Could the Capital One Venture X Card Be Your Next Credit Card?

Using premium travel rewards credit cards brings massive value to those who like to travel. With so many of these cards on the market, it can be hard to choose just one. With the Capital One Venture X card, you make using travel rewards credit cards simple and easy to use by using just one card. 

Cards like American Express Platinum and Chase Sapphire Reserve have come out with many additional benefits in the past year to help bring people to their premium cards. The other benefits come with a higher fee. American Express has an annual fee of $695, and Chase Sapphire Reserve has a yearly fee of $550. 

In November of 2021, Capital One released its premium travel credit, the Capital One Venture X card. It has an annual fee of $395, making it one of the cheapest premium cards on the market. With an outstanding welcome bonus of 75,000 miles, while only spending $4,000 in the first three months, you can have a card that pays you to keep it. 

Is the Capital One Venture X card worth it?

Who Should Get the Capital One Venture X Card?

The Capital One Venture X card is for travelers seeking new opportunities to make their experience even better. 

One of the best travel cards is the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. You can get so much out of it, but if you want a more premium experience with Chase, you must upgrade to the Chase Sapphire Reserve, which has a whopping $550 annual fee. Where else can you go if you cannot get value out of the fee? 

That is where the Capital One Venture X card comes in. Their annual fee is $395, and they offer similar benefits as the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. Choosing between Capital One Venture X vs Chase Sapphire Reserve can be a hard choice, but looking at simplicity and annual fees, it is hard not to choose the Capital One Venture X card. 

The card offers a $300 statement credit every year by booking through their travel portal. Capital One has increased the value of their miles with the travel partners. Their lounge access has been made close to on par with American Express and bypassing Chase. 

With their 10,000-mile anniversary gift every year, Capital One is essentially paying you $5 a year to keep their card. So let's break down the main benefits of the Capital One Venture X card. 

What Are The Main Benefits of The Capital One Venture X?

Paying an annual fee for a card can be hard to stomach. That is very understandable, and we know that $395 can be a lot for many people. Here are some benefits that may make $395 not seem so bad. Value is everything with premium cards. If you use it, then the fee is worth it. 

• Statement Credit: $300 in statement credit each year for booking travel in the Capital One travel portal
• Anniversary Bonus: 10,000 miles or $100 back every year on your anniversary of the card opening. 
• Lounge Access: Priority Pass Select Membership and Capital One Lounge access for the cardholder and two guests. That is over 1300 lounges worldwide. 
• Authorized Users: You get up to 4 free authorized users onto the card. Each authorized user can get a Priority Pass membership and a Capital One lounge access.
• Rental Car Status: The primary cardholder will receive a complimentary Hertz President's Circle membership, which is the highest level in Hertz. 
• Global Entry or TSA Precheck Credit: The cardholder will receive $100 credit for Global Entry or TSA Precheck credit. 
• No Foreign Transaction Fees: You do not need to worry about foreign transaction fees if you are traveling.
• Trip Cancellation or Interruption Insurance: $2,000 for you and the family member's reimbursement on travel for nonrefundable tickets.
• Trip Delay Insurance: Up to $500 per person for reasonable expenses such as a hotel room, clothing, or toiletries for a flight delay overnight or more than 6 hours. 
• Lost Luggage Reimbursement: If your luggage is lost or destroyed, you will be reimbursed up to $3,000.
• Cellphone Protection: If the Capital One Venture X card pays the bill, there can be claims made up to $800 and $1600 per year. There is a maximum of two claims per year. There must be a $50 deductible applied per occurrence. 
• Primary Rental Car Insurance: You get up to $75,000 in costs covered if a rental car is damaged or stolen.
• Purchase and return items protection:

Many of these benefits come with being a Visa infinity card. Some of these benefits will be similar to those of the Chase Sapphire Reserve. The great things are the statement credit of $300 and the Anniversary bonus of 10,000 miles. If you travel at all, your travels will help pay to keep the card. 

Capital One Venture X Travel Credit: $300

The $300 travel credit for Capital One is a great perk to have. The only restriction is that the credit will be a travel credit if you use the Capital One travel portal. Now that makes it more restrictive than the Chase Sapphire Reserve $300 travel credit; it does help cover the cost of travel. 

The credit can be used on anything booked for the travel, such as flights, hotels, and rental cars. Not all third-party booking agents are the best, but Capital One has teamed up with Hopper to try and make booking a breeze. 

Booking travel can be a stressful time, especially if unintended circumstances happen. That is why many will book through the airlines. Capital One's portal through Hopper will help give price predictions and the best price guarantee. It is just one way of having the annual fee pay for itself as you book. 

Anniversary Bonus: 10,000 Miles

The anniversary bonus of 10,000 miles is something new and unique. The Chase Sapphire Preferred provides cardholders with a $50 hotel credit for each anniversary year, and many hotel credit cards will also offer a free night certificate. 

Capital One Venture X card giving a bonus of 10,000 miles is very generous. That has a valuation of $100 added on, which you can use the following year. 

That is the one thing that will help me keep the card in my wallet. The additional $100 helps pay for the card and makes doing the math to see if you get the most value is not needed. 

Lounge Access (Authorized Users Included)

As a traveler, lounge access is a luxury. Many people few those that go to lounges as rich or fancy. Being a cardholder, you can take advantage of free food, drinks, and peace before taking off on a flight. 

The Priority Pass membership allows you access to over 1300 different airport lounges worldwide. As a Select membership, you will have unlimited access to lounges and be allowed to take up to two guests for free. 

Capital One is building its lounges to add to the network. There is already a Capital One lounge in Dallas Fort Worth Airport, so those that carry the Capital One Venture X will have access with two guests to that lounge. 

The fantastic thing about this credit card is that authorized users can be added for free. They will have access to these lounge benefits like the primary cardholder does. 

The lounge access can save a ton of money on food and drinks while sitting at airports. If your airport does not have a lounge that Priority Pass connects with, they may have restaurant access that gives cardholders up to $28 for a meal and an additional $28 for one guest. It indeed does pay to save through the lounge passes. 

How To Earn Capital One Miles

Capital One makes earning bonus miles on the Capital One Venture X card simple. There are only three ways most people can earn miles with a Capital One Venture X card. 

Earning Miles:

• 10x Miles on Hotels through the Capital One travel portal
• 5x Miles on Flights through the Capital One travel portal
• 2x miles on everything else

Capital One makes it pretty simple. You can book travel through their portal and gain more miles, or you can use it on everything else can get a flat 2%. That is not bad at all when getting travel rewards. 

The Chase Sapphire Reserve gets more points on dining and travel booked anywhere, but if you are looking for simplicity, Capital One Venture X makes it simple for a premium credit card. 

How to Redeem Miles

There are numerous ways to redeem your miles. You can transfer the miles to travel partners such as Turkish Airlines or even Singapore KrisFlyer program. These redemption values allow you to get more value from your miles than simply getting 1 cent per mile. 

Transfer Miles to Transfer Partners

Capital One has created some great transfer partners to help you on your way. With most of these partners, you can get 1:1 mile-to-mile redemptions. If you do not see many of the airlines you fly on, do not worry. You can transfer miles to Turkish Miles and Smiles or Air Canada Aeroplan to book flights on United or other Star Alliance members. 

Here are the transfer partners and their redemption values. 

Other Redemption Options

Besides the transfer partners, you can get 1 cent per mile by paying yourself back on travel expenses and even gift cards. 

• Book New Travel: 1 cent per mile can be spent buying travel through the Capital One travel portal.
• Redemptions for Paid Travel: You can use your miles to pay for past travel purchases. One of my favorite benefits because you can buy flights or hotels and use the miles to pay you back. Value of 1 cent per mile.
• Buy Gift Cards: The miles can be used to purchase gift cards. Value is 1 cent per mile.
• Cash: Cash is not valuable with these miles. The cash option should be your last option. 0.50 cents per mile.

When redeeming miles, it is best to go with the transfer partners first because of better valuations of the miles. Then you can book travel or use the miles to pay you back for travel purchases. Cash is trash when using miles. It is only 50 cents per mile. So half the value. 

Which Cards are the Main Competition For Capital One Venture X

When looking at other premium credit cards, a couple of cards come in competition with the Capital One Venture X card. As premium cards go, many of them have tons of things going on; the simplicity of the Capital One Venture X card makes it easier for many people. 

There are premium credit cards like the Amex Platinum that use Amex Membership Rewards, and Chase Sapphire Reserve has their Chase Ultimate Rewards Program. These two cards have an excellent currency for their points, making them a great asset in your wallet. 

Let's see how they compare. 

Amex Platinum

The American Express Platinum Card is a great card for many people, but if we compare the two cards, Capital One Venture X comes out ahead of Amex Platinum. Simplicity is how Capital One Venture X wins. You earn miles, and there are simple ways to spend miles. 

The Amex Platinum has so many different complications with achieving every one of their credits. You need to know your stuff when having this card. The Amex Platinum has a $695 annual fee, which is hard to swallow. 

With lounge accessibility, Amex wins in that category. Capital One is creating its lounge network, but the Centurion Lounges by American Express is a much more expansive network offering lounges in many international airports abroad and domestically. 

Chase Sapphire Reserve

The Chase Sapphire Reserve and Captial One Venture X go head to head to see who is the best. The Capital One Venture X card has very similar ways to earn points. 10x points for hotels and rental cars, and 5x points for flights when booked through their portal. The only big difference is that Chase offers 3x points on dining and travel booked elsewhere. 

Capital One Venture X card does beat Chase in the lounge access race. They have already completed one lounge and working on many others. 

Chase has a better $300 annual travel credit that allows it to be used not just for the portal but on anything travel. Chase also has better transfer partners like United and World of Hyatt, making their points more valuable. 

If you are looking at one or the other, you could grab the Capital One Venture X card for the $395 annual fee and add the Chase Sapphire Preferred, which is only $95, to get some of the Chase benefits.

Is the Capital One Venture X Card Worth It?

If you are looking for simplicity, a premium credit card, lounge access, and an affordable fee, you cannot go wrong with the Capital One Venture X card. 

As other premium cards raised their annual fees, Capital One brought out a new affordable card and paid you to use it. It doesn't get much better than that. It has new things and new bonuses, and it gets people excited.

Final Thoughts: 

If you are a traveler or a travel hacker and enjoy some of the premium benefits, then look at the Captial One Venture X Card. It gives you most of the same benefits as the Chase Sapphire Reserve, but it has a cheaper annual fee and gives you Anniversary bonus miles that help pay off the rest of the card. Capital One did a great job making the market more competitive.