Link: Apply now for the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card
The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card is Capital One’s premium credit card, which competes very favorably with other cards in the market.
While the card has a $395 annual fee, there are so many reasons to get this card, from its excellent welcome bonus, to ongoing perks like a $300 annual travel credit, 10K anniversary bonus miles, a Priority Pass membership, access to Plaza Premium Lounges, access to Capital One Lounges, Hertz President’s Circle elite status, primary rental car coverage, cell phone protection, and amazing authorized user perks. I applied for this card and was instantly approved, and I know many OMAAT readers are in the same boat.
In this post, I wanted to take a closer look at the 10,000 bonus anniversary miles offered by the card, and how exactly that perk works.
In this post:
How the Venture X anniversary bonus miles benefit works
The Capital One Venture X offers 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
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 Venture miles?
The 10,000 anniversary bonus miles can be redeemed exactly the same way as all other Capital One Venture miles. There are a variety of ways to redeem Capital One miles:
- You can redeem Venture 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 Venture miles worth $100
- You can transfer Venture 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 85,000 Venture miles for $850 toward a travel purchase. Alternatively you could transfer those 85,000 miles to Emirates Skywards, and pending award availability, you could fly one-way in first class from Athens to Newark.
If paying cash for that ticket, it would cost well over $5,000 one-way, so that’s quite a good value.
Why the annual bonus miles & travel credit make the Venture X a keeper
The Capital One Venture X has a $395 annual fee, which on the surface might seem like more than most people want to pay for a credit card. I totally get it. However, we’ve never seen a premium card that has perks that so directly and easily cover the annual fee:
- The card offers a $300 annual travel credit valid through Capital One Travel, which you can use to book flights, hotels, rental cars, etc.
- The card offers 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.
And that doesn’t even account for all the other awesome perks of the card, including a Priority Pass membership, access to Plaza Premium Lounges, and access to Capital One Lounges, for the primary cardmember and up to four authorized users.
While the Venture X is the highest annual fee version of the Venture Card, I’d argue it’s also the most economical for savvy travelers.
Bottom line
The Capital One Venture X has lots of great perks, and one of those is the 10,000 anniversary bonus miles offered by the card 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 to points with Capital One’s airline and hotel partners.
The card’s $395 annual fee should be more than justified based on the $300 annual travel credit and 10,000 bonus anniversary miles alone. That’s why this is one of the “cheapest” cards with an annual fee that you can hold onto.
Any other questions I can answer about the Venture X 10,000 anniversary bonus miles?
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.
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.
For the annual $300 travel credit, is there any way to strategically save it for the following year or beyond, or is this a use it or lose it situation?
While the Venture X card has some good benefits, beware if Cap One Customer service. Disputed charges - despite all the proof you can provide, they will stall until you give up. I proved to them that I did not receive merchandise, including shippers own email that they could not deliver. After banging heads with Cap One for a total of 10 hours, I gave up. Second thing - Capital One Travel portal is bad....
While the Venture X card has some good benefits, beware if Cap One Customer service. Disputed charges - despite all the proof you can provide, they will stall until you give up. I proved to them that I did not receive merchandise, including shippers own email that they could not deliver. After banging heads with Cap One for a total of 10 hours, I gave up. Second thing - Capital One Travel portal is bad. Rental Car rates match other vendors, but Hotel rates are inflated (so they can make the 300 bucks back), and flight searches exclude a lot of airlines and alternate routes. Overall, card is not worth it.
For international travel capital one will throw up a fraud alert preventing you from buying tickets online if you are in another country. I had this happen. Becomes a real problem when you want to approve the purchase and they demand to text a code to your phone but you are using a foreign sim card so you don't have your number activated. Even worse is when you call in they will do NOTHING to...
For international travel capital one will throw up a fraud alert preventing you from buying tickets online if you are in another country. I had this happen. Becomes a real problem when you want to approve the purchase and they demand to text a code to your phone but you are using a foreign sim card so you don't have your number activated. Even worse is when you call in they will do NOTHING to fix it except say you need to get your phone working. Basically renders the card useless for those types of purchases. Its a frickin travel card and I'm calling in and proving all the account information but you can't lift the fraud alert when I am overseas trying to buy tickets to get to my destination to catch a flight!? Don't have this issue with chase or amex with these types of purchases.
Same thing happened to us, wasted over four hours to just purchase a airline ticket when we had already notified capital one we would be travelling to the same country we were trying to buy a airline ticket to. Switched to chase card and purchase was approved with just a call to customer service and a automated prompt yes or no is this your purchase. Captial one is not a card to be used internationally no matter what the paid promotions on this website promise.
Does the annual 10000 anniversary bonus expire?
@ Jun Lee -- Nope, they don't as long as you keep the card open. Let me know if you have any other questions.
We were approved for the Venture X. That went fine. However the authorization of the card was a nightmare. 45 minutes on the phone with a clue-less agent. Today they sent a msgs saying suspected fraud, yet all transactions were valid (all 5 of them, nothing at all suspicious about the vendors - it's a new card). They canceled the card anyway and I was on the phone almost an hour just to get a...
We were approved for the Venture X. That went fine. However the authorization of the card was a nightmare. 45 minutes on the phone with a clue-less agent. Today they sent a msgs saying suspected fraud, yet all transactions were valid (all 5 of them, nothing at all suspicious about the vendors - it's a new card). They canceled the card anyway and I was on the phone almost an hour just to get a new card issued. They are clueless about customer service. If they want to have a higher end card they need to dramatically improve their customer service. No one should be on the phone for an hour to get a card re-issued that Cap1 canceled. Never, ever happened with any other bank and we have had some cards frauded.
Without details, I'm going to give CapitalOne a huge benefit of doubt.
Banks would never discuss what they use to determine the likelihood of fraud. But especially a new card a lot of reasons can be flagged. Vendors could be one of the considerations but not exclusive.
I don't know what the bank considers but something along this train of thought could get flag as fraud.
If your first 5 charges were...
Without details, I'm going to give CapitalOne a huge benefit of doubt.
Banks would never discuss what they use to determine the likelihood of fraud. But especially a new card a lot of reasons can be flagged. Vendors could be one of the considerations but not exclusive.
I don't know what the bank considers but something along this train of thought could get flag as fraud.
If your first 5 charges were thousands of miles away from your home or abroad even at legitimate vendors, like Walmart, KFC, Tesco.
Your first 5 charges were bunch of electronics from BestBuy or Amazon for $2-3k.
Nothing at all suspicious about the vendor.
It is YOU that have a suspicious spending patterns. That is why the bank is grinding YOU for 45 minutes. That is why the bank is sending YOU a new card.
They have a reason to believe YOU are not who you say.
I hope this helps.
And next time know this, scammer or thief wont charge $10-20 on groceries or restaurants few miles away dozens of times for weeks and not get detected. Very rare that a stolen card can rack up any charges that long.
So go to your local McDonalds and avoid 70 inch 4K OLED for a weeks.
The Venture X is definitely a keeper for both, P1 & P2. We're happy to pay the $395 AF on both our cards. Capital One has knocked it out of the park with this one! Sapphire Reserve and Platinum AFs can be hard to justify - But keeping the Venture X in our wallet is a no-brainer.
You cannot book sameday flight travel .
Something that I haven’t seen mentioned is that the Capital One travel engine doesn’t allow changes to a booked hotel reservation; you can only cancel it.
Also, you have to call on the phone to cancel a reservation (and the last time I did it there was a substantial hold time).
Those are definitely downsides to this credit compared to other ones I have used (AMEX FHR doesn’t require a phone call to cancel a...
Something that I haven’t seen mentioned is that the Capital One travel engine doesn’t allow changes to a booked hotel reservation; you can only cancel it.
Also, you have to call on the phone to cancel a reservation (and the last time I did it there was a substantial hold time).
Those are definitely downsides to this credit compared to other ones I have used (AMEX FHR doesn’t require a phone call to cancel a reservation, for instance, Hilton and Marriott hotel reservations can be cancelled or changed online).
Can anyone verify that if I currently have a Capital One Venture One Card and sign up for the Venture X that I will still be eligible for the intro bonus offer of 100,000 bonus miles? Since I’d be a new Venture X cardholder..
@ Vicki -- Indeed, you'd be eligible for the bonus. :)
Applied last week and got an email saying that it was in review. Today I received a call saying they needed to verify my identity. While on the phone with them they sent me a link by text and I had to upload my license through the link. Minutes after the call I got an email that I was approved for 30k. 780or so credit score. Have 2 other Capital One cards that I don't really use but one is my oldest card so I just leave it
@Lucky, used your link to apply for the Venture X on Friday. I [placed a fraud alert on my credit report earlier this year and] had to upload a copy of my DL and SSN card Friday evening. Wasn't sure how many days it would be before receiving a decision, but was pleased to see an e-mail sent in the wee hours of the morning today stating approval.
I think you've posted yourself half to...
@Lucky, used your link to apply for the Venture X on Friday. I [placed a fraud alert on my credit report earlier this year and] had to upload a copy of my DL and SSN card Friday evening. Wasn't sure how many days it would be before receiving a decision, but was pleased to see an e-mail sent in the wee hours of the morning today stating approval.
I think you've posted yourself half to death since the Venture X was announced, however the breadth and depth of your posts reviewing the various benefits of this card have been exceptional. The VX card threatens to exceed the Amex Hilton Aspire as a premium card that clearly pays for itself. Looking forward to its arrival.
For what it's worth, if you try to link the Venture X with an existing Capital One account or the Cap One app it asks you to agree to terms that include receiving all communications, including statements, electronically. No paper. For many it won't matter. I prefer a paper statement because it forces me to look at the charges.
Awesome
Those 10,000 anniversary bonus miles sound like two free stopovers on my next Aeroplan redemption.