How I Saved $100+ With Capital One Travel’s Price Match Guarantee

For an upcoming trip to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, I had been chasing non-existent airline award availability for weeks and was watching cash prices for airfare increase daily. I bit the bullet and determined that I would need to purchase a ticket with cash … and quickly before fares rose any higher.

I wanted to explore all of my options to get the best overall deal — I wasn’t just looking for the cheapest flight, but also wanted to use the best credit card that delivered high rewards and good travel insurance coverage. This search led me to Capital One Travel, where I was able to score the best available fare via a price match and maximize my earnings with my Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card.

Let’s dive into why pricing out your flight on Capital One Travel might be worth your time, even if you find a cheaper fare elsewhere.

What Is Capital One Travel?

Capital One Travel is an online travel portal open to Capital One cardholders that allows you to book flights, hotels, and car rentals. You can redeem Capital One miles to cover the cost of your booking at a rate of 1 cent per mile or use any credit card (even non-Capital One cards) to pay.

When paying with select Capital One cards, you’ll also earn up to 10x miles for your Capital One Travel purchase. Here are some of our favorite Capital One cards:

While hotels booked through Capital One Travel are not eligible to earn loyalty points, you are able to earn frequent flyer miles for flights booked through the portal.

A downside to booking flights through Capital One Travel is that should your flight get changed or canceled, you will most likely have to manage changes to your reservation through Capital One Travel, not directly with the airline. This could add an extra layer of frustration when trying to make new travel plans, as it’s often easier to deal directly with the airline vs. a third-party service.

Why I Booked With Capital One Travel

I use 2 main credit cards for travel purchases, and I always review our detailed comparison of the Capital One Venture X card vs. the Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card before making a big purchase. In this case, I double-checked the earning rates and travel insurance benefits.

While both cards earn 5x miles/points on flights through their respective travel portals, the Chase Sapphire Preferred card has slightly stronger trip cancellation and trip interruption coverage with $10,000 per person/$20,000 per trip, while the Capital One Venture X card offers $2,000 per trip. However, the Capital One Venture X card has better trip delay coverage with 6-hour delay coverage vs. 12-hour delay coverage on the Chase Sapphire Preferred card.

All things fairly equal, I checked my flight options on Capital One Travel and the Chase Travel portal, and Capital One Travel won me over with cheaper flights for the schedule I was after. I booked 5 round-trip flights from Johannesburg (JNB) to Victoria Falls (VFA) on South African Airways for $1,428.50 and paid with my Capital One Venture X card; this transaction would earn over 7,100 Capital One miles since the card earns 5x miles on flights purchased through Capital One Travel.

If I had booked the flight directly with the airline, I would have paid $1,316.75 and earned 2,633 miles at the 2x miles rate. We value Capital One miles at 1.8 cents per mile, meaning I would earn $129 worth of miles with my Capital One Travel purchase vs. $47 worth of miles if I had purchased directly — a 174% increase in value.

Hot Tip: The Capital One Venture X card comes with an annual $300 travel credit valid for purchases at Capital One Travel. While I had already used my credit for the year, this would have easily swayed me to use Capital One Travel for my purchase.

How Capital One Travel’s Price Match Guarantee Works

Capital One Travel offers a price match guarantee within 24 hours of your purchase if you find a better price for your flight, hotel, or rental car on another website. This is a great way to match to the pricing from some of those unknown OTAs that might show on a Google Flights or Kayak search.

Start the process by calling Capital One Travel at 844-422-6922 to begin your claim. The agent will attempt to verify the lower price while on the phone with you, and if they’re successful you’ll receive a 100% refund for the difference. If for some reason your claim can’t be verified during the call, the agent will start an offline review and follow up with you.

The itinerary on the site you’re attempting to match to must be an exact match to your Capital One Travel booking, should be priced in U.S. dollars, and should be available to the general public without any coupons, promotions, or member discounts.

Review Capital One Travel’s price match guarantee terms and conditions to learn more.

Hot Tip: At the time of my price match, Capital One was refunding the difference to the original method of payment. However, in May 2023 the policy was changed so that all refunds are now processed as Capital One Travel Credit.

Booking the Flight and Getting the Price Match

I researched prices for my desired flights on Google Flights before purchasing and was able to see that South African Airways offered the same flight on its website for $1,393.06. This was just $35.44 cheaper than Capital One Travel’s price of $1,428.50, but in the interest of earning more miles, I decided to purchase the tickets through Capital One Travel and attempt a price match.

My call to Capital One Travel to initiate the price match lasted just under 20 minutes. The representative was able to see my current reservation at $1,428.50 and was able to pull up the cheaper option of $1,393.06 on flysaa.com to implement the price match.

She processed the refund of $35.44 ($7.09 per ticket), but when she placed me on hold, I happened to refresh the flysaa.com page. To my surprise, the tickets were now even cheaper by another $76.30! Since the rep had not completed the call with me, I asked if she was able to see the reduced fare of $1,316.75 and match it further. She confirmed that she was able to see the new fare and happily processed a further refund of $76.30 ($15.26 per ticket). Overall, I received a total refund of $111.75. While this was refunded back to my Capital One Venture X card in January 2023 according to the policy at the time, the terms and conditions changed in May 2023 and refunds are now refunded as Capital One Travel Credits.

I earned 7,143 Capital One miles for my initial purchase, though 555 miles were subsequently deducted for the refund.

After the price match, my final cost was $1,316.75 with 6,588 miles earned (worth about $119).

Hot Tip: Make sure to document the date and time of your price match guarantee call, who you spoke with, what the expected refund should be, and when you should receive the refund by. It is also helpful for your records to also have a screenshot of the site and fare you are trying to match to.

Final Thoughts

Was 20 minutes of my time worth saving $111.75? You bet. I had a great experience with the Capital One Travel representative that assisted me, and I appreciated that at the end of the day, I received the match I was after and even a bonus match that increased my overall savings. I was able to successfully get the best available price for my flights while earning the highest rewards rate possible on my available credit cards — an overall win-win.