-time capacity, seeing estimated wait times, and joining digital waitlists for Capital One Lounges and Landings inside the app. The feature displays estimated wait time and will alert you when it’s your turn, but you won’t be able to see where you are on the list itself.

  So the live waitlist status feature – which was around last summer – has not returned.

• Rebooking of trip elements is integrated into the app.

Capital One made big investments in travel, not just points transfer but also booking and price protection, as they prepared to launch their Venture X (and later Venture X Business) cards. They started building out a network of lounges, where the food and beverage programs are elevated compared to competitor programs (though the network still has a smaller footprint). The premium card space has a clear overlap with travel as an aspirational reward.

So it makes sense that they’re trying to make their mobile app friendlier, easier and more comprehensive – a place that cardmembers can ‘live in’ as they travel. Honestly I just like that it’s clearer and with less clicking around to find the lounge that I want (and, in the case of their Landings, make advance reservations that correspond to my planned travel – the existing mobile app was taking me to the main Capital One dining page and not to the Landing in error for the last month or so).

I’m just not sure I’d ever really use the app that way. Most of my travels aren’t Capital One points redemptions, and I’d rather interact directly with an airline when needing to adjust my trip or dealing with flight delays and cancellations. I want to hotel bookings that earn hotel points and elite stay credits, and are eligible for elite benefits as well. Capital One does have a premium hotel program (as other banks do) that layer benefits like breakfast and modest room upgrades with their bookings at some properties but that’s not a replacement for direct booking which is where I think they really need to lean in.

Nonetheless, I use my $300 annual travel credit each year for Capital One travel bookings, and I’ve noticed an improved experience there – though I recently booked a United flight where I added paid seat assignments, those did not stick and the fees were refunded. I went to United.com and assigned seats successfully there.

And I’m an outlier! Customers like buying airfare through Capital One’s portal and getting a discount up to $50 price matching drops, and price matching to other sites you prefer not to buy from. So it makes a ton of sense for Capital One to be investing this way, and it’s certainly an improved experience. That should also keep more travel inside of their ecosystem, which can mean lower-cost redemptions but also more spend on their cards.

The Capital One Travel app is available to Venture X, Venture, VentureOne, Savor, SavorOne, Quicksilver, QuicksilverOne, Platinum, and Discover It cardmembers.