Yesterday, Capital One significantly increased the number of points offered on the welcome offer for the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card…and also cranked up the required minimum spending as well.
With the new version, you can earn 100,000 bonus Capital One miles, 25,000 better than the previous offer, but you have to make $10,000 in purchases within the first six months to get there, $6,000 higher than the previous 75K offer.
The Offer and Key Card Details
| Card Offer and Details |
|---|
 ⓘ $1300 1st Yr Value Estimate$300 travel credit valued at $265 Click to learn about first year value estimates 100K Miles 100k miles after $10k spend within first 6 months.$395 Annual Fee Information about this card has been collected independently by Frequent Miler. The issuer did not provide the details, nor is it responsible for their accuracy. Recent better offer: Expired 3/14/22: 100K after $10K spend in the first 6 months + $200 credit for vacation rental spend in first year FM Mini Review: This card offers annual rebates that easily mitigate the fee for those who travel often. Authorized users are free and also get access to perks like Priority Pass, Capital One Lounges and more. The card earns 2 miles per dollar on most purchases just like the Capital One Venture Rewards card, which are worth exactly 1 cent each toward travel. This makes the return on most spend similar to a 2% cash back card (though in this case you must redeem your miles to offset travel in order to get 1 cent per mile). One huge advantage over cash back: Capital One allows transfering their miles to airline miles & hotel points. Click here for our complete card review Earning rate: 10X miles on hotels and rental cars booked via Capital One Travel ✦ 5X miles on flights and vacation rentals booked via Capital One travel ✦ 5X miles on Capital One Entertainment ✦ 2X miles everywhere else Card Info: Visa Infinite issued by CapOne. This card has no foreign currency conversion fees. Noteworthy perks: $300 annual credit for bookings made through Capital One Travel ✦ 10,000 bonus miles each year starting at first anniversary ✦ Up to $120 application fee credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck® ✦ Capital One Lounge access ✦ Priority Pass membership (lounges only) after enrollment ✦ Cell phone insurance ✦ Trip insurance ✦ Primary CDW coverage ✦ Redeem miles for travel at value of 1 cent per mile ✦ Convert miles to airline miles & hotel points |
Quick Thoughts
The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card can make for a unique one-card solution in that it offers the best of both worlds: earn 2x “miles” on all purchases and then redeem those “miles” for paid travel at a reasonable rate of return or transfer those “miles” to airline partners. There’s also an enviable list of travel perks that makes the card a “keeper” in our opinion.
Our Reasonable Redemption Values peg C1 miles at 1.45 cents each (meaning that we expect most folks to be able to get 1.45 cents of value per point without having to cherry-pick awards). That makes this offer worth ~$1,450.
That would be a great deal on its own, but the problem is that $10,000 minimum spend, the highest that I remember ever seeing on the Venture X. Effectively, the extra 25,000 miles on the increased offer requires an additional $6K in spend. Indeed, many folks would probably prefer the previous version with the lower minimum, so that they could put the additional $6,000 towards another welcome offer.
As always, it’s worth noting that you do earn 2x on all of that $10,000 in spend, so you’d actually end up with 120,000 miles, or 12x per dollar. That’s better than a kick in the pants, for sure.
However, for comparison’s sake, you can also get:
- 125,000 Ultimate Rewards points after $6K spend with the Chase Sapphire Reserve®
- Up to 175,000 Membership Rewards points after $8k spend with the American Express Platinum Card®
- 100,000 Citi ThankYou Points after $6k in spend with the Citi Strata Elite card
Those are all very different products, all of which have higher annual fees than the Venture, and none of which offer 2x everywhere earning. However, before jumping into the Venture X, it’s worth doing some comparison shopping to make sure that it’s the best option for you.
Capital One Application Tips
- 48-month Rule: Existing or previous cardholders are not eligible for the same personal card if they have received a new cardmember bonus for the same product within the last 48 months. This doesn't apply to business cards.
- Venture "Family" Rule: Capital One now applies additional "family" rules to the personal Venture cards.
- VentureOne: You are not eligible for a welcome offer on the VentureOne card if you've received a welcome bonus on any other personal Venture card within the last 48 months.
- Venture Rewards: You are not eligible for a welcome offer on the Venture Rewards card if you've received a welcome bonus on a Venture X or Venture Rewards card within the last 48 months.
- Venture X: You are not eligible for a welcome offer on the Venture X card if you've received a welcome bonus on another Venture X card within the last 48 months.
- 2 card limit no more? Conventional wisdom and user experience used to be that you can have at most 2 Capital One cards. However, there are now frequent data points of some people having many more.
- 1 Charge Card Limit: Capital One only allows cardholders to be have one business charge card, so it's not possible to be the primary cardholders on both the Venture X Business and Spark Cash Plus. This doesn't apply to authorized users.
- Hard inquiries often get issued through all 3 credit bureaus.
- Velocity Limits? It used to be thought that Capital One will only approve you for one card every six months. While this is still many people's experience, we've now frequently seen data points of approvals for a second card within that timeframe.
- Application Status: Call (800) 903-9177 to check your application status.
- Reconsideration: If denied, call (800) 625-7866 for reconsideration.
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.
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
I wonder if all the prior promotion of this card was due to the high referral bonuses. Whilst 2x is OK, you can get that elsewhere (Amex BBP, Citi DC) and 1.5x catchall internationally with, say, the Citi Strata Elite.
You pay $395 to Cap1 and have to get $300 back from their portal: it is a really a lounge access card (now much reduced in utility) with a prepay of portal travel. Am I being too cynical?
I’m not sure what you mean by “all the prior promotion;” to me it seems like Capital One in general gets much less promotion than Chase and Amex. That said, in our case, you’re being too cynical, because we don’t receive any commissions at all for the Venture X (we clearly label which cards are affiliates and which aren’t on every card display). 🙂
I also think you’re missing some of the appeal of the card. For $395, you get 10,000 bonus points per year (worth a minimum of $100), $300 in travel credits, lounge access, primary rental car insurance, good travel protections, 2x everywhere earning, and the ability to transfer partners without needing another card.
The Blue Business Plus is business card, first of all, so most consumers will be uncomfortable getting it. Secondly, it has no lounge access or travel protections and a lesser ability to cash out points directly for a wide variety of travel purchases.
The Double Cash has all of the same limits (with the exception of being a business card) AND requires you to get a second card in order to access Citi’s transfer partners at a 1:1 ratio.
I believe that all of us on the FM Team have the Venture X, to me it’s a net no-annual-fee card with benefits. To be honest, I don’t use it much, but I also have stacks of credit cards, and maximize them relentlessly. For folks looking for a one-card solution that gets good rewards and travel/purchase protections (which is the majority of my friends and family), I think that it’s tough to beat.
@Tim Steinke I was not suggesting that your promotion was so incentivised, but that of the broader ecosystem of blogs and YouTube: many of them have been picking up 25k per referral. I suppose my point was that there are other setups that replicate the catch all nature, but I accept your points: the SUB is attractive too, of course!
This has been my view as well mostly. $100 for 10000 points is ok and you should get more value. The $300 travel credit is just prepaid spend, so a wash. You may loose a little or spend more to make sure you get your $300 worth. I can very much appreciate the straight forward nature of this card, bit too much is put on the travel credit. It is however the least expensive PP lounge access card (I think) so if you value that, and will use it, then the $300 starts to make more sense. And the simplified earnings is nice too, when not working on a bonus, and the majority of us are trying to always be working on a bonus if possible.
All that said I would likely apply but this last year was a big one with SUBs so I’m pretty sure I’d get denied as I have 4 in 12months and BofA just denied me for a Alaska Biz for that exact reason even with having banking accounts with them.
Standard is 75k for $4k spend, then 12k for $6k standard spend = 87k points for $10k spend. So 100k/$10k is not a bad SUB.
Is it worth following the new family rules if capital 1 is so difficult on approvals? Curious how many people are approved for both venture and vx. Is it better to forget about the venture if the vx is the card you would rather have?
Good luck getting approved. At least they have a pre-approval you can estimate your odds
Second time trying for the VX, second rejection.
As if Capital One will ever give me one of these, ugh
Have to imagine that LGA C1 landing will be opening imminently. Impossible that they would not time those things to be roughly contemporaneous. They launched this 100k/$10k offer by targeted direct mail about a month ago, now they’re doing the online launch, and then will roll out LGA. Followed by the ad campaign to poach NY CSR holders – “We’ve got newer, better lounges at LGA TB and JFK T4 and our card is $395, $300 credit, 10k miles every year, no coupons. What’s in your wallet? P.S. We still have primary rental car insurance in NY with our card – if you have car insurance in NY, the CSR is secondary coverage! Peace out cub scouts.”
i’ve had a VenX since they came out some time ago. I want to reapply for a new one under this offer. Is there another Cap1 card that I can downgrade my current card and transfer points to?