Capital One Venture X Business Card review: Business travel MVP

The Venture X Business card carves out a niche in the high-end business card marketplace, delivering exceptional rewards value and travel perks at a lower cost than many luxury business travel cards.

Rewards: Ideal if you value simplicity

The Venture X Business card’s rewards rates aren’t significantly better than those offered on other Capital One business cards, but they could be an excellent choice if you want a simple way to earn miles on most of your business purchases.

Along with 5X miles on flights and 10X miles on rental cars and hotels booked through Capital One Travel, you’ll earn a flat rate of 2X miles on all general purchases. This feature should make it easy for a wide range of small-business owners to squeeze value out of the card. You won’t have to worry about tracking or enrolling in spending categories and can easily build miles on everyday business expenses and travel booked outside of the Capital One portal.

You can also redeem miles for travel purchases made in the past 90 days, enabling you to book where you prefer. This flexibility could make Capital One miles more appealing than the rewards you’ll earn with other issuers.

Perks: Valuable travel benefits at a relatively low cost

Like the personal version of the Venture X, the Venture X Business card emphasizes valuable, practical travel perks over the niche credits and memberships often found on many premium travel cards.

For starters, you can take advantage of up to $300 in annual travel credits for bookings through Capital One Travel and 10,000 bonus miles each year on your account anniversary, worth around $400 when you redeem the miles and credit for travel with Capital One. These travel credits can also cover a wider variety of travel purchases than the credits you’ll find on some competing cards. For example, The Business Platinum Card® from American Express offers a wide range of travel perks, but the $200 annual travel credit can only be used to cover airline incidental fees.

The Venture X Business Card is also one of the few business cards that has complimentary airport lounge access, offering Priority Pass Select and Capital One Lounge membership. In fact, the Venture X Business card’s lounge access perks are second only to the Amex Business Platinum Card’s comprehensive Global Lounge Collection access — and that card carries a $695 annual fee. Despite its lower cost, the Venture X Business card offers great travel & emergency assistance services and purchase security, including first-class cellphone protection.

Welcome offer: Ultra-valuable bonus for a business card

The Venture X Business pulls ahead of the competition with its sign-up bonus, which is one of the most valuable sign-up bonuses available on a business card. You can earn 150,000 miles after you spend $30,000 in the first three months from account opening. Even though that's half of the card's previous limited-time offer, the current bonus is still terrific if you can meet the spending requirement.

Capital One miles are worth 1 cent each when you redeem them through Capital One Travel, so 150,000 miles could be worth a whopping $1,500 in travel. Based on Bankrate's latest credit card mile valuations, Capital One Miles can be even more valuable when you transfer them to the right airline or hotel partner. We estimate that Capital One Miles are worth around 1.7 cents on average when you transfer them to one of the issuer's top travel partners, so the bonus could be worth around $2,550 with the right booking. 

This could potentially beat the value offered by the Amex Business Platinum card's bonus, which has traditionally dominated the business rewards card market (150,000 points after you spend $20,000 on eligible purchases within your first three months as a card member). Based on Bankrate's point valuations, which gives Amex Membership Rewards an average value of 2.0 cents each, we estimated this offer to be worth around $3,000. 

Given that the spend requirement for the Venture X Business card's welcome offer is so high, some small-business owners may struggle to take full advantage. If you don't have many big business expenses on the horizon, a card with a lower bonus spending requirement may be a better fit.

While the Venture X Business card’s rewards and perks should make its annual fee easy to offset, the price tag may still be too high for some small-business owners. The card also doesn’t carry many travel benefits and redemption options compared to the competition. If you’re focused on luxury perks or want the option to redeem for travel and cash back without sacrificing point value, you might want to consider other card options.

Rates and fees: Limited payment flexibility and intimidating annual fee

Although the card offers plenty of practical perks and versatile rewards that make its annual fee easy to justify, you may not want to worry about a fee hanging overhead. And if you have inexpensive business needs or you rarely travel, the Venture X Business card’s $395 annual fee (See Rates & Fees)  may be hard to offset through rewards or perks.

In addition, since the card offers no ongoing or intro APR, you won't be able to strategically carry a balance to free up cash flow or gradually reduce expenses over time. 

On the plus side, there aren’t many other costs to worry about, including no foreign transaction fees (See Rates & Fees) on purchases made abroad (which is typical for premium travel cards). And you won’t have to worry about accruing interest since you’re required to pay off your balance in full each billing cycle. 

Other features: Only a few luxury and business perks

Though the Venture X Business has plenty of great travel perks like airport lounge access and credits for TSA PreCheck or Global Entry, its relatively low cost requires some trade-offs.

The card lacks some luxury perks you can find on cards with an annual fee of $500 or more, such as complimentary airline or hotel elite status. The card also falls short if you’re interested in business-centric bonus categories and features.

For example, the Amex Business Platinum boasts hundreds of dollars worth of annual credits for Dell products, Indeed recruiting, Adobe services and wireless providers.

Payment flexibility: No preset spending limit, but can’t carry a balance

If you need a lot of purchasing power, the Venture X Business card may be appealing since it has no preset spending limit (the amount you can spend varies based on factors such as your credit profile and account standing). You can even increase your purchasing power through positive card activity, like making multiple payments within a billing cycle. 

However, unlike some other cards with no preset spending limit, this card doesn’t allow you to carry a balance. You must pay off the card in full every month or you’ll face a late payment fee based on a percentage of your balance (See Rates & Fees). If you need both large purchasing power and the flexibility of an ongoing APR, the Venture X Business may not be the best fit compared to rivals like the Ink Business Premier® Credit Card and other high-tier Amex rewards cards.

The Venture X Business card not only offers terrific first-year value via its sign-up bonus, but also features some of the best ongoing rewards rates and perks available on a premium business travel card. As long as you travel regularly, this card should offer great value in both the short and long term.

The card’s sign-up bonus is worth more than the bonuses you’ll find on most business travel cards. The value you’ll get by redeeming the intro offer for travel bookings with Capital One is enough to offset the annual fee almost four times over.

Even after the first year, the card’s ongoing rewards and perks make it well worth the annual fee. The annual travel credits and account anniversary bonus miles alone can be worth around $400. You would only need to spend about $1,700 per month with your card to earn enough rewards to cover your annual fee (assuming you redeem through Capital One Travel).

Based on our card rewards value methodology, with an estimated annual spend of $100,000 (enough to meet the current bonus spending requirement if you can manage it in your first six months) and a redemption value of 1-cent-per-mile, here's what you could potentially earn in your first year and beyond with the Venture X Business card:

Bankrate credit cards writer Ryan Flanigan uses the Capital One Venture X Business Card’s status as a charge card to his advantage.

The giant sign-up bonus from this card was enough to practically finance an entire cruise for my family. And redeeming points for past travel purchases on my statement is one of my favorite ways to use Capital One miles since I don’t have that feature on other cards. The travel credit comes in handy for rental cars and other out-of-the-box travel needs, the anniversary bonus offsets the annual fee, and having no preset spending limit helps with my business needs. It more than pays for itself every year.

— Ryan Flanigan, Writer, Credit Cards

The Venture X Business card’s main draw is its well-rounded perks and rewards for a relatively low price. However, there are a few alternatives worth considering if you’re hesitant about the annual fee, you need buying power specifically for large purchases or you want the option to carry a balance.

All of Capital One’s business cards are flat-rate rewards cards, so you can broaden your search to other issuers. A rewards card with categories that reward your biggest business expenses is ideal, or a hotel or airline card if brand-specific benefits would enhance your travels.

The Venture X Business caters to small business owners who want high-caliber travel rewards and perks, but don’t need a premier card with a $500 or higher fee. However, the card’s straightforward rewards and perks make it suitable for many annual expenses.

Like the personal version of the Venture X, the Capital One Venture X Business offers terrific rewards and perks at a reasonable cost. Though it carries a high annual fee, this is easy to offset with just a few of the card’s valuable perks. Benefits like airport lounge access and travel credits are especially hard to find on business cards in this price range, making the Venture X Business a welcome find and ideal choice for business travel.

There are some trade-offs, however. The card’s impressive sign-up bonus requires a lot of spending in a short period. And though there’s no preset spending limit, you won’t be able to carry a balance, which limits the card’s value as a financing tool.

Still, this card is a clear winner for business travelers. As long as you can pay your balance off in full each billing cycle, the Venture X Business card makes it easy to earn rewards and unlock great travel perks without paying a huge fee.

Our proprietary card rating system takes into account a mix of factors when scoring business credit cards, including each card’s rewards rate, estimated annual earnings, welcome bonus value, APR, fees, perks and more.

We analyzed over 50 of the most popular business credit cards and scored each based on how its key features stacked up compared to those of other cards in its category.

Here are some of the key factors that gave this card its score:

*For Capital One products listed on this page, some of the above benefits are provided by Visa® or Mastercard® and may vary by product. See the respective Guide to Benefits for details, as terms and exclusions apply.