Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
When the Capital One Venture X card launched a couple of years ago, one of the reasons it was so popular was that even though it has a $395 annual fee, it came with a $300 travel credit that was easy to use.
The credit wasn’t quite as flexible as the Chase Sapphire Reserve card’s $300 travel benefit as that one gives you statement credits for each purchase that codes as travel up to that $300 limit. The Venture X travel credit on the other hand only worked for travel booked through the Capital One travel portal, giving a statement credit within a week of that charge hitting your account.
I said it was easy to use the Venture X’s credit though because if you booked a refundable hotel stay, got the $300 statement credit and subsequently needed to cancel that stay for one reason or another, you’d be refunded for the hotel stay but the $300 statement credit would remain on your account, effectively letting you cash out the benefit.
The sad news is that going forward that’s no longer the case.
The change that Capital One has made is presumably to eliminate this opportunity for gaming the travel credit. The way they’ve done that is that the $300 credit will no longer be applied as a statement credit but will instead be given as a discount when booking. If you subsequently cancel that booking you’ll get the travel credit back to use again, but it does mean you can’t cash out the $300 like you could before.
Here’s how Capital One is describing the new redemption process:
Eligible Venture X primary account holders receive a $300 annual Capital One Travel credit available to use for bookings through Capital One Travel.
To use your credit, select the option to apply it at checkout when you’re ready to make your next purchase through Capital One Travel. The credit may be used in whole for a single purchase or in part over multiple purchases. You can view your annual travel credit and any other travel credits by navigating to My Travel Credits and Offers within Capital One Travel.
Each annual credit will expire on the next account open date anniversary. If the purchase using the credit is canceled, the credit will be restored if it is not expired. Rewards will not be earned on the credit. Your Venture X card account must be open and in good standing to receive or use the Credit.
Unfortunately we’ve been caught up in this. My wife has two Venture X cards (one via a new application, one via an upgrade offer) and we’ve only used the travel credit on one account so far this year. We’d always gotten an error when trying to book travel through the portal on the other account and so hadn’t used the $300 credit yet with the card renewal coming up sometime soon. I’d procrastinated getting this resolved, so now we’ll have to use it towards $300 of actual travel through the portal. That’s disappointing because we don’t have any flights we need to pay for and booking hotel stays through the portal means we won’t be eligible for hotel elite status benefits, earning points, getting cashback/rewards through a shopping portal, etc. I guess we’ll just have to find some way to use the travel credit as Capital One would’ve originally intended which is fair enough from their perspective, but disappointing nonetheless.
It does mean though that with them making the travel credit harder to use, we’ll likely cancel or downgrade both cards at renewal rather than keeping either of them open. It’ll be interesting to see if many other Venture X cardholders do the same thing.
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I booked an American Airlines main cabin ticket. The flight is in late September 2024. When I cancel this flight, will I receive a credit that is valid one year from cancellation date or from purchase date?
If it is from cancellation date, then it makes sense to wait until September 2024 to cancel this flight and request a travel credit. Am I missing something here?
Purchase date in my experience.
Can you still not book through the portal and later cancel the flight and receive an credit from the airline to use on another flight? IF you cancel does it go back to Capital One now?
This seems completely fair to me.
Hopefully, this change will not happen to Hilton’s $250 resort credit…
Is it possible to cash it out?
There are some expensive hotel which will do partial charge at reservation. It will trigger the $250 refund. Then cancel the reservation.
Maldives or Bora Bora?
Also in Hawaii.
Which ever place that partially charge at reservation.
I tried multiple times, and when they say that they gonna charge my card, but they never charge. Not sure, maybe Amex put some kind of restriction on my card. They do restrict me on offers and referrals.
Interestingly this isn’t being applied to everyone at once. I manage 3 accounts… 1 for my self and 2 for my folks. Mine and my mom’s accounts were opened last year when it first came out. but my Dad’s account was opened 4 month ago. I logged into all three last night and only getting the popup about the travel credit change on Dad’s account. I did a test booking and final screen shows available credit being applied but other two accounts don’t show this and works like old way. I guess they are rolling these out but I’d have thought oldest account would be the first get the change.
Thanks for the update. Was about to apply for business venture x card, but now having second thoughts since will have difficulty using this $300 coupon.
Anyone have any idea on using this shitportal coupon?
Hotels outside of major brands? Tiny regional airlines only carries handful passengers?
Someone told me to use for car rental, but I don’t think they recognize elite status from shitportals.
I’ve already burned through CSR and Plat. Never had chance to get Prestige, but this is an opportunity for Citi to rake some of gamers.
ITT: People who think they’re getting a deal through the credit, but don’t realize it’s often materially more costly (and sometimes risky) booking through a portal compared to direct or other means (direct + cb, direct + codes, etc).
of course. never take the travel credt at face value. 80%-90% at best due to many restrictions, lack of point earnings and elite credits (hotels).
Ahh, that feeling when a gaming opportunity you didn’t know about gets eliminated, and you’re left with the feeling that you missed out! I have played my venture credits relatively straight, for flights, and should be able to do so, so not all that significant for me.
Same! “Oh, why didn’t I think of that earlier!” 🙂
This probably will cut down the crowd to the capital one lounge? I am sure each person will have different way of either justifying the card or not.
If this no longer works, I’ll downgrade to Venture One.
Very useful information. Thanks!
To me this doesn’t make the credit harder to use, it makes it harder for hobbyists to game. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I support Capital One in this change. Amex already does the same thing with their FHR credit and no one complains about that.
To me the perfect use case is a 1 or 2 night stay booked through the Premier Collection or Lifestyle Collection. You get good benefits, earn 10X on the amount any above $300, and get a $100 or $50 credit to help sweeten the pot. Worth giving up elite benefits or credit for a one-off stay imo.
Wow I didn’t even consider using the credit toward Premier Collection because those hotels (to me at least) are too pricey for my liking but with the $300 credit it makes it way more feasible.
Something to bear in mind is that the $300 travel credit is paid for with the $395 annual fee, so if those properties are too pricey, you’re effectively still paying for their full cost – they’re just being paid for ahead of time when paying the card’s annual fee.
Valid point
Yes, the biggest mistake people in this hobby make with high-AF cards is saying the card pays for itself because of the credits, and then also thinking of the credits as discounts. It’s one or the other, not both!
+1. Kind of irritates me how many people game these types of credits by booking something then refunding two days later completely in bad faith just to cash out the credit.
Too many people gaming the credits results in restrictions; if those restrictions hadn’t been put in place, people who booked legitimate travel and had to cancel plans in good faith wouldn’t be facing extra tracking and forced maximization.
Thanks for the info. This needs a follow-up article, or maybe a re-post about what are the worst and best value redemptions for the credit. I prefer independent hotels anyway, so is hotel a good value? I remember Nick writing about great value early on but I think that might have changed. Is it still true that rental cars are a bad idea, both bc of inflated prices and stricter cancelation rules? I assume airfare is about the same price but I rarely, if ever, pay cash for a flight.
Glad I got the Venture instead. I feel like 2 lounge visits a year is worth $95.