Capital One announced today a partnership with Hotels.com to offer 10x miles on the Capital One Venture cards (worth 10% back) when booking hotel stays on Hotels.com using the dedicated URL hotels.com/venture. This offer is for both the Venture card and the no-fee VentureOne card, and will continue through January 2020. Be sure not to pay with Paypal or any mobile wallet.
Two positive things are made clear in the press release:
This 10x in on top of the standard Venture card earnings which is 2x on the Venture and 1.25x on the VentureOne.(this is wrong)- This promotion stacks with Hotels.com rewards program to get 1 free night after 10 stays.
Capital One continues creating innovative partnerships, though this deal is not necessarily as good as it sounds for a few reasons:
- You’ll have to pay with a Venture card which means not using discounted Hotels.com gift cards.
- Even if you don’t have Hotels.com gift cards, there are other credit cards like CSR which might get you more value from their standard rewards than the Venture, so you are losing a bit there.
- Good chance you’ll be losing out on portal rewards since there’s a dedicated URL for this Capital One offer. Portal rates are regularly in the 6% area for Hotels.com. That’s a significant loss.
- Some promo code offers might not be eligible at this link. We’ll see.
Still, there’s something to be said for simplicity, and who knows, maybe portals will stack with this (I wonder if you don’t really have to use the dedicated URL at all, despite the terms, or maybe clicking through the portal first and then going to the dedicated URL will work). Overall, heavy Hotels.com users will likely find this offer useful, if only for it’s simplicity.
Remember that when booking through Hotels.com isn’t a silver bullet since you won’t get any elite benefits or hotel loyalty points. William wrote up a full analysis of stacking discounts at hotels.com in a dedicated post. Hopefully he’ll add here if I missed anything.
