Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card review: A strong alternative for luxury travel

This card card combines bonus rewards on travel with a generous base rewards rate while providing valuable annual credits and a ton of travel perks. While the annual fee may be intimidating, it’s easy to offset if you take advantage of the card’s features to travel in style. 

Rewards rate: Terrific mix of bonus categories and valuable rewards

The Venture X stands out from other top-tier travel cards thanks to its powerful travel bonus category and generous flat rewards rate on all other purchases. 

Like the original Venture card, the Venture X delivers a streamlined 2X miles on all purchases. But the Venture X also offers 5X miles on airfare and 10X miles on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel, while the original Venture only offers 5X miles on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One.

On top of that, Capital One gives you flexible options for redeeming your miles. Along with booking airfare and other travel through the issuer’s travel portal, you can redeem miles toward a statement credit for travel purchases made within the past 90 days. This lets you book any travel-related purchase and still put your miles to good use while giving you additional time to earn rewards to cover those purchases. You can also transfer your miles to any of Capital One’s travel partners. 

Your miles are worth 1 cent each when you redeem through Capital One Travel or for statement credits on recent travel purchases, but some transfer partners could offer even higher redemption values. Based on Bankrate’s latest mile valuations, each mile is worth roughly 1.7 cents per mile on average with the right airline or hotel transfer partner.

Outside of travel, gift cards are probably your best redemption option since they could potentially get you a 1-cent-per-mile redemption value. Since rewards don’t expire for the life of your account and aren’t subject to blackout dates, you can hold on to your miles until you’re ready to use them.

Cardholder perks: Valuable, practical benefits for travelers

The Venture X offers $400 in value every year with two easy-to-maximize benefits. You’ll get 10,000 bonus miles each year on your account anniversary (worth $100) and a $300 Capital One travel credit each year. These perks alone offset the annual fee. 

You can also receive up to $100 in experience credits during your stay at a Premier Collection hotel booked through Capital One Travel. Other perks include possible room upgrades, complimentary breakfast for two, early check-in and late checkout.

The Venture X card’s Visa Infinite status provides several useful travel and purchase protections. It’s one of the best cards for travel insurance due to its trip cancellation and interruption insurance* (one of the most sought-after protection perks). You’ll also get an auto rental collision damage waiver*, trip and baggage delay reimbursement* (from common carrier tickets), as well as purchase and cellphone protection*.   

These are all valuable, practical perks for frequent travelers which can come in handy when travel issues arise.

If you find the annual fee too high for your liking or feel that the welcome offer no longer provides the value it once did, you may want to consider a different travel card for your needs.

Annual fee: Might be too costly

While the card's annual fee is not as high as many of its premium competitors, it might still be too steep for some, especially occasional travelers. 

The Venture's X card’s $395 annual fee (See Rates & Fees) could be hard to offset if you don’t earn enough rewards from card spending or aren’t able to use the anniversary bonus miles and annual credit. If you don't plan on using those features, another card would likely be a better choice for you.

Welcome offer: Recent drop in value

The Venture X card's current welcome offer is a drop from the card’s previous bonus. You'll now earn 75,000 bonus miles if you spend $4,000 in your first three months — a 25,000-point drop from the previous offer of 100,000 bonus miles after spending $10,000 in your first six months. While the current bonus should be a bit easier to earn, it’s much less valuable. Based on Bankrate’s latest valuations, the current 75,000-mile offer is worth around $1,275, compared to the old bonus' $1,700 value. 

While the previous offer was impressive, the current bonus is still better than some of the card’s main competitors, like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card which carries a lower annual fee and earns 60,000 points when you spend $4,000 in your first three months. 

Bankrate credit cards editor Nouri Zarrugh loves the Venture X card’s combination of practical perks that make the annual fee easy to offset:

I love that the card offers practical travel perks, expedited security screening credits and an annual travel credit. They’re all easy to take advantage of and can more than offset the annual fee on their own. Other premium travel cards may offer more perks, but they’re mostly ones that I’ll never use and — at least for me — don’t justify the higher fee.

— Nouri Zarrugh, Editor at Bankrate

The Venture X card comes with several valuable perks that should more than justify its annual fee in the first year and beyond.

Thanks to the card’s generous flat rewards rate, offsetting the Venture X card’s annual fee shouldn’t be too difficult, especially if you can squeeze more value out of your miles with a strategic transfer to an airline or hotel partner.

Here’s a look at how much you can expect to earn based on our card value rating methodology, which assumes an annual spend of $22,500:

The Capital One Venture X offers great annual perks for its price tag, but let’s see how it stacks up against two of its most prominent competitors.

The Venture X offers boosted flat-rate miles, so a bonus category card that rewards everyday expenses outside travel would make an ideal partner.  

The Capital One SavorOne Cash Rewards Credit Card is a prime choice since you can convert your cash back to Capital One miles at a higher value without an annual fee (See Rates & Fees). Conversely, you could also cash out your miles by transferring them to the SavorOne if needed.

This increases the value of the SavorOne’s 3 percent cash back for dining, entertainment, grocery stores (excluding superstores like Walmart and Target) and popular streaming service purchases. Plus, its 8 percent cash back on Capital One Entertainment purchases can offer outsized value for your entertainment experiences.

The Venture X can be a terrific option if you want access to exclusive events and experiences or if you fly often and enjoy traveling in style.

The Capital One Venture X card is an outstanding pick if you want a low-maintenance card with practical travel perks and no unnecessary features that often come with higher-fee cards. 

The Venture X is easily worth it if you love the flexibility of flat-rate rewards but also travel enough to take advantage of annual credits and perks. 

This combination makes the Venture X one of the best travel cards on the market.

*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.

*Upon enrollment, accessible through the Capital One website or mobile app, eligible cardholders will remain at upgraded status level through December 31, 2024. Please note, enrolling through the normal Hertz Gold Plus Rewards enrollment process (e.g. at Hertz.com) will not automatically detect a cardholder as being eligible for the program and cardholders will not be automatically upgraded to the applicable status tier. Additional terms apply.

We rate credit cards using a proprietary card scoring system that ranks each card’s estimated average rewards rate, estimated annual earnings, welcome bonus value, APR, fees, perks and more against those of other cards in its primary category.

Each card feature is assigned a weighting based on how important it is to people looking for a card in a given category. These features are then scored based on how they rank relative to the features on other cards in the category. Based on these calculations, each card receives an overall rating of 1-5 stars (with 5 being the highest possible score and 1 being the lowest). 

We analyzed over 150 of the most popular rewards and cash back cards to determine where each stacked up based on their value, cost, benefits and more. Here are some of the key factors that influenced this card’s overall score and how the score influenced our review: