Applications Open: Capital One Venture X Rewards credit card

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UPDATE: Some or All of the offer(s) mentioned in this post have now expired

As of today, applications for the new card_name are open. This is the latest premium card to be targeted to the miles & points world and when you consider what this card offers alongside its comparatively low annual fee, it’s probably not overstating things when I say that this will almost certainly be the most popular premium card launch since the card_name first came on the scene.

The card_name

The card_name is Capital One’s first dive into the miles & points premium credit card sphere and it’s doing this with a lower than average annual fee, a great welcome bonus, excellent benefits, and a transferable currency that has recently become a lot more valuable.

Here’s what you know about the new credit card:

Annual Fees

• annual_fees
• No fee for authorized users

The Welcome Offer (Offer Expired)

• Successful applicants will receive 100,000 bonus miles when they spend $10,000 on their new card in the first 6 months of card membership (Offer Expired)
• For a limited time, cardmembers will receive up to $200 in statement credits for vacation rentals like Airbnb and VRBO. (Offer Expired)

Capital One hasn’t said what time limit will be placed on the availability of the statement credit.

The Earnings Rates

• 10 miles/dollar for all hotel and car rental bookings made through Capital One
• 5 miles/dollar for all flight bookings made through Capital One
• 2 miles/dollar for spending in all other categories

All miles earned by the card_name can be transferred to all of Capital One’s travel partners which have recently become considerably more valuable.

The Benefits

In exchange for the annual_fees annual fee, these are the benefits that come with the card_name:

• Up to $300 in statement credits every year for bookings made through Capital One Travel
• 10,000 bonus miles every year on a cardholder’s anniversary
• A credit of up to $100 for TSA Precheck or Global Entry
• Unlimited access to Capital One lounges for cardholders and authorized users + 2 guests.
• Access to all Priority Pass lounges (includes Priority Pass restaurants)
• Access to all Plaza Premium lounges
• Miles which are transferable to a variety of other loyalty programs
• Primary rental car cover
• Trip delay cover
• Hertz President’s Circle status for primary cardholders and authorized users
• Cellphone insurance for primary cardholders and authorized users
• No foreign transaction fees

Thoughts

The first thing that I thought as I read through the list of what the card offers is that its benefits should make it very easy to recoup the annual fee in full – the $300 Capital One travel credit and the 10,000 bonus points offered every year will do the job.

Yes, a lot of people reading this probably won’t want to do too much hotel spending through Capital One Travel because such bookings won’t earn elite stay credits or points in a hotel’s loyalty program (bookings through Capital One will be viewed as 3rd party bookings), but with Capital One confirming that it constantly compares what it charges through its travel portal to other online sites, there shouldn’t be any issue booking flights through the portal.

That makes earning the $300 statement credit relatively straightforward.

The 10,000 bonus points that cardholders are given every year can be used to buy travel through the Capital One Travel portal at 1 cent each (valuing the bonus at $100), but considering these points can be transferred over to the likes of Aeroplan, the British Airways Executive Club, Emirates Skywards, and Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, in a ratio of 1:1, these points can actually be worth considerably more.

On top of all this, we have the fact that there is no charge for adding authorized users to the card_name and just like the primary cardholder, authorized users are given unlimited access to Capital One Lounges, their own Priority Pass memberships, access to Plaza Premium Lounges, and cellphone insurance too.

That’s fantastic!

Yes, it could be considered a little disappointing that this card doesn’t offer significantly elevated earnings for spending outside of the Capital One Travel ecosystem, but the fact that this card offers 2 miles/dollar on spending in all other categories (which I equate to a 3% rebate) makes it a great card to use on all those occasions when the other cards in your wallet don’t offer a spending bonus.

Importantly, the new card_name is a Visa Infinite Card and this means that it comes with two significant benefits that a premium card has to offer if it’s to be taken seriously:

• Primary rental car cover
• Trip delay reimbursement

The primary rental cover means that as long as you pay for your rental car with your card_name, there will be no need to involve your own insurance company in the event of a collision. This is a benefit that only a limited number of other cards offer and is a big selling point for this card.

Trip delay cover is another benefit that a lot of credit cards don’t offer and a benefit that when offered, is often not very good. Fortunately, the cover offered by the card_name is as good as it gets and matches the cover offered by card_name and the card_name both of which charge higher annual fees.

The card_name will cover travelers for up to $500 per ticket when a covered trip is delayed for more than 6 hours or requires an overnight stay.

Lastly, it’s probably worth pointing out that Capital One’s Travel Portal is considerably better than a lot of the other travel portals that I’ve had the misfortune to deal with.

Since the card_name was announced last week, I’ve taken some time to play around with the Capital One Travel Portal and was pleasantly surprised.

Some flights that I know to be vastly overpriced on the Chase Travel portal are priced in line with what the airlines are charging, I haven’t managed to find any significant differences between what hotels are charging and what Capital One will charge, and the tools and alerts that the Capital One portal offers make the whole on-site experience a pretty good one.

This all bodes well for when it comes to redeeming the $300/year travel credit and when it comes to earning 5-10 points per dollar.

Bottom line

The card_name is a card that should easily pay for itself and that should tell you everything you need to know about the card.

Between the $300 annual statement credit, the 10,000 bonus points awarded every year, the Priority Pass membership (which includes access to Priority Pass restaurants), the primary rental car cover, the excellent trip delay cover, the 2 miles/dollar on all spending outside of the Capital One ecosystem, and the miles that convert to a variety of other excellent loyalty programs at a great ratio, this is a set of benefits that will work for a lot of people.

More importantly, these are benefits that are actually worthwhile and easy to use so no real effort will be needed to get great value out of this card and that’s probably the highest praise that I can give the card_name.