Capital One recently made a change to the way the *venture x* and new *venture x business* $300 travel credit works and it's not a positive one.
Since Capital One first launched the Venture X card in 2021, this annual $300 travel credit functioned as a statement credit for travel booked through the Capital One Travel portal. You'd simply need to book a flight, hotel, or rental car through the travel portal and Capital One would apply a statement credit to your account a few days later.
Now Capital One has changed the statement credit to instead be a $300 discount on travel booked through the travel portal that's applied like a coupon at checkout.Â
You can use this credit in whole for a single transaction or in part over multiple purchases by selecting the option to apply the credit at checkout. If the travel purchase made using your travel credit is canceled, the value of your credit will be restored – so long as it's not expired.
Sounds good, right? Now you don't need to wait for Capital One to give you your statement credit and you'll save money right when booking.
While this change makes the travel credit even more simple and straightforward to use, it's actually a devaluation for both Venture X and Venture X Business cardholders for a few reasons. Since the annual $300 travel credit now gets applied like a coupon, you'll earn fewer Venture Miles on purchases you make through the Capital One Travel portal. And if you're spending in the travel portal during the first few months after opening your card, that $300 discount will no longer count towards the minimum spending required to earn a sign-up bonus.
Read on for more details about what this change really means for Venture X and Venture X Business cardholders.
Earn Fewer Points on Capital One Travel Purchases
This one stings. While we normally recommend steering clear of Online Travel Agencies (OTAs), Capital One has done a good job with their travel portal and I find that the price they're charging for flights and hotels typically matches what you'll find when booking direct.
Capital One also incentivizes cardholders to book through their travel portal by offering 5x Venture Miles on flights and 10x miles on hotels and rental cars when booking with your Venture X Card. That means if you booked a $500 hotel through Capital One Travel, you used to earn 5,000 miles on that purchase – and you'd still get your $300 annual travel credit back on your statement.
With this change, that $300 travel credit would be applied towards your purchase during checkout, so you'd only end up paying $200 and earning 2,000 Venture Miles on that hotel booking. That's 3,000 fewer miles than you'd earn before this change.Â
Since Capital One miles can be used to remove any travel purchase from your card at one penny a piece, that's like missing out on an extra $30 worth of travel. And if you typically transfer your Capital One miles to travel partners for award bookings, earner fewer points might be an even greater hit.
Travel Credit Won't Count Toward Minimum Spend
Right now you can earn 75,000 bonus Venture Miles when you open the *venture x* and spend $4,000 on it in the first three months. So if you spent $500 booking a flight through the Capital One Travel portal, that $500 would count towards your minimum spending requirement – even if you got $300 of that back as a statement credit later. It was a sweet perk.
But considering the $300 travel credit now functions like a coupon when booking through the Capital One Travel portal, that amount no longer counts as spending. That means you'll need to spend even more in order to earn that big bonus.
Read more: How to Meet Your Card's Minimum Spending Requirement Responsibly
No More Easy Rebate
Since Capital One annual $300 travel credit used to be applied as a statement credit upon making a purchase through Capital One Travel, it was possible to get the credit without actually traveling.
It worked like this: You could book a refundable hotel for months down the road, wait for the $300 travel credit to get applied to your account, and then cancel your booking for a full refund. This was an easy workaround for getting $300 of your annual fee back without actually spending any money or using the travel portal.
It's obvious that this isn't how Capital One intended for its cards' travel credit to be used and while I'm confident the vast majority of cardholders used it to cover legitimate travel expenses, closing this loophole makes a lot of sense from the bank's perspective.
Bottom Line
Capital One has changed the way the annual $300 travel credit benefit you get with its premium travel rewards credit cards like the *venture x* and the *venture x business* works. Rather than getting that credit back on your statement after making a purchase in the Capital One Travel portal, you'll now apply it as a discount on your booking at checkout.
But while that change removes some of the value of Capital One's annual $300 travel credit, it's still one of the benefits that makes both the personal and business versions of the Venture X cards some of the top travel rewards cards on the market.
Even still, this is a great C-card . That work-around is a way to cheat the system – Really ??
Sad we have to think how to cheat the system all the time . Don’t get me wrong It was with-in the boundry but it was never intended to be used that way , and the fact they took that off the table is not in any way a “real” true negative.
They do and will meet competitive pricing which has been documented and that is a real plus in my opinion. They will give you a credit . I recently was able to do this – you have 24 hours .
Also the access to Priority Lounges is a real plus!
If you travel its a great card!
While this was probably introduced to counter cheating it really badly devalues the card. If I transfer miles to an airline I usually (especially for international travel) have to pay miles plus taxes in dollars, those dollars I can’t pay pay with the travel credit. If I want to get a rental car with a company discount code I need to book on the car company website and that too I can’t offset with the travel credit. And what’s even worse, in my experience the car rental and hotels offer is limited on capital one travel website, so I won’t be able to book thru there the same thing I’d book on my own. Overall it has gotten way more difficult to redeem that credit which makes a huge difference in the way I look at that 395$ yearly fee.