Can I Upgrade the Capital One Venture Card to the Capital One Venture X Card? [2024]

The Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card and Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card are often confused with each other — and while the name of the cards only has a difference of 1 letter, they appeal to different types of travelers and spenders.

For those who have the Capital One Venture card and are considering getting the Capital One Venture X card, you’ll need to understand the upgrade process and application rules. While it’s possible to upgrade an existing Capital One Venture card to the Capital One Venture X card, not everyone will be eligible.

In this post, we’ll show you how to check your upgrade eligibility and whether or not an upgrade makes sense for you.

Capital One Venture Card vs. Capital One Venture X Card

Both the Capital One Venture card and Capital One Venture X card offer strong travel benefits and lucrative rewards, but there are some important distinctions between the 2 cards.

Here’s what to expect with each card.

Capital One Venture Card Benefits

The Capital One Venture card offers a substantial rewards-earning structure that rivals many ultra-premium credit cards.

When spending with the Capital One Venture card, you’ll earn miles at the following rate:

• 5x Capital One miles on hotels and rental cars purchased through Capital One Travel
• 2x Capital One miles on all other purchases

Capital One Travel generally matches the cheapest available prices on hotels and rental cars, which makes it easy to earn 5x miles on those purchases.

Benefits of the Capital One Venture card also include a Global Entry or TSA PreCheck credit, Hertz Gold Plus Five Star status, purchase assurance, and no foreign transaction fees (rates & fees).

The Capital One Venture card comes with a modest annual fee of $95 (rates & fees).

Capital One Venture X Card Benefits

The Capital One Venture X card offers similar benefits to the Capital One Venture card but with a handful of important upgrades.

With the Capital One Venture X card, you’ll earn rewards at the following rate:

• 10x Capital One miles on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel
• 5x Capital One miles on flights booked through Capital One Travel
• 2x Capital One miles on other purchases

We value Capital One miles at 1.8 cents each, which means earning 10x miles on hotels and car rentals is equivalent to an astounding 18% return on spending.

The valuable benefits of the Capital One Venture X card also include an annual $300 Capital One Travel credit and an anniversary bonus of 10,000 miles after you renew your card every year.

Similar to the Capital One Venture card you’ll still get a Global Entry or TSA PreCheck credit. However, you get a lounge benefit with the Capital One Venture X card as you’ll receive unlimited access to 1,400+ airport lounges worldwide for yourself and up to 2 guests at Capital One Lounges, and participating Plaza Premium and Priority Pass lounges in the Partner Lounge Network!

The Capital One Venture X card is great for booking luxury hotels because of its access to the Premier Collection which gets you a number of benefits at eligible properties, including a $100 experience credit, daily breakfast for 2, the ability to earn 10x miles on bookings, early check-in and late checkout (upon availability), and more.

Finally, you’ll also enjoy top-tier Hertz Gold Plus President’s Circle status on car rentals!

Of course, an essential element of the Capital One Venture X card is its robust travel insurance benefits that the Capital One Venture card can’t hold a candle to, including:

• Trip interruption and cancellation
• Trip delay reimbursement
• Auto rental collision damage waiver (primary coverage)
• Baggage delay reimbursement
• Access to the Visa Infinite Concierge

Lastly, the Capital One Venture X card comes with cell phone insurance and return protection.

While the Capital One Venture X card comes loaded with benefits, it does have a hefty annual fee of $395 (rates & fees).

Bottom Line:

The Capital One Venture X card out-earns the Capital One Venture card by offering 10x miles on hotels and car rentals and 5x miles on flights booked through Capital One Travel. It also offers more valuable benefits like a $300 Capital One Travel credit, a 10,000-mile anniversary bonus, unlimited lounge access, top-tier Hertz status, access to the Premier Collection for high-end hotel stays, and more.

Benefits Comparison

Here is a table summarizing the difference in benefits and features for both of these cards:

Benefit	Capital One Venture Card	Capital One Venture X Card
Mileage-earning Rate for Hotels and Rental Cars Booked Through Capital One Travel	5x	10x
Mileage-earning Rate for Flights Booked Through Capital One Travel	2x	5x
Other Purchases	2x	2x
$300 Capital One Travel Credit	No	Yes
Global Entry or TSA PreCheck Credit	Yes	Yes
Access to Capital One Lounges and Plaza Premium Lounges	No	Unlimited access
Priority Pass Select Airport Lounge Membership	No	Yes
Anniversary Renewal Bonus	No	10,000 miles
Access to the Premier Collection	No	Yes
Hertz Elite Status	Five Star	President’s Circle
Trip Interruption and Cancellation Insurance	No	Yes
Trip Delay Reimbursement	No	Yes
Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver	Secondary	Primary
Baggage Delay Reimbursement	No	Yes
Travel Accident Insurance	Yes	Yes
Cell Phone Protection	No	Yes
Purchase Security/Assurance	Yes	Yes
Extended Warranty Coverage	Yes	Yes
Return Protection	No	Yes
No Foreign Transaction Fees	Yes	Yes
Annual Fee	$95 (rates & fees)	$395 (rates & fees)
Authorized Users	Add cardholders to your account for no additional fee (rates & fees)	Add cardholders to your account for no additional fee (rates & fees)

If you can make use of the travel benefits from the Capital One Venture X card, it’s a clear winner over the Capital One Venture card. The 10,000-mile anniversary bonus and $300 Capital One Travel credit alone are worth more than the $395 annual fee (rates & fees). Its other perks like cell phone protection, various travel insurance policies, and access to airport lounges can potentially add thousands of dollars of value to the card.

If you’re primarily focused on earning rewards on non-travel purchases and don’t find much value in the Capital One Venture X card’s travel perks, the Capital One Venture card may be the better fit for you with its lower annual fee.

Hot Tip:

Capital One miles are flexible rewards with many redemption options including transferring to airline and hotel partners — check out our guide on the best ways to redeem from your Capital One miles.

How To Upgrade Your Capital One Venture Card

There are 2 ways to upgrade your Capital One Venture card to the Capital One Venture X card. However, it’s important to note that Capital One can be selective in allowing upgrades to the Capital One Venture X card. Unlike other banks, credit card upgrades with Capital One may be reserved for a select group of individuals.

Luckily, you can easily see if you qualify for an upgrade by either checking online or calling the number on the back of your card. Keep in mind that phone agents at Capital One can see the same exact offers as whatever you see online.

Follow these steps to check upgrade offers online:

1. Go to the Capital One homepage and log into your account.

2. Once you’re logged in, select your Capital One Venture card.

3. On your Capital One Venture card dashboard, you’ll see a row of buttons with buttons like View Statements, Manage Account Users, and I Want To…

4. Click the button that says I Want To… and that will prompt a pop-up box to appear with different buttons.

5. Find the button that says View Offers and Upgrades in the Offers and Upgrades section.

6. You’ll see any upgrade offers appear on this page. If you don’t see any offers, it means you were not targeted for an upgrade to the Capital One Venture X card.

Who Should Upgrade Their Card?

So, should you upgrade your Capital One Venture card to the Capital One Venture X card? The answer depends on your own situation. Here are some reasons why you might want to upgrade:

1. You’ve Had the Capital One Venture Card for at Least 1 Year

If you’ve had your Capital One Venture card for at least 1 year, you should theoretically be eligible to upgrade to the Capital One Venture X card. However, Capital One may still not target you for an upgrade.

Keep in mind that you can only upgrade your card after you have had it open for at least 1 year due to the Credit CARD Act of 2009.

2. You Get an Upgrade Offer

It’s likely that you won’t be able to hold both the Capital One Venture card and the Capital One Venture X card at the same time. So if you currently have the Capital One Venture card, getting approved for the Capital One Venture X card through a new application may be difficult.

For this reason, the upgrade offer may be your best shot at converting your existing card to the more premium version.

In some cases, Capital One may actually reward you for upgrading your card with a hefty amount of bonus miles.

If you get an upgrade offer for the Capital One Venture X card that includes bonus miles it makes the value proposition of the change more clear, even if you may not use all of the card’s perks.

3. You Travel Frequently

If you’re a big fan of the Capital One Venture X card’s travel benefits and find yourself eligible for an upgrade, you should absolutely take it. There aren’t many cards that earn at least 2x miles on all purchases, and even fewer cards that also offer airport lounge access, cell phone protection insurance, and more.

The easiest litmus test for deciding whether you should keep the Capital One Venture card or upgrade to the Capital One Venture X card is by asking yourself if you travel a lot. If your answer is yes, you should upgrade to the Capital One Venture X card. If you don’t travel much it’s likely best to keep your Capital One Venture card as is.

4. You Don’t Want To Add a Hard Inquiry On Your Credit Report

Based on our experience, Capital One can be particularly brutal when you apply for a new card.

The bank only allows 1 application every 6 months (whether you’re approved or not) and also pulls credit reports from all 3 credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion). So if you apply and get denied for a card you’ll get dinged with a hard inquiry at all 3 credit bureaus, whereas other banks typically only perform a hard inquiry with 1 credit bureau.

And if you apply for a new Capital One card and get denied, you can rule out applying for any new cards with the bank for the next 6 months.

Upgrading your card takes most of the guesswork out of making this change — you’re likely to be approved because Capital One has prescreened you for a specific upgrade offer.

Also, upgrades do not result in hard inquiries with Capital One, so you can preserve that portion of your credit report.

Final Thoughts

Upgrade offers are at the discretion of Capital One; in other words, only a certain group of cardholders are targeted to upgrade to the Capital One Venture X card. If you get an upgrade offer, consider yourself one of the lucky ones. Remember that you can check to see if you’re targeted for an upgrade offer by looking in your online account or calling Capital One.

All in all, there are plenty of different reasons why you’d want to upgrade your Capital One Venture card to the Capital One Venture X card.

Although the decision is subject to your own personal situation, we believe that frequent travelers would benefit when making the jump to the Capital One Venture X card. If you don’t think you’ll use the Capital One Venture X card’s travel benefits then you’re likely better off sticking with the Capital One Venture card.

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For Capital One products listed on this page, some of the above benefits are provided by Visa^® or Mastercard^® and may vary by product. See the respective Guide to Benefits for details, as terms and exclusions apply.

Enrollment required through Capital One website or mobile app. Upon enrollment, eligible cardholders will remain at upgraded status level through December 31, 2024.  Please note, enrolling through the normal Hertz Gold Plus Rewards enrollment process (e.g. at Hertz.com) will not automatically detect a cardholder as being eligible for the program and cardholders will not be automatically upgraded to the applicable status tier.  Additional terms apply.