SOME CARD INFO MAY BE OUTDATED
This page includes information about these cards, currently unavailable on NerdWallet. The information has been collected by NerdWallet and has not been provided or reviewed by the card issuer.
The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card is the bank's first foray into the premium travel card space, and it delivers with high-end lounge access, travel credits and transfer partners.
It comes with a $395 annual fee, which is hundreds of dollars less than many competitors. But it still has common benefits you've probably come to expect from top-tier travel cards. Think: lounge access, statement credits for travel, and TSA PreCheck or Global Entry reimbursement.
Still, can the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card compete with the likes of the American Express Platinum Card® and the Chase Sapphire Reserve®? Is the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card worth its $395 annual fee?
We’ll cover the card’s benefits and how it stacks up against cards in a similar price range.
Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card benefits
Sign-up bonus
Earn 75,000 bonus miles when you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening, equal to $750 in travel.
This isn’t the highest sign-up bonus we’ve ever seen on a travel card, but it’s respectable. The bonus alone makes the card easy to justify in the first year of being a cardholder, but you’ll want to think about the ongoing benefits as well.
Rewards rate (value depends on your spending habits)
The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card has a similar miles-earning scheme to the other cards in the Venture family. It earns 2 miles per $1 spent on every purchase. That's higher than the earning rates outside of bonus categories on cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve® and the American Express Platinum Card®. Terms apply.
If you book travel through Capital One Travel with cash, you could earn even more miles:
- 10x miles on hotels and rental cars.
- 5x miles on flights.
🤓 Nerdy Tip
Capital One Venture cards earn miles, but those miles don’t actually have to be used to book flights. They're akin to points that can be redeemed for hotels, rental cars and flights, or transferred to airline or hotel partners. TSA PreCheck/Global Entry statement credit (up to $120)
One of the best features of the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card makes a reappearance on this card. The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card will give you an up-to-$120 statement credit if you use the card to pay for your Global Entry or TSA PreCheck.
By signing up, you will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.
Lounge access (value varies based on your usage)
Here’s where we start getting into some premium benefits. The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card gives you unlimited access to participating Priority Pass and Capital One airport lounges.
However, cardholders cannot bring guests into Capital One lounges for free unless they spend $75,000 on their card in a calendar year. The guest fee is $45 per adult or $25 per child (ages 2 to 17). There is no complimentary guest access for Priority Pass lounges, even if they hit that spending threshold.
Authorized users do not get complimentary lounge access either, although there is the option to pay a $125 annual lounge access fee per additional cardholder.
The Capital One lounges are some of the best airport lounges in the U.S. They are fairly new, as the first one opened in late 2021 in the Dallas-Forth Worth airport, so you can expect modern design, excellent food served in small plates, and some thoughtful amenities for customers.
For example, some Capital One lounges locations have a grab-and-go section for people who are just stopping to get a snack or coffee before their next flight. This section usually has a refrigerator stocked with salads, sandwiches, wraps, desserts and boxed water to go.
Some unique amenities at Capital One lounges include a yoga and cycling room complete with Peloton bikes and meditation rooms with napping pods.
Day passes to Capital One's lounges cost $90, although certain cardholders and their guests are entitled to discounts.
Anniversary bonus (worth $100)
Every year you renew the card, you’ll get a bonus of 10,000 miles deposited into your account. This perk might help you justify the annual fee because it effectively wipes out $100 of the $395 each year.
» Learn more: 5 top credit cards with anniversary bonuses
Statement credit for bookings made on Capital One Travel (up to $300)
Along with the anniversary bonus, the statement credit for Capital One Travel bookings could offset the rest of the annual fee. Each year, you can get statement credits for up to $300 worth of travel booked with Capital One.
This benefit is on par with the $300 annual travel credit on the Chase Sapphire Reserve®. The only difference is that statement credits on the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card apply only to bookings made through the Capital One Travel portal, while the Chase Sapphire Reserve®’s credit applies to almost any travel charged to the card.
» Learn more: Guide to the Capital One Travel portal
Transfer partners
Capital One miles are actually more flexible than you might think. The issuer has recently added transfer partners and improved the ratios, so now there are 17 partners with a 1:1 transfer ratio.
| Loyalty program | Transfer ratio |
|---|---|
| Aeromexico Club Premier | 1:1. |
| Air Canada Aeroplan | 1:1. |
| Air France/KLM Flying Blue | 1:1. |
| Cathay Pacific Asia Miles | 1:1. |
| ALL Accor Live Limitless | 1:1. |
| Avianca LifeMiles | 1:1. |
| British Airways Executive Club | 1:1. |
| Choice Privileges | 1:1. |
| Emirates Skywards | 1:1. |
| Etihad Guest | 1:1. |
| EVA Air Infinity MileageLands | 2:1.5. |
| Finnair Plus | 1:1. |
| JetBlue TrueBlue | 5:3. |
| Qantas Frequent Flyer | 1:1. |
| Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer | 1:1. |
| TAP Portugal Miles&Go | 1:1. |
| Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles | 1:1. |
| Virgin Red | 1:1. |
| Wyndham Rewards | 1:1. |
If you transfer your Capital One miles to some of these international airlines to take advantage of sweet spots, you might be able to get more than the 1-cent-per-mile value that you would get through Capital One Travel.
Say you score a $500 one-way flight to Hawaii with only 10,000 Turkish Airlines miles (one of the best Turkish Miles&Smiles redemptions). That’s a whopping 5-cent-per-mile value, and the value of your award flight is already more than the annual fee you paid that year.
We took a closer look at premium travel cards competing for your business, like the Chase Sapphire Reserve®, the American Express Platinum Card® and the U.S. Bank Altitude™ Reserve Visa Infinite® Card.
Here's a summary of our findings:
The Chase Sapphire Reserve® vs. the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card
The Chase Sapphire Reserve® outdoes the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card in a couple of ways.
Both cards provide annual travel credits, airport lounge access, credits toward Global Entry or TSA PreCheck fees, and other valuable benefits. However, the Chase Sapphire Reserve® allows complimentary guest access to a wider network of lounges.
Plus, the Chase Sapphire Reserve® card's $300 annual travel statement credit is more flexible because it will kick in automatically for any eligible travel purchases you make with the card. The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card's travel credit must be used for travel booked in the Capital One Travel portal.
American Express Platinum Card® vs. Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card
The American Express Platinum Card® has captured the hearts (and wallets) of luxury-seeking travelers, but one major downside is that booking hotels with Membership Rewards points in the AmEx Travel Portal yields a value of 0.7 cents per point — 0.3 cents less per point than a similar booking with Capital One miles through Capital One Travel.
Terms apply.
Read our full comparison of how the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card stacks against its competitors.
Why the card’s annual fee is actually a good deal
Notably, the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card has most everything you would expect from a premium travel credit card, and the lowest annual fee among the bunch.
Most other premium travel cards have significantly higher annual fees, so $395 is a good value. It also has enough annual benefits ($300 for Capital One Travel bookings and $100 worth of anniversary bonus points) to completely offset the annual fee fairly easily every single year.
The catch is that you’ll have to do some travel booking through the Capital One Travel portal to maximize the statement credits and number of miles you’ll earn. The portal might limit your choices a bit.
The transfer partners are also a good choice for redemptions, but the lack of hotel partners and domestic airlines may make this card less appealing to novice points travelers.
For people willing to take a chance on a growing travel rewards program, the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card is a good way to get into the premium travel credit card space at a lower price point.
To view rates and fees of the American Express Platinum Card®, see this page.
How to maximize your rewards
You want a travel credit card that prioritizes what’s important to you. Here are some of the best travel credit cards of 2026:
- Flexibility, point transfers and a large bonus: Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
- No annual fee: Wells Fargo Autograph® Card
- Flat-rate travel rewards: Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card
- Bonus travel rewards and high-end perks: Chase Sapphire Reserve®
- Luxury perks: American Express Platinum Card®
- Business travelers: Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card
Explore more on
Article sources
NerdWallet writers are subject matter authorities who use primary,
trustworthy sources to inform their work, including peer-reviewed
studies, government websites, academic research and interviews with
industry experts. All content is fact-checked for accuracy, timeliness
and relevance. You can learn more about NerdWallet's high
standards for journalism by reading our
editorial guidelines.
