Guide To Capital One Venture X 10,000 Anniversary Bonus Miles

Link: Apply now for the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card (Rates & Fees) or Capital One Venture X Business (Rates & Fees)

The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card (review) and Capital One Venture X Business (review) are Capital One’s two premium cards. While the cards each have a $395 annual fee, they offer all kinds of perks that help offset those fees.

The way I view it, the two biggest perks that help justify the annual fee are the $300 annual Capital One Travel credit and the 10,000 anniversary bonus miles. In this post I wanted to take a closer look at the 10,000 bonus anniversary miles offered by the cards, and how exactly this perk works.

How the Venture X anniversary bonus miles benefit works

The Capital One Venture X (Rates & Fees) and Capital One Venture Business (Rates & Fees) each offer 10,000 bonus miles on your account anniversary every year:

• This applies starting on your first account anniversary (roughly 12 months after you get the card), and you receive it every subsequent year as well
• The 10,000 bonus miles will post to your account within one to two billing cycles of paying the $395 annual membership fee
• If you have both the personal and business card, you can receive this benefit on each card

This is in addition to the card offering a $300 annual travel credit, valid for bookings through Capital One Travel (including for flights, hotels, and rental cars). The annual travel credit is valid each cardmember year (including the year in which you open the account), while the anniversary bonus miles are only available starting your first anniversary.

How can you redeem 10,000 Capital One miles?

The 10,000 anniversary bonus miles can be redeemed exactly the same way as all other Capital One miles. There are a variety of ways to redeem Capital One miles:

• You can redeem Capital One miles for one cent each toward the cost of virtually any travel purchase charged to the card, using statement credits; that would make the 10,000 miles worth $100
• You can transfer Capital One miles to Capital One’s airline and hotel transfer partners, where a vast majority of transfers are at a 1:1 ratio

Personally I value Capital One miles at 1.7 cents each. That’s based on the ability to transfer the points to Capital One’s airline partners at a 1:1 ratio, given all the first & business class award redemptions this opens up, which offer the most value.

Just to give an example, you could redeem 45,000 miles for $450 toward a travel purchase. Alternatively you could transfer those 45,000 miles to Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles, and book a one-way business class award between the United States and Europe, as I recently did. If paying cash, that ticket would cost thousands of dollars.

Why the annual bonus miles & travel credit make the Venture X a keeper

The Capital One Venture X (Rates & Fees) and Capital One Venture X Business (Rates & Fees) each have a $395 annual fee, which on the surface might seem like more than most people want to pay for a card. I totally get it. However, we’ve never seen premium cards with perks that so easily cover the annual fee:

• The cards offer a $300 annual travel credit valid through Capital One Travel, which you can use to book flights, hotels, rental cars, etc.
• The cards offer 10,000 bonus anniversary miles, which are worth a minimum of $100 in travel, but which I value at $170, thanks to the transfer possibilities

In other words, personally I value those two perks at $470, though at a minimum you should value them at $400, which more than covers the annual fee.

That doesn’t even account for all the other awesome perks of the cards, including a Priority Pass membership, Capital One Lounge access, and more. There are some minor differences between the personal and business card, and the personal version of the card in particular has excellent authorized user perks.

Bottom line

The Capital One Venture X and Capital One Venture X Business have lots of great perks, and one of those is the 10,000 anniversary bonus miles offered every year. You earn this starting on your first anniversary (and every subsequent anniversary). The miles can be redeemed for a minimum of one cent each toward a travel purchase, or alternatively, can be converted into points with Capital One’s airline and hotel partners.

The annual fee on these cards should be more than justified based on the $300 annual travel credit and 10,000 bonus anniversary miles alone. That’s why these are some of the “cheapest” cards with higher annual fees that you can hold onto.

What has your experience been with the Venture X 10,000 anniversary bonus miles benefit?