Hello,
Trying to decide if the Venture X is for me and was wondering if booking trips through the C1 portal is worth it in price/convenience vs booking direct.
Is the Capital One Travel Portal worth using?
byu/da_man4444 inCreditCards
Posted by da_man4444
6 Comments
Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. I have found great value in there. Particularly using the $300 travel credit on rental cars.
I would be fine booking hotels through a portal. I would not be ok booking flights. With hotels, all you have to do is call the hotel directly after booking to confirm they have your reservation. I have done this a ton and never had issues. With a flight, it’s very common for your flight to get delayed or cancelled, so I definitely do not want a third party (the portal) to deal with other than the airline. It’s just not worth it. With capital one specifically, their prices are often the worst of all the other portals, but they make up for this by having a price match guarantee.
i used it for a recent trip, mostly because i had to lol. i had a 300 dollar hotel credit and they happened to have a discount on using it for the first time. saved a bunch of money. no issues with the booking, nor with the hotel. also used it for a flight. same, no issues and the price was just about what i saw on Google Flights. i guess i could have saved like 30 bucks by using some random third party agency google found lol.
Yes, the Capital One Travel Portal is worth using. 🤝🏾✨
More background on your spending vs frequent trips will heavily depend on “worth” but generally, yes. Personally, I try to take advantage of transfer partners for my miles (half my trip to French Polynesia already covered by my miles earned in 2 months). All this done without changing my spending habits or coupon chasing. Worse case scenario, I can do the travel eraser if necessary after travel-related purchases.
I am also not dedicated to a specific airline so the option of 5x miles on flights with the portal plus 10x on hotels/rentals works with my lifestyle. I can price match within 24 hours. Again, I am not dedicated to a specific hotel so a general booking via portal plus price matching is more convenient for me.
Effectively, I get paid to hold the card and it’s easy for me to use the $300 travel voucher via portal. The portal is far from perfect, but the convenience of its use and flexibility of airline transfers and hotels I want for my family is very easy to utilize.
We use the portal any time we’re paying cash for a hotel booking. The price-match feature is a bit cumbersome but does in fact work and helps ensure you’re not getting cheated by inflated prices.
We typically only book the Lifestyle/Premiere collection hotels, to ensure better customer service, but we’ve never had a bad experience with those.