Capital One Venture X credit card review

 

Capital One Venture X credit card review

capital one definitely created this card to try to beat out some of those other very expensive premium travel cards and I think they designed the ventra x in a pretty unique way 

They can actually appeal to a lot more people than those other travel cards can that's because not only is the 395 annual fee a much lower price tag than those cards from competitors 

But capital one has also built in an annual credit and bonus that effectively offsets the ventra x's annual fee with very little effort making 

This is basically like a free high-end travel credit card that gives you some great features and benefits, which I'm gonna explain.

So right off the bat here let's quickly talk about the welcome bonus on this credit card now capital one can change up this bonus over time so I don't want to explain the current bonus going on 

The minimum spend requirement for whatever the bonus is within the allowed time frame you will come out ahead of that annual fee in your first year with this card no matter 

What now just be aware that the required minimum spend to get this welcome bonus can be a bit on the high side of a few thousand dollars over the course of maybe three months 

So just make sure that you know what your typical spending habits are that way you won't miss out on this nice bonus and leave all that value on the table but even putting aside that welcome bonus you can get in your first year 

Like I said before capital one makes it super easy to justify paying that 395 annual fees with another annual bonus you can get as well as a statement credit so next let's get into how all that works 

So first with the venture x card, you can get a 300 annual travel credit that you can use each year to book flights hotels, and car rentals in the capital one travel portal and then be reimbursed up to that 300 amount in other words 

If you travel at least maybe once per year and typically would spend 300 paying for those types of travel expenses anyway then you'll be able to easily use 

This statement credit means that when we look at the 395 annual fees and subtract the value you get from that 300 annual travel credit through capital one travel your effective annual fee is going to drop down to just 95 per year 

Now normally booking travel through a third party can be a hassle because you might not always get the best price and this was one thing that I wanted to keep my eye on with capital one's newer travel portal along with the ventral x card 

When it was all launched late last year but from what I've seen and from what many other people have been saying so far capital one has done a great job of creating a nice experience for booking travel 

While also maintaining competitive pricing thanks to some features that the portal has now capital one travel is powered by a company called hopper which is actually an app that I've used plenty of times before 

When booking travel to track prices over time to get the best deals basically this portal is going to help you to get the lowest prices with predictive pricing some price drop protections price matching 

If you find a better deal on something you booked within 24 hours and a bunch of other features that have really received some great feedback so overall that 300 travel credit is something that i'd say you can value at the full 300 amount 

Because it looks like capital one is actively trying to get its customers the best deals on travel with the idea being that then those customers can just return to the travel portal more in the future 

But in addition to that 300 annual travel credit capital one is also incentivizing customers to keep their venture x card open each year by essentially giving cardholders a built-in retention offer of 10 000 capital one miles as an anniversary bonus 

Now with other premium travel credit cards what I and many others like to do is sometimes call up the credit card companies when we see our annual fees get posted to our accounts 

We like to try negotiating with them to get retention offers for points or statement credits to reduce those annual fees I've done this in the past with other cards because it's definitely not fun paying an expensive fee so it never hurts to ask the credit card company 

If they can help you out with that because again it's just a negotiation now you might be able to ask capital one for a retention offer on your vendor x card in the future if you want to try I mean 

I guess we'll see how that works out when people's account anniversaries come up later this year but for most people that just want to get rewarded for renewing their card and paying their annual fee capital one is going to say 

When redeeming miles for travel in the capital one portal those are going to be worth one cent per mile so 10 000 miles are worth 100 when you redeem them that means that when we combine 

This 100 value of the annual anniversary bonus with that 300 annual travel credit for travel booked in the portal brings the 395 annual fees down to an effective annual fee of negative five dollars in other words 

Capital one is basically paying you five dollars each year for keeping this card open again assuming that you travel maybe once per year and you use up that statement credit now in my opinion this is huge for a lot of reasons 

But mainly because one of the biggest complaints that people have with other travel credit cards that have high annual fees is that yes those cards have credits that offset the annual fee

But it's a lot of effort to do so however with the capital one venture x card i'd say that the average person is going to offset the annual fee each and every year with almost no effort at all just by using the card as intended for booking travel through capital one 

So when you look at the fact that this card is essentially a net zero cost to hold and then you add on the fact that you get all that value with the upfront welcome bonuses as well as the other spending multipliers and benefits that come with this credit card 

Then you start to see why venture x is becoming so popular also for anyone that's interested in learning more about cards like this or any of the other best credit cards out there.

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