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.
Want to comment on this post? Great! Read this first to help ensure it gets approved.
Want to sponsor a post, write something for Your Mileage May Vary or put ads on our site? Click here for more info.
Like this post? Please share it! We have plenty more just like it and would love it if you decided to hang around and sign up to get emailed notifications of when we post.
Whether you’ve read our articles before or this is the first time you’re stopping by, we’re really glad you’re here and hope you come back to visit again!
This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
Join our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from our team.