Citi Premier Card vs. Capital One Venture X Card [Detailed Comparison]

Even though Citi and Capital One are 2 of the largest financial institutions in the U.S., their rewards credit cards usually don’t get as much attention as those offered by Chase and American Express.

However, these issuers offer a number of rewards credit cards that have some great perks. If you’re considering getting a credit card from Citi or Capital One and want to earn lots of rewards, you’re probably deciding between the Citi Premier^® Card and the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card.

The Citi Premier card earns bonus points on a wide variety of spending categories, while the Capital One Venture X card earns a solid return on all purchases. In this guide, we’ll give you the A to Z for both cards!

Citi Premier Card vs. Capital One Venture X Card — Overview

If you’re looking for a 30,000-foot view of each card, check out the table we’ve compiled below to help you compare the 2 cards:

As you can see, the Citi Premier card offers significantly fewer benefits but has a much lower annual fee than the Capital One Venture X card. However, the Citi Premier card has some impressive bonus categories that can help you rack up points faster than the Capital One Venture X card in some cases.

The Citi Premier card is also a mid-tier card, while the Capital One Venture X card is considered an ultra-premium card.

The differences don’t stop there — the Citi Premier card earns ThankYou Points, while the Capital One Venture X card earns Capital One miles.

Both of these currencies share several transfer partners, including Avianca LifeMiles and Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles, though there are some unique transfer relationships like Citi’s 1:2 transfer ratio to Choice Privileges and Capital One’s 1:1 transfer ratio to Air Canada Aeroplan.

As a general rule of thumb, we believe Capital One miles are slightly more valuable than Citi ThankYou Points.

The Capital One Venture X card has a significantly higher annual fee, but greater benefits to compensate.

The Value of a Welcome Bonus

Most of the best rewards credit cards come with welcome bonuses that accelerate the number of points or miles earned within the first few months of card opening, as long as you meet some introductory spending requirements.

In this case, both the Citi Premier card and Capital One Venture X card routinely offer valuable welcome bonuses:

Citi Premier Card

Capital One Venture X Card

Citi ThankYou Points vs. Capital One Miles

Capital One miles and Citi ThankYou Points are both valuable and flexible rewards currencies. They can be transferred to airline and hotel loyalty programs, as well as be redeemed for cash-back, gift cards, and more.

We are of the opinion that Capital One miles are more valuable than Citi ThankYou Points, mostly because of its larger list of transfer partners. That said, Citi ThankYou Points are still very valuable and have their own unique advantages.

Earning Potential

Here’s a breakdown of the rewards-earning categories each card offers:

We value Capital One miles at around 1.8 cents each and Citi ThankYou Points at about 1.6 cents each.

By earning 3x Citi ThankYou Points, you’re getting a 4.8% return on your spending. By earning 10x Capital One miles through Capital One Travel, you’re getting an 18% return on spending, which is astonishing. Earning 5x Capital One miles translates to a 9% return on spending, and 2x Capital One miles equals a 3.6% return on spending.

The Citi Premier card earns a superior amount of rewards on common spending categories including gas stations, restaurants, and supermarkets, while the Capital One Venture X card outperforms on Capital One Travel transactions, as well as miscellaneous purchases such as sporting goods, entertainment, online shopping, insurance premiums, health care, and more.

10,000-Mile Anniversary Bonus

The Capital One Venture X card also carries the extra benefit of an annual cardmember anniversary bonus of 10,000 Capital One miles (which we value at $180).

Redemption Options

In this section, we’ll walk you through some of the best redemption options with each card:

You can redeem Capital One miles and Citi ThankYou Points for a variety of rewards, but you’ll get the best value when transferring them to airline and hotel loyalty programs for award travel. In particular, redeeming for long-haul business and first class flights or luxury hotels will typically get you the best redemption value.

That being said, Capital One miles and Citi ThankYou Points both independently maintain their own transfer partners. Capital One has 18 transfer partners while Citi has 16 transfer partners.

Luckily, with either currency, there are plenty of ways to use Citi ThankYou Points and Capital One miles. Not all partners are shared between programs — Capital One miles has a partnership with Wyndham Rewards that Citi does not. Similarly, Citi has a partnership with Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus that Capital One does not.

For example, you can transfer 70,000 Capital One miles to British Airways Avios to book a one-way Qatar Airways Qsuites flight from the U.S. to the Middle East, which easily sells for more than $5,000. You can also transfer 27,500 Citi ThankYou Points per night to Choice Privileges (at a 1:2 ratio) for a stay at Grand Fiesta Americana Los Cabos All Inclusive Golf & Spa, which routinely sells for more than $600 per night!

There are other ways to redeem Capital One miles and Citi ThankYou Points, like gift cards and online shopping, but these methods will yield a variable, and lower, redemption value. As an example, you can use Capital One miles for a statement credit to cover travel purchases from the previous 90 days at a flat redemption value of 1 cent per mile. You can also redeem Capital One miles and Citi ThankYou Points at a flat value of 1 cent per point for travel bookings made through each card’s travel portal. The Citi Premier card allows you to redeem points for cash-back at a rate of 1 cent per point, while you’ll only get 0.5 cents per point for cash-back with Capital One miles.

Statement Credits

The major statement credit benefit offered by the Citi Premier card is the annual hotel savings benefit, which gets you $100 back on a single hotel stay of $500 or more, excluding taxes and fees booked through thankyou.com.

In comparison, the Capital One Venture X card has 2 types of statement credits:

• Up to $300 Capital One Travel credit for bookings made through the Capital One Travel portal every cardmember year. You can book all sorts of travel through the Capital One Travel portal, including flights, hotels, car rentals, and more. The Capital One Travel portal also offers benefits such as price protection and price matching.
• Up to $100 Global Entry or TSA PreCheck application fee credit up to every 4 years

Travel Benefits and Protections

Typically, the most obvious area where an ultra-premium card like the Capital One Venture X card sets itself apart from a mid-tier premium card like the Citi Premier card is through travel benefits and protections.

We’ll walk you through the specifics in this next section.

Airport Lounge Benefits

The Capital One Venture X card offers multiple airport lounge benefits.

This includes unlimited access to Capital One Lounges and Plaza Premium Lounges for the primary cardholder and 2 guests. Additionally, the Capital One Venture X card includes a complimentary Priority Pass Select airport lounge membership.

These benefits mean you can access 1,400+ lounges globally just from your Capital One Venture X card.

The Citi Premier card does not provide any airport lounge benefits.

Hotel and Rental Car Program Benefits

The Capital One Venture X card also offers benefits at hotels and with rental car agencies. To start off, if you hold the Capital One Venture X card, you’ll get access to the Premier Collection, a hand-picked portfolio of hotels and resorts where you can enjoy:

• Complimentary breakfast for 2
• $100 experience credit (varies by hotel)
• Room upgrade when available
• Early check-in and late checkout when available
• Free Wi-Fi

Remember, all hotel stays booked through Capital One Travel with the Capital One Venture X card earn 10x miles!

Another lesser-known hotel benefit of the Capital One Venture X card (at least until January 19, 2024) is with Gravity Haus — a lifestyle membership program where you can use your card to get a $300 discount towards hotel stays at top ski resorts, access to exclusive events, and ski or snowboarding gear discounts.

Additionally, you will get complimentary Hertz President’s Circle status, which is Hertz’s top-tier elite status. This gets you guaranteed upgrades, the widest selection of cars through Ultimate Choice, and a 50% bonus on earning points.

The Citi Premier card doesn’t offer any hotel and rental car program benefits besides some cookie-cutter World Elite Mastercard inclusions, such as access to the Mastercard luxury hotel and resorts portfolio.

Rideshare Benefits

With the Citi Premier card, you’ll get a $5 credit once per month after you take 3 rides with Lyft in a month.

There are no rideshare benefits on the Capital One Venture X card.

Rental Car Insurance

The Capital One Venture X card offers excellent rental car insurance that’s primary and covers up to $75,000. Just decline the rental car company’s loss damage waiver or collision damage waiver (LDW or CDW) and use your card to pay for the car rental. After that, you’ll get coverage for theft or damage to the rental car (excluding liability).

The Citi Premier card does not offer rental car insurance.

Trip Interruption and Cancellation Insurance

The Capital One Venture X card covers you, your spouse, and your dependent children for prepaid and nonrefundable arrangements that are canceled or interrupted due to a covered reason when you use your card to purchase your common carrier ticket (such as your airline ticket).

This coverage gets you up to $2,000 in reimbursements per person.

The Citi Premier card doesn’t come with any trip interruption or cancellation insurance.

Trip Delay Reimbursement

If you purchase your common carrier ticket with the Capital One Venture X card and your trip is delayed for more than 6 hours or requires an overnight stay, you, your spouse, and your dependent children under the age of 22 can get up to $500 in trip delay reimbursements.

This is limited to a maximum of 1 claim per trip.

The Citi Premier card doesn’t have trip delay reimbursement.

Lost Luggage Reimbursement

While you’re traveling, if the common carrier loses your luggage, you can use the Capital One Venture X card to file for reimbursements for your lost luggage. This benefit can get you up to $3,000 per trip for yourself or your immediate family members.

Just keep in mind that there’s a limit of $2,000 per bag for New York state residents.

You’ll be out of luck with the Citi Premier card, though. There’s no lost luggage insurance offered through the card.

Travel Accident Insurance

The Capital One Venture X card covers you for up to $1 million with its worldwide common carrier travel accident insurance. This includes accidental loss of life, limb, sight, speech, or hearing while traveling on a common carrier.

The Citi Premier card doesn’t offer travel accident insurance.

Travel and Emergency Assistance Services

With the Capital One Venture X card, you have access to travel and emergency assistance services, which provide assistance and referrals only (you’d be responsible for all costs incurred) for these specific needs:

The Citi Premier card doesn’t offer travel and emergency assistance services.

Hot Tip: Learn more about coverages in our full list of travel insurance benefits for the Capital One Venture X card.

Shopping Benefits and Protections

Cell Phone Protection

The Capital One Venture X card is one of the few cards offering cell phone insurance. When you use this credit card to pay for your monthly cellular bill you’ll enjoy cell phone protection for any covered theft, damage, or involuntary or accidental parting of your cell phone.

This coverage offers up to $800 in reimbursements per claim with a $50 deductible. You can get up to 2 approved claims per rolling 12 months.

The Citi Premier card doesn’t have cell phone insurance.

Return Protection

When you use the Capital One Venture X card to make purchases, you can utilize return protection if your return request is denied by the original merchant.

As long as you attempt the return within 90 days of the original purchase, you can get up to $300 per item in return protection, up to $1,000 per calendar year.

The Citi Premier card doesn’t have return protection.

Purchase Protection

Purchase protection can certainly come in handy if you purchase something that’s stolen or damaged shortly after you purchased it.

The Citi Premier card, by virtue of its World Elite Mastercard status, gets you purchase protection of up to $10,000 per item and a maximum of $50,000 per calendar year on eligible incidents that occur within 90 days of the original purchase.

Capital One calls their version of this “purchase security,” but it’s essentially the same thing. In the case of the Capital One Venture X card, as long as the incident occurs within 90 days after the purchase date, you can get covered for a maximum of $10,000 per item and $50,000 per calendar year.

Extended Warranty

The Citi Premier card has an awesome extended warranty policy through World Elite Mastercard that gets you up to 24 additional months of warranty coverage for a maximum of 7 total years after the purchase date. There’s a coverage cap of $10,000 per item.

The Capital One Venture X card gets you 1 additional year on eligible warranties of up to 3 years, which means there’s a maximum total coverage of 4 years, including the extended warranty. This coverage is capped at $10,000 per item and $50,000 per calendar year.

Virtual Card Numbers

When you use the Citi Premier card, there’s an awesome benefit whereby you can create Virtual Account Numbers, which is super useful when shopping online so that your actual credit card number is hidden.

The same is true with the Capital One Venture X card — this benefit is called Virtual Card Numbers, and it’s done through the 24/7 Capital One virtual assistant known as Eno.

No Foreign Transaction Fees

Both the Citi Premier card and Capital One Venture X card have no foreign transaction fees.

Annual Fees and Adding Additional Users

In this final section, we’ll go over the critical fees to be mindful of with both cards. We’ll also wrap up with the benefits that authorized users get on each card.

Annual Fees

There’s a $395 annual fee on the Capital One Venture X card and a $95 annual fee on the Citi Premier card.

Authorized Users

The Citi Premier card has no additional annual fees for authorized users at all, and there are also no additional annual fees for authorized users on the Capital One Venture X card, though you can only add 4 authorized users under this policy.

Authorized users on the Citi Premier card enjoy almost all of same benefits as the primary cardholder, save for the $100 annual hotel savings benefit and any welcome bonuses.

One of the most amazing features of the Capital One Venture X card is the immense benefits that are available to authorized users, of which 4 can be added with no additional annual fees.

Each authorized user on the Capital One Venture X card can enjoy a complimentary Priority Pass Select airport lounge membership, access to Capital One Lounges and Plaza Premium Lounges (including 2 additional guests traveling with the authorized user), Hertz President’s Circle status, all Visa Infinite perks and protections, and the same earning structure as the primary cardholder.

Authorized users will not get their own up-to-$300 Capital One Travel credit, Global Entry or TSA PreCheck application fee reimbursement, or 10,000-mile anniversary bonus. They will also not get their own welcome bonus.

Final Thoughts

The Capital One Venture X card is an absolute heavy-hitter when it comes to benefits and rewards, especially if you plan on adding authorized users. That being said, it does have a significant annual fee that can’t be ignored.

The Citi Premier card, on the other hand, has a much milder annual fee and some truly impressive rewards categories, including supermarkets, gas stations, and restaurants. However, this card is really light on the travel benefits.

Nevertheless, either of these cards could fit into the right person’s wallet.

If you think you can use the premium benefits of the Capital One Venture X card often enough to justify the annual fee, then it could be a solid pick. But if you don’t need extensive travel benefits and want a card with a reasonable annual fee and great points-earning capabilities, then the Citi Premier card may be best for you.

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.

The information regarding the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card was independently collected by Upgraded Points and not provided nor reviewed by the issuer.