Capital One Venture X (In-Depth Review)

If you’ve followed me closely on Instagram the last few years, you’ll know how much I love Capital One. The main things that have won me over are their exceptional customer service, user-friendly app and gorgeous lounges.

I started off with the “Venture” from 2022-2025 and just recently closed the “Venture” account to upgrade to the “Venture X” to utilize their best benefits of this premium travel credit card.

Let’s start with the fact that this card has an annual fee of $395 per year. As I go through the benefits, I’ll explain why that fee is worth it to me.

$300 Annual Travel Credit

Each year, you get an automatic $300 travel credit issued to your account for bookings through the Capital One Travel Portal. I personally love the interface of the Capital One app so using it to book travel is something I do occasionally anyway when redeeming my points (more on that later).

I was able to book mine and Clay’s flights from Tulum to Mexico City through the portal. When you get to the checkout payment page, you can select to use "travel credit” (instead of miles or credit card) and it’s quickly subtracted from your total. In this instance, my total was about $278 so I had $22 left in credit that I used on another flight.

For me, I am easily going to spend $300 on flights / rental cars / hotels in a year so whether I pay for that outright or indirectly through a reimbursed annual fee - it’s no different to me.

In summary, with this benefit, I perceive the remaining annual fee to only be $95. Now, let’s explore the other perks of this card and why I think they easily amount to $95/year.

10,000 Bonus Points Every Anniversary

Each year, on the date that you originally signed up for your Venture X, you’ll automatically receive 10,000 miles into your account. Depending how you use these miles, they are easily worth $100 towards booking future travel or redeeming for past travel purchases.

Between the $300 travel credit and 10,000 bonus miles I’ve already broke even to offset that $395 annual fee.

Access to Capital One Lounges

Admittedly, of Capital One’s Lounges, I’ve only been to the DFW (Dallas Fort Worth) location… but I’ve been at least 20 times! When I was living in Tulum, the American Airlines route I usually took was Tulum to Dallas, then Dallas to Omaha. I honestly enjoy this lounge so much that I will deliberately book flights with a long 3-6 hour layover in order to have time for the lounge! There’s free food, free beverages (alcoholic and non-alcoholic), nap pods, comfortable seating, super fast WiFi and even complimentary snacks to go.

We all know how expensive airport food can be so getting to eat an entire full meal and have a few drinks at the lounge AND take a snack bag to go is easily worth $50 per visit. It’s on my bucket list to visit their other locations: Las Vegas, New York City (JFK), Denver and Washington DC (DCA and IAD).

Priority Pass “Select” Membership

Not only can you visit the Capital One Lounges, you also get a membership to Priority Pass which allows you to book 1,300+ lounges (in 600 airports) around the world.

The quality and amenities of these lounges vary but typically you’ll get complimentary food and beverages, comfortable seating, WiFi, and a quieter environment than waiting at the gate before your flight.

So far in 2025, I have utilized Priority Pass at Houston, Atlanta and Miami. All three experiences were fine. Food and atmosphere was average but hey it was free so that beats spending $20+ on a meal.

No Foreign Exchange Fees

This is common with most travel cards but if you’re abroad often, foreign transaction fees would add up so much with debit cards and ATM fees. Since living in Colombia, Canada, Mexico and The Netherlands - I use my travel cards for 99% of transactions (unless it’s cash only).

Reimbursed Global Entry or TSA Pre-Check

If you don’t have these yet, I highly recommend doing so. Recently, Clay and I were flying from La Guardia to Reykjavík and the only reason we made the flight is because I had TSA Pre-Check. I got through security super quick, ran ahead to the gate agent and begged them to hold the plane. They were kind enough to actually go escort him through security to hurry everything along but he wouldn’t have even had a chance if I wasn’t able to get through so fast.

I also can’t even count how many times Global Entry came in clutch at customs in Dallas when returning from Mexico to the U.S. I know there were at least 5 connections that I was able to make because of how quickly I got through with Global Entry.

Pro Tip: Global Entry includes TSA Pre-Check so if you’re gonna go through the hassle of getting TSA Pre-Check, you might as well go for Global Entry so you can have both.

Additional Benefits:

There’s also the huge benefit of the initial mile bonus if you meet the minimum spend. When I signed up, you had to spend $4,000 within the first three months to receive the 75,000 mile bonus (equal to $750 in travel!) which I fulfilled. This was able to cover my entire flight from Omaha to Amsterdam.

There’s many other perks to this card such as receiving status upgrades on rental cars and at hotels. I also enjoy being able to see my credit score within the app anytime I log in.

Referral Link:

If you’d like to get the Venture X for yourself, my referral link will graciously gift me 10,000 miles. As a girl who loves loves loves to travel - receiving bonuses like that really helps justify all the time and effort I pour into creating and sharing content like this post! Thank you SOOO much in advance if you use my link. If you do, please send me a DM so I can thank you properly <3