Capital One is making a major push into the travel credit card market. It started when they allowed cardholders to transfer points to partners instead of using points to pay for travel purchases.
This was a huge shift and put Capital One on everyone’s radar. The bank then introduced the Venture X card. It’s been a while since a card hit the market with such buzz behind it. There was no avoiding the card since it was everywhere.
Capital One also loosened its stringent application rules approving many people who had tried and were denied other cards from the bank in the past. Plenty of people now have the card but what will they think of it?
Venture X has a $395 annual fee. One of the card’s perks is a $300 reimbursement credit for travel purchased from the newly revamped Capital One Travel. In mid-2021, Capital One partnered with Hopper to redesign their travel portal which launched just before the Venture X card debut.
Most people agreed that the long-term success or failure of the Venture X would depend on how well the new portal works since it was the only way to spend your travel credit and receive the highest category bonuses. If the website doesn’t work well or if prices are higher than you could find elsewhere, people aren’t going to pay $395 a year to keep the card. Everyone’s aware of the disappointing Chase portal powered by Expedia and hoped this wouldn’t be a repeat.
One comfort to these worries is that Capital One Travel offers a Price Match Guarantee.
If you find a better price on the same flight, hotel or car rental, Capital One Travel will match it. Simply submit a request with some details within 24 hours of booking with us, and Capital One Travel will refund you the difference. For hotels, we also proactively adjust our prices to guarantee they match or beat other travel sites, including Orbitz, Expedia, Booking.com and Travelocity.
I had to book one night at a hotel and I tried to use one of our remaining free night certificates. IHG hotels had no availability for our dates and I only have a 50K Marriott cert which I wasn’t going to waste on a hotel I could book for $130. I checked Hilton but every hotel was going for 40K a night. With cash prices in the low $100 range, I wasn’t going to redeem Honors points for less than 0.4 CPP.
That’s when I remembered the Capital One credit. All of the options were limited-service hotels and we’d get no benefit from status so I looked for the cheapest, decently rated hotel in the area.
Using Capital One Travel, I found a hotel for $109.
I could have redeemed 10,890 miles for the reservation but I wanted to pay and redeem my travel credit.
I checked the price for the identical room on the hotel website. It was significantly higher than the price quoted by Capital One.
The same was true for the prices I found on TripAdvisor and other OTA websites.
I finished the booking and after taxes and fees, I paid $120.90. I didn’t notice that I had to pay for the room upfront. I can cancel until 3 PM the day before the stay and receive a full refund. I typically do not like to pay for a hotel in advance but in this case, I’m OK with it.
Final Thoughts
My first attempt using Capital One Travel was a success. I’m not going to use it all of the time because bookings made through the portal will not earn hotel or airline loyalty credit. However, bookings on Capital One Travel with the Venture X earn 10X points for hotels and rental cars and 5X points for airfare.
I was afraid that needing to use Capital One Travel for bookings would be the biggest negative about the Venture X but if savings like this are consistent, it may be one of the biggest advantages of having a Capital One card.
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6 comments
“will not earn hotel or airline loyalty credit” That’s incorrect. You still receive airline miles on most carriers.
I tried renting a rental car and it said that they would charge most of it upfront but then at the check-in when I pick up the car they will charge the rest. Can you confirm, if I use the same card, that it too will get reimbursed by the $300 annual credit? It wasn’t clear. I just wanted to make sure if I booked on the Capital One Travel portal then the FULL amount of the car rental will go towards the $300 fee?
CRAZY that you can’t book a rental car with Hertz on Capital One Travel and get President’s Circle benefits. One of the reasons I got the Venture X card was because they offered President’s Circle benefits and you can’t even add your Hertz # to any bookings on Capital One Travel. Hertz is saying it’s a third party website and it’s not allowed anymore.
YET if I book on Expedia, I can add in my Hertz Gold # and get credit. This is nuts.
This is truly a problem and Capital One and Hopper should work on this. In addition, It did take more work than it should have to get President’s Circle status added to my Hertz account.
Also, what’s the deal. Capital One Venture X card is promoting President’s Circle with Hertz if you get the card and when I tried to add in my Hertz # with them after booking on Capital One Travel, they tell me they can do it but Capital One Travel (Hopper) needs to call in and request. I did that and the agent at Capital One Travel said they Called Hertz and they are saying they can NOT add in the # to third party bookings.
But that can’t be the case as I just did a dummy booking on Expedia and there isn’t any problem with getting my Hertz Gold # into the system as on Expedia, the bookings automatically are showing up on Hertz website.
Does anyone know the true deal with this?
I was very much looking forward to this travel portal for the 10x rewards but the booking fees they lump in make it prohibitively expensive. They’re packing close to 10% in fees into the “Taxes and Fees” line if the bill without distinguishing between the two.
Even with 10x rewards, it doesn’t make up for the difference in the dozen or so identical bookings I was able to find on other travel websites that often gave 6% rewards through Capital One.
I’m curious if anyone else has noticed.