Guide To Capital One Venture X $300 Annual Travel Credit

We have a 2 Spark cards. Since the hotel chains don't cover more rural locations internationally we rent many nights with capitalone. We never book flights because of the concern of "what if..." i am seriously considering the Venture X mainly for the lounge benefit.

What would happen if I book refundable hotel with this year's travel credit and have to cancel it later when new year cycle is already in. Would I loose my travel credit for cancelled reservation?

Having to use Capital One Travel to use the $300 benefit is a major drawback. I booked a ticket for $480 and used the credit. The airline made a change to my itinerary. I requested an involuntary cancel with refund. Airline agreed that the rules allowed it. Capital One Travel processed it as voluntary and the airline denied the refund. It’s now impossible to undo and I’ve just lost the $480.

I think it's worth pointing out that the credit can only be redeemed out of the primary account holder's account. Authorized users cannot redeem it even if they are an account manager.

My airline of choice is Alaska Airlines. It is easy to book a $300+ flight on Alaska with the Capital One Travel portal. As long as you wait at least 24 hours; you can cancel that ticket and the price of the ticket gets deposited into your airline account as a credit for a future flight. You can then book directly with airline.

Hi: Does anyone have any recent experience with application approvals? In the past, Capital One has been completely unpredictable when it comes to them. For instance, instantly rejecting applicants with 800+ credit scores and flawless credit (no late payments or any other credit flaws). I am interested in this card and have flawless credit, but have zero interest in having application dings hitting all three credit bureaus for 2 years, while simultaneously being rejected by Capital One for some mysterious, inscrutable reason.

@Jason, I had a recent bad experience. My credit score is around 817, consistently above 800, I had never been rejected for any other card, but was rejected by Capital One. I thought this had to be a mistake so I called the reconsideration line. They said if I wanted the application reconsidered there would be another hard pull on my credit file, I said that was fine since my score was so high to begin with and I was confident I’d be approved, but they rejected me a second time. Now my score is slightly below 800, but I’ve read these hard pulls only impact the score for a short time. But obviously, I’m taking my business elsewhere than Capital One.

Ben - I have had the Cap One Venture X since the inception. I used the travel credit once - their hotels are always overpriced compared to the rates on the hotel proprietary websites. I am also hesitant to book through their portal as you may/may not lose elite benefits or stay credits (although this is diminishing by the day amongst most chains).

I have never shopped airfares on the Cap One portal - thought they would be more expensive than booking direct. Good to know I can book a trip through them and use the credit.
I've been a big fan of the card and acquired it at launch (thanks to you for the tip). However their lounge situation is not good for me (West Coast guy) and the last few times the DFW lounge was a shitshow with children running amok and parents that did not care. I went to the AC as it was actually a better experience in DFW (!).
Seems that Cap One gives out a lot of cards to their employees in the DFW Metroplex and they end up in the lounge with screaming children.

I have the venture x and venture x business. Ben, you didn't mention that they will price match publicly available rates. It does require a phone call and about 20 minutes but I was able to get them to match the price of booking direct through an airline on a last minute international flight where there was no awards availability. I think this is a huge advantage over other portal I've used like citi and chase where they make money off that margin at your expense.

Hi. I'm considering cancelling the card because of the travel credit's lack of value. I recently wanted to fly from FLR to MAD. Direct flights on Vueling, which offered three or four different classes regarding bags, seats, etc. On Cap1, there were two - the most basic and the most expensive.
After viewing costs for seats and bags on Vueling if booking their most basic fare, I booked that fare through Cap1 (a bit more expensive). But then, when I went to pay for seats and bags, it was HIDEOUSLY expensive. It's like they knew it was a 3rd party booking and so just socked it to me.
Not happy. Chase is exponentially better in this regard.

Honestly, after our most recent experience with C1, we are canceling the card. The authorized user (spouse) cannot use the travel credit. Even as the primary cardholder, it does not allow me to book two airline tickets at a time and use the travel credit. You must make two separate bookings for two people on the same flight. It is not very useful as a travel card compared to the competition. We will cancel the card and not look back.
I'm going to hate to lose the lounges, but neither Amex nor Chase has ever caused me an afternoon of frustration with any of their products.
Do better C1.

That’s not true - every year I make flight reservations for my family of three on several occasions ( X and biz X ) and zero issues . May be you need to add them as travel companions or something…

Hi James: Belatedly, many thanks for your report. I have heard many similar stories from others with solid credit scores. C1’s approval standards are weird and totally inscrutable. One does not see this with reputable credit card issuers like Amex and Chase: if a person has EARNED a high credit score and is not binging on new accounts, he or she will be approved. C1 has some kind of projected profit algorithm that actually penalizes financially astute, high income and high credit score applicants. C1 is paranoid that these people will actually pay their bills on time. They are not content to merely earn their share of the merchant fees; they want interest, late payment and other arbitrary fees, too. Basically, they want financially stupid and sloppy customers who can be milked. The fact that they are acquiring Discover supports this idea. I’m sorry they got you to apply a second time. They should have been able to tell you exactly why you were declined, and then you could have correctly inferred that you were going to be declined again. But customer service like that is foreign to them. Yes, the credit impact of the two hits will decline in a few months. But what I find irritating is that the hits stay on one’s record for 2 years. That’s ridiculous for a declined application. What difference should it make to a person’s credit if they apply for an account and are declined??? Nothing has changed about their credit. Same number of accounts and total amount of credit lines. It’s just a way to knock people down and hurt them, by lowering their scores and pushing them into higher interest rate categories. Anyhow, thanks again. Your post helped convince me to pass.

@singleflyer
Did you cancel the AS flight booked through the Capital One portal with Capital One or with AS?
Then you used the deposited Capital One funds to your AS wallet to rebook @ AS for the same or different flight?

Are the $300 a year travel credits cumulative? So if I don't book a flight one year the next year I would have $600?