Is the Venture X Travel Credit As Good as Cash?
Tl;dr: The Venture X’s $300 “Annual Travel Credit” can be used for bookings made through Capital One Travel. It’s not as good or flexible as cash, but the prices are close to what you’ll find with most online travel agencies.
A few years ago, I found myself flying more often and wanting a card with access to airport lounges, but I wasn’t mentally prepared to pay hundreds of dollars just to be able to get in. The Capital One Venture X seemed like a solution. The card offered access to Priority Pass and Capital One lounges for a $395 annual fee, while offering a $300 credit towards Capital One Travel, plus 10,000 points (worth $100 toward travel) on renewal. That sounded good on paper: Capital One essentially gives you $5 to renew the Venture X each year. But that would only be true if that credit actually meant $300 worth of travel.
I explained the dilemma to my wife, who told me she was already booking all her travel through Capital One for the price drop protection and flexible bookings… and now she didn’t know why she would keep paying $95 a year for a Venture Rewards card when she could have a Venture X instead. We’ve both had the Venture X for years now, and plan to keep it as long as it delivers this kind of simple value.
So if you’re on the fence about the Venture X because you’re not sure what to make of the $300 travel credit, here are some things to consider.
Pros and Cons of the Venture X Travel Credit
The Capital One Travel portal works much like other online travel agencies like Expedia or Booking.com. You can book hotels, vacation rentals, flights, rental cars, and even activities. So if you book over $300 worth of those things in any given year, it should be fairly easy to make full use of that credit. Capital One Travel also offers added benefits like a price match guarantee, price prediction & alerts, and price drop protection. Plus you can earn 5-10x points when using your Venture X to book via the portal.
via Capital One Travel
There are some drawbacks to be aware of. First of all, portal pricing can vary, and Capital One won’t always have the same availability and pricing as other booking options (though the benefits above can help with that). I have found that many rental car companies in Japan, for example, aren’t bookable via Capital One. Portal bookings are usually treated as travel agent bookings, so you may need to go to Capital One for help, rather than the airline or hotel, if something goes wrong. And, crucially, while a year is a fairly long time to book travel, if you wait too long you might find yourself rushing to book something. Every now and then we’ll forget to use the credit and end up using it for a short staycation near home. That can be nice (we need those too!), but it’s not money-back-in-my-pocket that justifies the $400 fee the same way it would be if applied toward travel we were planning to do anyway.
Personally, I would never pay $300 for this credit—cash doesn’t expire. So the “value” to me is probably closer to $250. But I feel like most years I get full value for the credit.
Lazy Take 🦥
The $300 travel credit on the Capital One Venture X isn’t quite as good as cash, but it can certainly deliver $300 worth of travel each year. So if you’re already spending a few hundred dollars a year on travel, it should be fairly easy to use the entire credit by booking through Capital One. And if you can do that, you can turn the Venture X into one of the cheapest premium travel cards on the market.
If you’re interested, consider applying via my referral link HERE. (I’ll earn points if you do—thanks for your support!)