A card we think almost everyone should have in their wallet is either the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card or the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card or both! Their points are valuable, easy to use for a variety of destinations, and they have several unique transfer partners we love.
There are two main cards we recommend for anyone starting off with Capital One:
The Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card is often the one we recommend first because it has a low annual fee (just $95!). If you have any interest in this card, you will need to grab it before the Venture X because if you eventually want both cards, you need to get this one first. A few details about the Venture Rewards card:
- 2X Miles per dollar on every purchase, everyday
- 5X Miles per dollar on hotels, vacation rentals, and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel
- Receive up to $120 credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck®
- $50 Experience credit and other premium benefits with every hotel and vacation rental booked from the Lifestyle Collection
- Use miles to cover travel expenses include flights, hotels, rental cars, and more
The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card is the premium version of the Venture card and has a $395 annual fee. The annual fee is easily offset by the credits below AND it gives the cardholder lounge access to a variety of lounges. Since we have a newer Escape Lounge at KCI in Kansas City, this card is much more popular! A few details on the Venture X card:
- 2X Miles per dollar on every purchase, everyday
- Receive a $300 annual credit for booking through Capital One Travel
- Enjoy complimentary access to 1,300+ airport lounges worldwide, including Capital One Lounge and Landing locations and participating Priority Pass™ lounges, after enrollment
- 10X Miles per dollar on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel.
- 5X Miles per dollar on flights and vacation rentals booked through Capital One Travel
- Receive up to $120 credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck®
- $100 Experience credit and other premium benefits with every hotel and vacation rental booked from the Premier Collection
- Use miles to cover travel expenses include flights, hotels, rental cars, and more
How To Use Capital One Venture Miles
There are several ways to use your Venture Miles and all of them can get you great value!
Option 1) Transfer them out to partner airlines or hotels to book travel.
Capital One has a long list of great transfer partners that can get you to most destinations around the world!
- Virgin Atlantic, JetBlue, Air Canada ‒ Aeroplan®, and Flying Blue: Great airlines for international flights, especially to Europe!
- JAL Mileage Bank: One of the best options for flights to Japan
- TAP Miles&Go: Amazing flight options to Portugal and the Azores
- Cathay Pacific ‒ Asia Miles
- Avianca LifeMiles
- British Airways Executive Club
- Emirates Skywards, Etihad Guest
- Finnair Plus
- Qantas Frequent Flyer
- Qatar Airways Privilege Club
- Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
- Accor Live Limitless
- Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles
They also have a few options for hotels like Choice Privileges® (great options in Europe, especially Scandinavia), I Prefer Hotel Rewards, and Wyndham Rewards (good for families looking for condo-style lodging with a little more space).
Option 2) Use your miles to book a hotel, flight, or car rental through Capital One Travel, the bank’s travel portal.
This can be a great way to save on hotels and rental cars, and we like to combine our miles with the Venture X $300 travel credit to book expenses in the portal!
Option 3) Use your miles to cover non-points travel expenses like Airbnbs, VRBOs, cruises, rental cars, and more.
This is one of the most popular uses of Venture Miles because it makes it SO easy to save money! This feature allows you to get a statement credit for any travel expense paid for with the card at a rate of 1 cent/mile. That means if you had 75,000 miles, you could cover $750 worth of travel paid for with the card!
You can use the miles to cover things like theme park tickets, Airbnbs, cruises, rental cars, boutique hotel stays, and more! If you have a Player Two (a spouse/partner), then you can refer them to one of these cards as well and combine points to really offset quite a bit of your travel costs.
Once you make any travel purchase on your card, you have up to 90 days from the purchase date to use your miles to cover any eligible travel purchases made with the card. It’s super easy to do! Just follow these steps in this blog post! You can find out more about how to cover some of those “other” travel expenses on this blog post, and you can learn about offsetting Disney, Universal, or other theme park tickets here.
With their valuable flexible miles, great transfer partners, and helpful options to save on just about any travel expense, the Venture and Venture X are great choices for any traveler and we can’t recommend them enough!
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