After a recent refresh, holding The Platinum Card® from American Express feels more like belonging to a fancy “membership club” than carrying a card you can use to earn and redeem points for travel. But it's not alone.
Chase leaned hard into coupon-like credits and lifestyle perks when it revamped the Chase Sapphire Reserve® a few months back. Even Citi, which re-entered the premium card space earlier this summer with the $595 Strata Elite, followed the same playbook: narrow credits and partner-driven perks that have very little to do with travel.
This shift across the industry makes the *venture x* – and its travel-focused benefits – shine even brighter. While its competitors have piled on complicated statement credits and lifestyle add-ons, the Venture X has kept things simple – and that's exactly what travelers want most.
Learn more about the *venture x*.
Where the Venture X Came From
When Capital One launched the Venture X in late 2021, it shook up the premium travel card landscape. At just $395 a year, it was hundreds of dollars cheaper than the competition, all while offering lounge access, travel credits, and stronger earning rates than more expensive cards from banks like Amex and Chase.
Lauren Liss, Capital One's managing vice president of U.S. cards, explained the rationale in an interview with Thrifty Traveler like this:
“Right now, there is a gap in the market as [travelers] are looking for the right travel card. They don’t want to pay $600 for a card that has travel benefits. And they don’t want to have to take the time to continue to track a laundry list of benefits that they have to remember to register for. Did they use them? Did they not use them? I know I don’t have time for that, and we’ve heard from them that they don’t have time for that. We built on top of the Venture card because we know it’s a card that our customers love, with 2x earn everywhere. We’ve taken that and we’ve added really straightforward, streamlined benefits to that card.”
That original mission – simple, travel-focused benefits without a laundry list of credits – is exactly what made the Venture X stand out … and the gap just keeps getting wider. While Amex, Chase, and now Citi have all leaned further into coupon-like perks, Capital One has largely stuck to its original formula – and it could pay dividends, with many weary travelers ready to ditch their high-priced “coupon-books” altogether.
Read More: A Full Review of the Capital One Venture X: Get 75K Miles, Lounge Access & More
Venture X Keeps It Simple
For a $395 annual fee, the math is simple: Use the $300 annual Capital One Travel credit, add in the 10,000-miles anniversary bonus (worth at least $100 toward travel), and you’ve more than offset the cost of holding the card. Everything else, like lounge access, a credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck® enrollment, earning unlimited 2x miles on every dollar you spend, and strong travel protections are all just gravy. But most importantly, all those benefits are geared toward travel … not wellness or shopping discounts.
Of course, that’s not to say there aren’t other premium travel cards still out there – they're just targeted more to travelers partial to a particular airline or hotel. The Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card, The New United Club℠ Card, and the Citi®/AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard® all fit the bill, offering lounge access and other airline-specific perks … for a hefty fee. Meanwhile, a newcomer like the Atmos Rewards Summit Card is trying to carve out its niche in the premium travel space. However, all those cards are tied to a single airline, which makes the Venture X the last broad-use premium travel card still built, first and foremost, for travelers.
Capital One also provides one of the easiest ways to use miles. With the ability to cover nearly any travel purchase with miles, you can book however you want – directly with airlines, hotels, or even smaller travel companies – and then go back and use your miles to remove those charges from your statement. No portals, no restrictions, just straightforward flexibility.
Beyond that, Capital One has turned its mileage program into one of the strongest in the industry. When the Venture X launched back in 2021, it coincided with a significant push to expand transfer partners – and that roster has only grown since then, most recently with the addition of Japan Airlines and a couple of other partners. Today, cardholders can move miles to more than 20 airline and hotel programs, including valuable sweet spots like Air Canada Aeroplan, Avianca LifeMiles, and British Airways Executive Club.
Still, there’s one glaring gap: Unlike Amex, Chase, and Citi, Capital One doesn’t have a major U.S. airline transfer partner. Delta is tied to Amex, United and Southwest are locked up with Chase, and American Airlines remains exclusive to Citi. That missing link could hold Capital One back from fully competing with the other three banks, even as its international partners continue to make the program more compelling.
The Big Question
At $395, Venture X feels like a bargain compared to the $595 Strata Elite or the $795 to $895 fees from Chase and Amex. But that price point may not last forever.
We questioned a year ago whether Capital One would eventually raise the annual fee. While it hasn’t happened yet, they could increase it by $100 a year tomorrow, and it would still be the cheapest premium card on the market by a wide margin. That headroom makes an increase feel almost inevitable at some point.
Instead of hiking the annual fee outright, Capital One has already made some trade-offs. In 2022, the bank removed Priority Pass restaurant access as a cost-saving measure. Then in 2023, it changed how its Capital One Travel protections work: Refunds from the price drop protection and best price guarantee are now issued as Capital One Travel credits rather than money back to your card.
Starting early next year, Venture X cardholders will lose free lounge access for guests at both Capital One Lounges and Priority Pass lounges. Instead, additional guests will cost up to $45 apiece, and authorized users will even have to pay $125 per year to continue getting access of their own.
“As airport lounges continue to grow in popularity across the industry, we’ve seen our customers increasingly encounter wait times to enter them,” the bank said in a statement announcing this policy shift. “It is important to us that we maintain a great airport lounge experience for our Venture X and Venture X Business customers, while continuing to deliver best-in-class premium travel cards at an accessible price point.”
Meanwhile, Chase’s recent premium card refresh raises questions of its own. The bank rolled out sweeping changes to the Sapphire Reserve in June 2025, but then in August, it arguably made the welcome bonus better by adding more points … albeit without a travel credit. Then, just last week, the bank re-tooled the card's brand-new hotel credit – and sweetened the pot with an additional, one-time credit for 2026. Less than three months in, those quick adjustments suggest the refresh isn’t going quite as smoothly as Chase may have hoped.
Amex, on the other hand, has spent the better part of a decade conditioning Platinum cardholders to accept credit-heavy perks. Historically, Capital One has catered to the subprime and mass-market audience, not the wealthier demographic Amex targets. That customer base may be more sensitive to higher fees and less tolerant to a complicated, credit-heavy model – another reason Capital One could be cautious about where it takes the Venture X next.
Bottom line
For now, the Capital One Venture X is the rare premium card that remains simple, flexible, and most importantly, built for travelers. Aside from co-branded airline cards, it’s the only true general-purpose premium travel card left. How long it will stay that way is a whole other question.
Learn more about the *venture x*.
