In 2025, Capital One will be cutting airport lounge access for select cardmembers. But don’t worry, this doesn’t impact those with the Capital One Venture X or Capital One Venture X Business.
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Capital One Venture & Spark Miles cards lose lounge access
Currently those with the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card (review) and Capital One Spark Miles for Business (review) receive two complimentary airport lounge visits annually. They can either use this allotment to visit Capital One Lounges, or to visit Plaza Premium Lounges.
Given that these cards have annual fees of under $100, it’s quite nice to get any airport lounge access at all, as that’s not normally a perk offered on cards with such reasonable fees. Unfortunately this benefit will be changing.
As of January 1, 2025, the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card and Capital One Spark Miles for Business will no longer offer any airport lounge access on a complimentary basis. However, those with the card will be able to purchase access to Capital One Lounges for the discounted cost of $45 per person (for the cardmember and any guests), compared to the standard cost of $65.
Note that there’s no change to the lounge access perks offered by the Capital One Venture X (review) or Capital One Venture X Business (review). These cards maintain unlimited visits to Capital One Lounges, plus the Priority Pass membership and Plaza Premium Lounge access.
Is this benefits change a big deal?
Make no mistake, this is obviously a devaluation of benefits for cardmembers, as something is being taken away, without anything being added in return.
That being said, I think some context is important. This benefit was added back when Capital One first got into the airport lounge game, at a time when there was only one lounge, and there weren’t that many cardmembers with lounge access.
I viewed the benefit as a way of being able to show cardmembers the benefits of the Venture X, before both the lounge network and card portfolios expanded. Now that Capital One Lounges are quite crowded, and there’s both a personal and business version of the Venture X, I imagine Capital One wants people to upgrade their cards.
Fortunately both the personal and business version of the Venture X have an excellent value proposition, as the annual fee is quite easy to justify. On the most basic level, the cards have a $395 annual fee, and offer a $300 Capital One Travel credit annually, plus 10,000 Capital One anniversary bonus miles, which to me offsets the annual fee. All the other perks are just the icing on the cake.
Bottom line
As of January 1, 2025, the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card and Capital One Spark Miles for Business will no longer offer two annual lounge visitors. However, nothing is changing to the lounge access perks of the Capital One Venture X or Capital One Venture X Business.
What do you make of this change to Capital One’s lounge access policy?
It couldn't have come at a better time. I was recently reviewing which cards should be my daily go-to card and couldn't find good reasons for using the Venture card anymore. There are other cards that allows me to cash our sooner and with better travel rewards.
I have a Venture X card and was flying QF biz out of DFW to SYD recently. In DFW, the AA Flagship lounge and Cap One Lounge are opposite each other. I was really excited to finally check out a Cap One lounge. But guess what, it was an absolute ZOO, it was way overcrowded. The décor was nice, but the lounge isn’t big enough to handle the hordes of people in there, it felt...
I have a Venture X card and was flying QF biz out of DFW to SYD recently. In DFW, the AA Flagship lounge and Cap One Lounge are opposite each other. I was really excited to finally check out a Cap One lounge. But guess what, it was an absolute ZOO, it was way overcrowded. The décor was nice, but the lounge isn’t big enough to handle the hordes of people in there, it felt like a fancy bus terminal with people camping out on the floor etc. We then went to the AA Flagship lounge which although didn’t have the nicer Cap one lounge food, the AA Flagship lounge was way more comfortable. Bottom line: This change is good if it can thin out the crowds in the Cap One lounge (at least from my DFW experience).
Credit Card lounges are just not maintainable in terms of capacity unless they raise the cost of holding that particular credit card for entries high enough so only small percentage of people are willing to pay for it.
And that's what Amex is trying to do right now with their Platinum/Centurion. They create very specific credits towards their target audience so for their target audience can use those credits without hassle. Not sure Capital One...
Credit Card lounges are just not maintainable in terms of capacity unless they raise the cost of holding that particular credit card for entries high enough so only small percentage of people are willing to pay for it.
And that's what Amex is trying to do right now with their Platinum/Centurion. They create very specific credits towards their target audience so for their target audience can use those credits without hassle. Not sure Capital One is going to do with this, are they going the way Amex is going or there are other unique way to do it? We shall see in the near future!
Tried getting in a couple weeks ago and there was a 30 minute wait. 2025 is too far away
CapitalOne lounge gets crowded and has waiting list sometimes. I am wondering if the lounge could provide alerts somewhere. For example, when I land at Terminal A at DFW I can check and decide whether I should go to the lounge at Terminal D if it has a long waiting list already.
They already have a live indicator of lounge wait time on their app
Cap1 needs to build MORE lounges. ASAP!