Is the Capital One Venture X Card Worth Its Annual Fee?

The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card is the bank's first foray into the premium travel card space, and it delivers with high-end lounge access, travel credits and transfer partners.

It comes with a $395 annual fee, which is hundreds of dollars less than many competitors. But it still has common benefits you've probably come to expect from top-tier travel cards. Think: lounge access, statement credits for travel, and TSA PreCheck or Global Entry reimbursement.

Still, can the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card compete with the likes of The Platinum Card® from American Express and the Chase Sapphire Reserve®? Is the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card worth its $395 annual fee?

We’ll cover the card’s benefits and how it stacks up against cards in a similar price range.

Sign-up bonus

Earn 75,000 bonus miles when you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening, equal to $750 in travel.

This isn’t the highest sign-up bonus we’ve ever seen on a travel card, but it’s respectable. The bonus alone makes the card easy to justify in the first year of being a cardholder, but you’ll want to think about the ongoing benefits as well.

Rewards rate (value depends on your spending habits)

The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card has a similar miles-earning scheme to the other cards in the Venture family. It earns 2 points per $1 spent on every purchase. That's higher than the earning rates outside of bonus categories on cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve® and The Platinum Card® from American Express. Terms apply.

If you book travel through Capital One Travel with cash, you could earn even more miles:

• 10x miles on hotels and rental cars.

• 5x miles on flights.

TSA PreCheck/Global Entry statement credit (up to $120)

One of the best features of the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card makes a reappearance on this card. The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card will give you an up-to-$120 statement credit if you use the card to pay for your Global Entry or TSA PreCheck.

» Learn more: What you need to know about Global Entry or TSA PreCheck credit cards

Lounge access (value varies based on your usage)

Here’s where we start getting into some premium benefits. The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card gives you unlimited access to Priority Pass and Capital One airport lounges.

The Capital One lounges are some of the best airport lounges in the U.S. They are fairly new, as the first one opened in late 2021 in the Dallas-Forth Worth airport, so you can expect modern design, excellent food served in small plates, and some thoughtful amenities for customers.

For example, some Capital One lounges locations have a grab-and-go section for people who are just stopping to get a snack or coffee before their next flight. This section usually has a refrigerator stocked with salads, sandwiches, wraps, desserts and boxed water to go.

Some unique amenities at Capital One lounges include a yoga and cycling room complete with Peloton bikes and meditation rooms with napping pods.

Day passes to Capital One's lounges cost $90, although certain cardholders and their guests are entitled to discounts.

» Learn more: How to maximize the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card

Anniversary bonus (worth $100)

Every year you renew the card, you’ll get a bonus of 10,000 miles deposited into your account. This perk might help you justify the annual fee because it effectively wipes out $100 of the $395 each year.

» Learn more: 5 top credit cards with anniversary bonuses

Statement credit for bookings made on Capital One Travel (up to $300)

Along with the anniversary bonus, the statement credit for Capital One Travel bookings could offset the rest of the annual fee. Each year, you can get statement credits for up to $300 worth of travel booked with Capital One.

This benefit is on par with the $300 annual travel credit on the Chase Sapphire Reserve®. The only difference is that statement credits on the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card apply only to bookings made through the Capital One Travel portal, while the Chase Sapphire Reserve®’s credit applies to almost any travel charged to the card.

» Learn more: Guide to the Capital One Travel portal

Transfer partners

Capital One miles are actually more flexible than you might think. The issuer has recently added transfer partners and improved the ratios, so now there are 17 partners with a 1:1 transfer ratio.

If you transfer your Capital One miles to some of these international airlines to take advantage of sweet spots, you might be able to get more than the 1-cent-per-mile value that you would get through Capital One Travel.

Say you score a $500 one-way flight to Hawaii with only 10,000 Turkish Airlines miles (one of the best Turkish Miles&Smiles redemptions). That’s a whopping 5-cent-per-mile value, and the value of your award flight is already more than the annual fee you paid that year.

» Learn more: The best Capital One transfer partners — and those to avoid

We took a closer look at premium travel cards competing for your business, like the Chase Sapphire Reserve®, The Platinum Card® from American Express and the U.S. Bank Altitude™ Reserve Visa Infinite® Card.

Here's a summary of our findings:

The Chase Sapphire Reserve® vs. the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card

The Chase Sapphire Reserve® outdoes the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card in a couple of ways.

Both cards provide annual travel credits, airport lounge access, credits toward Global Entry or TSA PreCheck fees, and other valuable benefits. But the Chase Sapphire Reserve®'s points are worth 1.5 cents each when you redeem them through Chase's travel portal.

The Chase Sapphire Reserve® card's $300 annual travel statement credit is also more flexible because it will kick in automatically for any eligible travel purchases you make with the card. The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card's travel credit must be used for travel booked in the Capital One Travel portal.

The Platinum Card® from American Express vs. Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card

The Platinum Card® from American Express has captured the hearts (and wallets) of luxury-seeking travelers, but one major downside is that booking hotels with Membership Rewards points in the AmEx Travel Portal yields a value of 0.7 cents per point — 0.3 cents less per point than a similar booking with Capital One miles through Capital One Travel.

Terms apply.

Read our full comparison of how the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card stacks against its competitors.

» SEE: Why the AmEx Gold Card deserves a spot in my wallet

Notably, the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card has most everything you would expect from a premium travel credit card, and the lowest annual fee among the bunch.

Most other premium travel cards have annual fees upward of $550, so $395 is a good value. It also has enough annual benefits ($300 for Capital One Travel bookings and $100 worth of anniversary bonus points) to completely offset the annual fee fairly easily every single year.

The catch is that you’ll have to do some travel booking through the Capital One Travel portal to maximize the statement credits and number of miles you’ll earn. The portal might limit your choices a bit.

The transfer partners are also a good choice for redemptions, but the lack of hotel partners and domestic airlines may make this card less appealing to novice points travelers.

For people willing to take a chance on a growing travel rewards program, the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card is a good way to get into the premium travel credit card space at a lower price point.

To view rates and fees of The Platinum Card® from American Express, see this page.