TravelingForMiles.com may receive commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on TravelingForMiles.com are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. TravelingForMiles.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers.
Some links to products and travel providers on this website will earn Traveling For Miles a commission that helps contribute to the running of the site. Traveling For Miles has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Traveling For Miles and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. Terms apply to all credit card welcome offers, earning rates and benefits and some credit card benefits will require enrollment. For more details please see the disclosures found at the bottom of every page.
UPDATE: Some or All of the offer(s) mentioned in this post have now expired
The highly lauded Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card has been offering a welcome bonus of 100,000 points (for those who meet the spending target) since it was first launched in November last year and with this welcome offer set to end on March 15th, you could be forgiven for thinking that I’ll be rushing out to get my application done asap. This time, however, I’m going to be sitting this one out.
With the Venture X’s fantastic welcome bonus being pulled in less than a week’s time, you will probably have already seen a lot of posts and articles extolling the virtues of the newest premium credit card on the block…and rightly so.
The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card can be an excellent card to hold and would work well in most miles & points enthusiasts’ wallets so it’s right that its benefits are set out for all to see. In this post, however, I’m going to summarize what these benefits are before explaining why I won’t be applying for the card just yet.
The Capital One Venture X credit card
The Venture X credit card is Capital One’s first premium credit miles & points credit card and comes with a lower than average annual fee, a great welcome bonus, excellent benefits, and a transferable currency that recently got a lot more valuable.
Annual Fees
- $395 annual fee
- 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).
This welcome offer ends on 15 March 2022.
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 Venture X credit card can be transferred to all of Capital One’s travel partners which have recently become considerably more valuable.
The Benefits
In exchange for the $395 annual fee, these are the benefits that come with the Capital One Venture X credit card:
- 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
Why I’m not applying
Before I go any further, I should point out that I have every intention of adding the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card to my wallet at some point in the future so my decision not to apply for the card right now has nothing to do with what the card has to offer.
It also has nothing to do with the $395 annual fee which between the $300 Capital One Travel credit and the 10,000 bonus points offered every year, should be remarkably easy to recoup.
The only reason that I’m not applying for the card that everyone seems to be still talking about is that I don’t want to have to meet the $10,000 spending target that the welcome offer requires.
In contrast to quite a few people that enjoy the miles & points game, I’m not someone who goes for every big welcome bonus that I see, and while the 100,000 bonus points that the Capital One Venture X Card is offering right now are incredibly tempting (I value the points at around $1,500), they’re not tempting enough to persuade me to change my normal spending pattern to ensure that I spend $10,000 on this particular card in the next 6 months.
No doubt some will think that I’m going to be missing out on a great deal and that I’m crazy not to be locking these points in while they’re still on the table (they may be right), but I’ve always applied the same policy to all my credit card applications – I only apply for a card when I can see where all the spending required to meet a welcome offer will be coming from and right now, I have no need to make a concerted effort to spend $10,000 on a credit card in the next six months.
Will I spend $10,000 over the next 6 months? Definitely. Will I be spending all of that $10,000 on expenses that can be paid for with a credit card? Probably not.
In previous posts, I’ve mentioned how I take the stress out of hitting welcome bonus spending targets by applying for cards when I know I have some serious expenditure coming up (I’ve picked up the Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card and the IHG® Rewards Premier Card in recent months) so with my primary “application season” now behind me (and with most of my plans for major international trips on hold for now), now is not the time for me to be trying to find reasons to incur $10,000 of costs that can be paid for with a credit card just to hit a spending target.
Also, I especially don’t want to take on a new $10,000 spending target when I suspect that I’ll be able to pick up a future Venture X welcome bonus with considerably less spending at a more opportune moment later in the year.
Yes, the future bonus is unlikely to be as high as 100,000 points, but given the choice of having to spend $10,000 at an inconvenient time in order to earn 100,000 points or, for example, having to spend $3,000 at a much more convenient time in order to earn 50,000 points, I’ll happily take the latter.
Bottom line
I have absolutely no doubt that the Venture X card will be a great addition to my wallet when I eventually apply for it but now is not the right time for me. For others reading this post this may be a fantastic opportunity to lock in what is the most generous welcome offer currently available on any US consumer credit card, but it’s important to put this offer in context.
Yes, 100,000 bonus points is a great bounty to be offered, but that doesn’t mean that it’s right for everyone. If you’re not sure where the spending to earn the welcome offer will come from you should not be applying for this card.
Fear of missing out is a very real thing in the miles and points world and those who allow it to cloud their judgment are those for whom this probably isn’t the right hobby.
Featured image courtesy of Capital One
“…spend $10,000 on the card in the next 3 months.”
The offer is for $10,000 in the first 6 months.
Good catch! Now corrected.
Your loss. Worst case scenario, you just use the Square App and charge yourself the $10,000. (I’m NOT recommending that) but even paying the 3% fee that most of these payment processing companies charge, you’ll still come out WAY ahead.
I guess that’s the difference between us – I don’t see this as a loss and I don’t need (or want) the points badly enough to go down the route that uses a payment processor.
If you’re not spending $10k in 6 months (roughly equal to $1670/month) do you even have a big enough income to justify all the travel you do?
What has my spending got to do with my income? Did it occur to you that perhaps not everyone is dumb enough to spend most/all of what they earn?
Tell me you’re not a millennial without telling me you’re not a millennial. Lol!