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Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card (See rates and fees)
Capital One Venture X is the premium version of its signature Venture product. And I’m sort of amazed at how much they’re including at the price point.
For travel rewards fans this is going to be a strong card to consider – and it hits high marks for all of the reasons you may want to get and use a card – a (very) big initial bonus, strong earning for your spend, and great benefits.
The idea that Capital One would be coming out with a Visa Infinite premium card in travel has been rumored – and expected – for some time. For my part, I’m glad they took the time to get it right and to align with the opening of their own airport lounge network, and the launch of their travel portal.
I’m very excited about this card. I applied and received an instant approval. I’ve heard from several readers that they received similar approvals right away as well. And they shared news of the same credit line, too.
Capital One Venture X Initial Bonus
Capital One Venture X is offering 75,000 bonus miles when you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening, equal to $750 in travel
Annual Fee
The Capital One Venture X carries a $395 annual fee. That’s on the low end for premium travel cards and a great price. Consider that competitor products generally run $450 to $695, they clearly made a conscious decision to pack a lot of value into their card and charge less than American Express, Chase, or Citibank.
With an initial bonus offer worth well over $1000 in my view, exceeding $395 in value by a lot the first year should be easy even without statement credits but they’ve set up benefits that make the card pay for itself quite easily. Read on.
Earning For Your Spend
The card earns 2 miles per dollar on every purchase, and 10 miles per dollar on hotels and rental cars booked at Capital One Travel as well as 5 miles per dollar on flights booked via Capital One Travel.
The Capital One travel site is quite good as far as credit card booking portals go. I wouldn’t hesitate to book air and rental car here for the outstanding earn rates. Booking hotels means giving up hotel loyalty points, credit towards earning elite status, and elite status benefits – so I’d only do that if you aren’t chain-loyal or are booking outside of your preferred chain.
While it’s possible to pair cards from other issuers to get at least 2 miles per dollar on all spending (e.g. Citi Premier + Double Cash), Capital One offers the only consumer cards that gives you 2x earning on everything , transferable to other points in many cases 1:1, and where that earning isn’t capped. That makes Capital One Venture X a good single card solution for a lot of people.
On the points-spending side you can redeem points through Capital One’s travel portal, but you do not have to in order to use points for paid travel, since you can also redeem against recent travel purchases on your statement. My favorite use of course is transfers to other loyalty programs, which are now nearly all at 1:1.
Capital One miles now transfer 1:1 to:
- Star Alliance: Air Canada Aeroplan, Singapore Airlines Krisflyer, Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles, Avianca LifeMiles, TAP Air Portugal Miles&Go
- oneworld: British Airways Executive Club, Cathay Pacific Asia Miles, Finnair Plus, Qantas Frequent Flyer
- SkyTeam: Air France KLM Flying Blue, Aeromexico Club Premier
- Non-alliance: Emirates Skywards, Etihad Guest, Virgin Red
- Hotels: Wyndham Rewards, Choice Privileges
Capital One miles also transfer at 2-to-1.5 into EVA Air Infinity MileageLands. And they transfer 2-to-1 into ALL Accor Live Limitless.
I like that they allow transfers in just 100 mile increments rather than 1000 mile increments (as long as there’s a 1000 mile minimum transfer), since I often find after a transfer I might have 878 miles in an account. I’d much rather go closer to zero, and not ‘waste’ that extra 1000 miles. It’s a small win, but something Capital One does for customers that other issuers do not.
And while not all points transfers are instant, the ones you’ll probably use most like Air Canada, Air France, Avianca, British Airways, and Emirates generally seem to be.
Capital One Venture X Statement Credits And Anniversary Bonus
On an ongoing basis the card offers:
- Up to $300 credit annually for bookings made at Capital One Travel (including airline tickets, so easy to use this)
- 10,000 bonus miles every account anniversary (equal to $100 towards travel, or transfer to other loyalty programs)
- Up to $100 in statement credits for either TSA PreCheck or Global Entry (every 4 years)
The $300 travel credit and 10,000 bonus miles alone ‘cover’ the card’s annual fee in terms of value.
Lounge Access
The Capital One Venture X card comes with unlimited access to Capital One airport lounges, including access for 2 accompanying guests.
The card also comes with Priority Pass Select. The Capital One Venture X card lets you add up to 4 no annual fee authorized users and authorized users get lounge access, too (along with cell phone protection). Each authorized user gets a Priority Pass Select card, and also can access Capital One airport lounges and the ability to bring up to 2 guests.
Capital One Venture X Additional Benefits
The Capital One Venture X card is a premium card, and comes with additional premium benefits.
While some United elites may be unhappy about losing Hertz status, this card comes with complimentary Hertz President’s Circle status which is their top public tier. This benefit is for primary cardholders, authorized users and account managers. Meanwhile Capital One offers additional benefits with National Car Rental, Avis and Silver.
There’s primary car rental protection; lost luggage reimbursement; trip delay + cancellation/interruption reimbursement; cell phone protection; and extended warranty protection.
How Can It Even Make Sense To Offer This To Customers?
The premium travel rewards credit card space has been so crowded, and gotten so expensive, that it’s seemed to me there’s only two strategies: do something really niche, so you can provide value to a small number of cardmembers in a way that’s affordable to offer, or go big and lose money.
After Sapphire Reserve came out Chase said rewards were nine-figures more expensive than what they’d modeled. And they were attracting a very affluent demographic that wasn’t likely to revolve balances. They spent a lot of money, and kept spending even more money, and had largely just interchange to cover their costs.
If you want to take on a product like that head-on, it seemed like that means spending even more money, and “the only winning move is not to play.”
Yet somehow Capital One has come up with a model that offers a lot of valuable points up front, continues offering valuable benefits to cardmembers going forward and rewards them very well for their spend, and does this all at an even lower annual fee than competitors charge. I don’t know if that can possibly make any money for the issuer, but the Capital One Venture X is unquestionably a great option for consumers.
Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card
Visa/Mastercard: For Capital One products listed on this page, some of the above benefits are provided by Visa® or Mastercard® and may vary by product. See the respective Guide to Benefits for details, as terms and exclusions apply
Hertz: Upon enrollment, accessible through the Capital One website or mobile app, eligible cardholders will remain at upgraded status level through December 31, 2024. Please note, enrolling through the normal Hertz Gold Plus Rewards enrollment process (e.g. at Hertz.com) will not automatically detect a cardholder as being eligible for the program and cardholders will not be automatically upgraded to the applicable status tier. Additional terms apply
Seems like a strong contender. Is the $300 credit per cardmember year or per calendar year?
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)?
Is it just me or is there no ability to search first or business class flights on the new Capital One travel portal? The option simply isn’t there at the point or search or anywhere to filter in the results.
A great contender to the higher priced premium cards!
I believe if Cap One continues to expand their lounge network, the other premium cards are going to be in trouble.
In addition to the excellent questions above, I didn’t see a launch date – is it available now or is there a date it is expected to be available?
@garyleff Is the trip delay 6 hours or 12 hours? Is the trip cancelation $1500 or $10000? I’m basically asking if it’s visa infinite benefits or not? Speaking of which is it confirmed to be a visa infinite?
Seems like 4 ways they might profit to mitigate the big losses on this card. The first seems to be building brand loyalty ala Chase strategy, but that involves losing money on the card itself (and then getting you to use their other products out of loyalty). Overlooked in the article is that as an Infinite card it will charge transaction fees well above 2% and that’s all they will pay out for all swipes other than through their portal. This has potential to earn them more in swipe fees with less reward payout than using the CSR for 3x travel or Plat for 5x. They can also make some money with hotel and car rental commissions by incentivizing customers to use the portal, though then they lose a portion of that with the 10x points. Finally, they could hope to get broader group of users including those who carry a balance and pay interest, but not sure if that’s possible for a $400 card.
If they complete the proposed Capital One lounge at IAD, I would definitely consider it. Having an unrestricted PP that includes restaurants would be a selling point to me, too, though back when Amex Plat had that a few years ago, I found I did not get to use it that often – the airport restaurants they had at DCA had lines to get in and were pretty slow. You definitely needed to not be in a hurry.
@Jeff – Nov. 9
@Scott – The article says it’s a Visa Infinite
Thanks Daniel!
I’ve been on a break from new signups and this looks like a good one.
$300 travel credit is per cardmember year
Which other cards come with Hertz President’s Circle? I think it’s just the United Club card.
Do you have a link to apply for the Venture X Card? Since I read about it here I thought I’d ask before I apply so you can make a few bucks.
Hertz “arrest our customers” President’s Circle?
No.
Looks like a solid card otherwise!
@Craig S Collins – I expect applications to become available in a few days, thank you
Does it have the ‘erase your travel expense on your statements’ like other Venture cards do?
Agree about the value versus annual fee. As someone who just paid the annual fee for Chase Sapphire Reserve, I am not sure if I can extract the full value from both cards. I used to hoard and use miles for Business class travel over Pacific or to South Asia where having United miles was of great value on Star Alliance partners or American miles for Qantas or Qatar. Now, with the huge inflation in miles needed as well as decrease in business travel, it has become very difficult to justify spending money on more than one premium cards.
Hope springs eternal, but reality will be three hard pulls and a decline.
I applied and was approved two days ago from a link in this post. I just didn’t want to wait when I saw it was open to applications and although Gary didn’t post yet that the applications went live, the link did work. Hope Gary still gets his commission.
I recently downgraded my Venture to a Venture 1. Would that prevent me from getting the 100K bonus from this card?
So this blog is literally a Capital One ad now?
Cool, no problem with that. Makes it clear how seriously to take any of the posts.
@ Bob, yup, the facade is completely removed but, in Gary’s defense, he admits to having no journalistic integrity and other sites are doing it too.
How much did they pay you to write about it? To even plaster your website background with their logo LOL. People with super prime credit getting declined because C1 doesn’t like ppl who pay their cards all on time.
Didn’t get approved even though I have good credit. Strikes against me are that I have several competing cards with competitors (which seems to be a sticking point for Capital One?) and that one of my older cards is a Capital One VentureOne card with a $24,000 limit on it already. Capital One is allowing me to upgrade that card to a Venture X if I want to, but I’m not sure… I was going to apply for the card to get the bonus and consider whether I wanted to renew it after using it for a year. Now that the bonus is off the table, I’m trying to figure out whether this card really makes that much sense for me. It’s basically investing $395 for around $400 in return. The 2x everywhere is good, although I have that from the Citi Double Cash card (and without the restriction to use the cash back on travel). There’s only one Capital One Lounge, and I don’t know when I’d ever use one over a Centurion Lounge or a Delta Skylounge. The Hertz status would be interesting if it weren’t for the fact that I absolutely don’t trust Hertz (after hearing about them falsely reporting customers for auto theft? No thanks).
All in all, it just seems like this is a break-even sort of card long term, and I think I’d just rather have the $400 in my pocket. But I’ll stay tuned and keep my mind open as I hear about other people’s experiences.
@James I was not paid to write about the card
Former Capital One cardholder. I doubt I’ll do it again. Maybe. But I doubt it for now.
Gary, I really like the travel/insurance benefits the sapphire cards have-especially the reserve. How does Capital One’s compare?
http://www.geocities.com/viewfromthewing with that wallpaper.
I used your link and was instantly approved (current Capital One Venture cardholder, although I rarely use it.) I’ve been using Chase Sapphire Preferred primarily to transfer URs to Hyatt, plus an AMEX Plat for Centurion Lounge access and its travel perks.
Meh, the problem is that travel portal will generally cost more than booking direct. A coworker tested and said the fares match for domestic airlines, but good luck if you have to change or encounter irrops. Coworker also said prices for some foreign airlines were marked up. For hotel, guaranteed to be more expensive due to member-only rates in direct channels; also foregoes elite benefits, which may have imperfect implementation but are still reasonably likely to result in a better room
“In addition, cardmembers can earn up to 100,000 miles per year for referring friends (25,000 miles per referral, up to 4 referrals per year).”
Refer-a-friend referees won’t get the $200 vacation rental credit, the only way to get the $200 vacation rental credit in first year is by applying via a blogger link.
Agree about the travel portal drawback. I learned the hard way never to use an OTA for flight tickets except to the extent you get to use up your couple of hundred dollar travel credit. If anything goes wrong, especially with multiple code share partners on a ticket, no one will help.
@Henry T. is right, at least in my case. I guess this card doesn’t have enough of a track record to define who will be rejected. I am 9/24, excellent credit, no other CapOne cards since 2017, and always pay full balance on the due date. I guess with time we’ll learn which factors cause one to be likely to be accepted and who is wasting their time and hard pulls on a hopeless application.
I applied for it today. 720 credit score. I didn’t get it. Could be because I got a different Capital One credit card a month ago, though.
wow… just got approved. I casually hit apply button less than half expecting I would be approved. I was previously rejected instantly only few month ago on another capital one card… might have been regular Venture.
For a data point, currently no capital one card (had one like 7 years ago) but opened their 360 checking account and held it for 6+ month now. probably around 4/24 right now actually. 783 according to Credit Karma and have 2-4k balances reported but I pay off statement balances in full every month.
@tpj74: The “instant rejection” thing is pretty funny.
Gary will invite you for Thanksgiving to drown your sorrows with boxed wine.
Congratulations! Sounds like a great card and much better value than the CSR.
Only ever had a CapOne card once, they sent it with $500 limit, I sent it back unused.
Instant approval on this 30k limit. 825 score, no relationship with C1.
I got declined a couple of days ago. Maybe I should try applying again soon. I’ll try again after the new year once I’ve cancelled a few cards.
It’s disingenuous to say these points transfer to Star Alliance, oneWorld etc when there is no ability to transfer to domestic airlines like United or Alaska.
My question is similar to HoKo’s. Great credit (>800), low utilization (<1%)… denied.
Womp womp
Was approved for the Venture X earlier this week with the same credit limit as Gary, the largest I’ve ever received (even larger than when I had the Chase Sapphire Reserve). I can’t think of any scenarios where I’d need to use a credit limit that is half as much.
Am wondering if giving super-high limits is a cunning move by Capital One to reduce VX cardholders’ odds of getting approved for additional credit cards at other banks. Getting the Venture X puts my total credit limits above $100K, which gives me (and probably other credit card issues) pause, even if I don’t carry a monthly balance.
If you already have a Capital One card, you can upgrade to this card without credit check in your account.
You won’t get the 100,000 bonus but also don’t have to do the spend. Basically, you do it for the lounge access.
Applied and got the $30K credit limit – seems people either get the $30K or denied.
@Robert, saw some other bloggers who got $30K also. Seems Capital One is acting like Oprah with the Venture X. “You get $30K, and YOU get $30K… everybody (who is approved) gets $30K!!!
This seems like the cheapest way to get Priority Pass now. Or am I missing something?