The Capital One Venture X card is now live for new applications. We also have some further information about its benefits — including the fact that it matches best-in-class trip delay protection and has excellent cell phone insurance.
The Offer & Key Card Details
| Card Offer and Details |
|---|
75K Miles ⓘ Affiliate 75k miles after $4k spend within first 3 months. (Rates & Fees)$395 Annual Fee Recent better offer: Expired 3/14/22: 100K after $10K spend in 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, Plaza Premium 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 booked via Capital One travel. ✦ 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 $100 application fee credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck® ✦ Capital One Lounge access ✦ Priority Pass membership w/ unlimited guests (lounges only) ✦ Plaza Premium lounge access ✦ 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
This card is easily worth its annual fee for anyone who travels enough to value the travel reimbursements and 10K anniversary miles around face value. The fact that it also comes with a great welcome bonus and excellent benefits just strengthen the value proposition (and indeed my opinion about it changed after giving it a second look and we compared it to the competition in-depth on the podcast).
Many readers were curious about details of protections like trip delay and cancellation insurance as well as cell phone protection. Here are some useful tidbits regarding those benefits:
- Trip delay protection kicks in after six hours (up to $500 per ticket)
- Trip delay protection requires having paid in part with the card (so paying award taxes should activate the protection)
- Trip cancellation protection up to $2,000 per person for common carrier fares
- Purchase security offers up to $10K per claim and up to $50K per cardholder for items stolen or damaged in the first 90 days
- Return protection has fairly low maximums: up to $300 per claim and $1,000 per cardholder (note that this benefit and purchase security do not specify that the limits are per year but rather per cardholder)
- Rental car CDW is primary and up to $75K
- Cell phone protection covers up to $800 per claim with a $50 deductible up to 2 claims per year
Those benefits certainly make it competitive with other ultra-premium cards. You can find the full Guide to Benefits here.
One interesting tidbit on the cell phone coverage is the way it is worded could use a little improvement. Most credit cards that cover cell phone insurance require that you pay the entire bill with your card (and then you receive coverage starting on the 1st of the next calendar month after paying the bill). If you read the entire terms of coverage on the Venture X card, you’ll see that you do indeed need to pay the full bill with the card to get coverage. However, this section made me question that for moment:
When does it apply?
Cellular Telephone Protection applies when You make Your
monthly cellular wireless phone bill payment with Your eligible
card. Coverage begins the first day of the calendar month
following a payment of the cellular wireless phone bill.
If You fail to make a cellular wireless phone bill payment in a
particular month, Your coverage will be suspended. Coverage
will resume on the first day of the calendar month after the
date of any future cellular wireless phone bill payment made
with the eligible card.
“A” payment and “any future cellular wireless phone bill payment” led me to momentarily think that any payment amount would suffice (even a partial payment since that technically fits my definition of “any” payment).
However, in the section about documents you’ll need to submit to make a claim, see this bullet point:
• A copy of Your cellular wireless service provider billing
statement demonstrating that the entire monthly payment
for the cellular wireless phone bill was made the month
prior to the date of damage or theft and has been paid with
the eligible card.
Despite semi-ambiguous wording farther up, the claim requirements make it sound to me as though you will indeed need to have paid the entire bill with your card. That means sacrificing better rewards with other cards. Still, with the year I’ve had with cell phone claims, I’d be considering the Venture X if I weren’t using a Platinum card right now.
The Venture X card is a solid card. Data points from comments I’ve seen elsewhere have been mixed, but there have been more approvals than I would have expected (including a single data point I noticed from someone who claimed to have been approved despite already having two open Capital One consumer cards). With 100K transferable miles on the table, this one may well be worth a swing. I had hopes to upgrade one of our household cards to the Venture X but we may have to give it a try for the welcome bonus if I continue to see success reports of approvals.
I had hoped that maybe Capital One would surprise us with an upgrade bonus offer for existing Venture cardholders (or at least a path to upgrade easily via online account), but neither seems to be the case for me so far.
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Just a note, I simply called and asked if I was Eligible to upgrade from the venture to the venture X. They said yes and within 5 minutes on the phone I had upgraded and I got my card 4 days later.
The Cell phone protection is a joke! Does not apply to “rented or borrowed” devices (a.k.a. devices that are leased as part of a 24 month plan and paid off monthly). And does not apply to “prepaid” or pay as you go either. Absolute scam.. the only way to get it covered is to purchase the phone and then sign up to an expensive “postpaid” phone plan (although there comes the third pitfall: the phone needs to be listed on the phone bill. That is never the case unless you buy/lease the phone through the carrier.
I don’t think any of the major credit cards that offer cell phone protection include prepaid services. Have you made a claim that was denied? I’ve made several successful claims with Amex and Chase (which both have very similar terms on phone protection) and I think that perhaps you are making assumptions based on your interpretation rather than experience, but if you’ve had a claim denied please do share your experience.
There are several areas where I think you are incorrect.
Regarding the meaning of “rented or borrowed”, I don’t think that phones that are financed qualify as rented or borrowed. Renting or borrowing is when you use something temporarily and give it back. For instance, at some international airports, you can rent a phone for a week or two. That wouldn’t be covered by credit card insurance. If you borrow your friend’s phone for a couple of hours, that wouldn’t be covered either.
When you finance a phone through a cell provider, you’ve bought the phone and are paying it off over time. That’s different. It isn’t like renting where you are paying a price to use it and then give it back. If you rent a Hertz car, Hertz owns the car. You’re just paying to use it for a few days and then you give it back to them. If you finance a phone through a wireless provider, you’re buying the phone, you’re just doing it with their money in the same way that you buy something with Chase’s money or Amex’s money or whatever credit card issuer’s money when you put it on a credit card (whether you pay it off in full right away or over time, you still own the items you buy).
As someone who has made several successful cell phone insurance claims over the past 15 months (a string of bad luck led to us breaking phones multiple times), I can tell you:
As for an “expensive” phone plan, that’s relative. I used prepaid for many years (first Virgin Mobile, then Straight Talk and Cricket and probably a couple of others and I signed up several family members on H2O). I am familiar with the prepaid space and I used it when it saved me money. At this point, I need features that I can’t get on prepaid (specifically, I need a large volume of tethering with minimal latency), so being on postpaid was the only way to get what I needed. It also isn’t necessarily “expensive”. I pay about $25 per line for 7 lines — and that includes 5 financed phones (though in my case I have financed almost all of them through offers where they were free after bill credits, so they don’t add much if anything). While not as cheap as some cell service options, I am satisfied for a plan that comes with 40GB of tethering on each line and completely unlimited unthrottled Internet otherwise (I used more than 96GB of data on one line last month — getting that all at 5G speeds is necessary for me).
I can completely understand that your situation may be different and a prepaid service might make more sense, but I am not aware of any credit cards that explicitly offer insurance on prepaid plans.
Thanks for the detailed reply Nick.
While I have not filed a cell phone protection claim, I have had bad experiences with the Visa/Mastercard benefit administration. My experience was that they use the terms of the policy in order to thwart claims and wiggle out of paying out. In contrast to Amex where things are much more straightforward.
I agree that my argument that postpaid is expensive was meant for my particular situation. I split my time between several countries and need an unlocked phone to use a SIM in every one of those countries. So any US plan with bill credits for a financed phone does not work for me (they unlock the phone only after 2 years). I think it is wrong for such a plan to discriminate against users of prepaid plans and expect this to change as prepaid becomes more popular. It fits into a larger pattern of Visa and Mastercard benefits that are very difficult to use.
In a different forum someone noted that they called the benefits administrator for MasterCard and was told that prepaid plans were covered if you brought your own phone whereas they are not covered if you get your phone as part of the prepaid plan.
As a final note, could you clarify where the T Mobile website shows the IMEI of your “BYO” phone and if you had to provide this to T Mobile when getting an additional SIM?
Thanks
okay, just read more fine print. The 10X on rental and travel is great, if you can book it through Capital One travel. But if booked through, say, a company travel portal, this benefit is useless. 2X everywhere else is nice, but I think the best option right now for a new card is the SWA card with its 100K sign-up that makes you likely to hit companion pass (clearly only ideal for those who fly SWA a lot)
In terms of non SWA cards, I think the Plat and Chase Sapphire regular have the X beat.
Am I insane?
Yes, you are.
haha. I think if one were to apply for the SWA card and this, they should apply for SWA first given the 5/24?
Also, I’ve never had a Capital One card. Does it offer “offers” like Chase/Amex?
I don’t know. Seems a bit underwhelming. The 200 credit for “vacation rentals” likely does not apply to hotels. The annual fee requires booking through Capital One, rather than direct at a merchant site.
Does the Venture X earn a straight 1 point per dollar?
No, it earns 2x everywhere. 10x hotels & car rentals through Capital One Travel and 5x flights through Capital One travel.
Correct that the $200 credit for vacation rentals is for, well, vacation rentals and not hotels lol :-). That’s just part of the welcome bonus, so it is not an annual benefit.
The $300 annual travel credit could be used on flights through Capital One Travel, which appear to be priced the same as everywhere else. I haven’t taken a deep dive on hotels and car rentals yet (though they do seem to have a best price guarantee). Still, I imagine lots of people will get full value out of $300 toward flights.
So for the $395 annual fee, you get:
-$300 travel credit (use it for flights)
-10,000 miles (use it to reimburse $100 in travel or transfer to partners)
-Priority Pass with 2 guests for you and each AU
-C1 lounge access with 2 guests for you and each AU
-Hertz President’s Circle for you and each AU
-No fee for AUs
-2x everywhere and those points transfer to most airline partners 1:1
Seems like a great deal for an ultra-premium card.
Hertz President’s Circle is a nice option. Do you have to book through Capital One to get it? Any other cards offer something similar? (I used the work around with National to match to Five Star).
Nick — based n the AMA last night it sounds like you have changed your thoughts on cell phone coverage from the last time you guys compared all the options earlier this year. With this new cell coverage entrant in the market and your thoughts on how to get coverage even when getting statement credits, I wonder if an updated comparison would be good. The various coverages are very confusing.
Good question. That probably is worth a little post.
I was having a little trouble wrapping my head around what you were saying about how you time the statement credits. Though I guess I could see if maybe not wanting to talk too much about that in a more public way might be a good thing.
I’ve been searching around various forums, but I haven’t found what I’m looking for yet: Are there data points for someone who successfully opened a Venture vanilla card with the 100K bonus within the past 12 months (that is, someone still working on their second 50K bonus after earning the initial 50K from $3K) who then applies for the new Venture X and gets approved for that also?
I know some long-holding Venture card holders (those who’ve had it more than a year) have been approved for Venture X. I’m asking about a subset of the Venture vanilla club.
I haven’t seen one way or another, but I don’t think that would matter. DoC reports having to wait 6 months between C1 applications, but if it has been more than 6 months I don’t think whether or not you have gotten the full bonus on the vanilla Venture will matter.
Player 2 wife approved 805CS with 6 new cards in last 12 months.
I was offered an upgrade of my long standing venture card that I hardly use anymore but a service representative told me that I would only receive the sign on bonus if I did a new application for the venture X in addition to the current card. Was unite clear that I would not receive the sign on bonus if I upgraded the existing card. A new application for the venture X in addition to my current venture card was successful.
Great credit score and capital one card history… good income, etc. Did not get approved.
Any guesses how long the 100k + $200 welcome bonus will last?
With a $10k spend requirement, I’d like to hold off for a couple months until my 10x Amex Plat dining and small business runs out and I’ve already hit the $8k on my Aspire for the Hilton night. (The delay would also let a couple inquiries drop off my reports.)
I don’t know anything or haven’t gotten any hints (as I saw DoC say to someone today I’m sure that not even Capital One knows how long they are going to run it right now). In general, it seems most issuers keep offers around for at least a month or two. I would bet on this likely lasting until the end of the year or close to it at least. But I stress that’s a guess at best and I doubt they have a firm end date yet.
Any experience with how easy, hard or expensive it is to use the Capital One Travel to be able to get the $300 travel benefit? Thinking of issues with other bank based travel bookers (higher prices, limited offerings etc.)
Since the card just came out today, no data points on using the $300 travel benefit yet. However, flights are basically the same price everywhere these days, so it should be easy to get close to face value toward flights. Toward anything else it will surely be a crapshoot (and mean giving up any elite perks / credit).
I have had the Venture card for years, If I get approved for the X, any reason to keep both?
Not unless you have the old ability on your Venture Card to redeem 64,250 mi for $900 gift cards for Marriott or Raffles or Fairmont.
However, rather than cancel, I would see if you can downgrade that venture to a savor one. No annual fee and 3X grocery, dining and entertainment. It is awarded as cash back on that card, but you can transfer the cash back to miles.
Thanks. Do points from X and Venture pool together?
It’s pretty easy to transfer C1 “miles” among accounts online and you can also transfer them to another person’s account. It’s a huge benefit of C1. I hope it doesn’t change with all the attention that the X card is likely to create for C1. Others would have to say for sure but I assume that once Savor cash is turned into miles you can use them and transfer them just like any other miles.
Larry’s got it — the points don’t automatically pool, but you can transfer on your own in your online account from one miles card to another or from a cash back card to a miles card (not the other way). If you want to transfer to someone else, you have to call (very easy, no caps). No silly expiration stuff like Citi.
Holy approval, Batman! I was instantly approved! I just assumed Capital One would always hate me!
Not sure if this has been reported much yet (sorry if FM already had it but I don’t think I saw it). C1 appears to have issued pricing rules on its lounges. Venture X gets unlimited free visits plus up to two free guests and $45 for additional guests. Spark and One get two free visits each year and $45 for guests or additional visits beyond the first two freebies.
How unique is Greg’s story of his C1 shutdown? Assuming that type of thing could occur to someone, how long would one hold on to your other premium cards (CSR etc) before closing/product changing? Wonder about the scenario getting approved for the Venture X, then PC’ing the CSR, but then having the C1 card shut down, and then being without another key premium card that was replaced. Just a wandering thought
I would wait 18-24 months from launch. I’m not really focused on shutdowns but cutbacks to benefits and pricing hikes. This card is IMHO not financially sustainable in the medium to long term. I’m getting some serious citi prestige vibes.
Shutdown happened to my family as well many years ago. All the accounts my wife and I had with Cap 1 were closed, w/o reason. That included 2 checking accounts and 2 credit cards.
Back then, people was talking about possible using Bill Pay service was the cause, but not for sure.