I think Capital One made an error by offering free AU cards with Priority Pass memberships, and it makes sense (to me) that they would now begin to charge a fee for those memberships. However, eliminating the free guests on Priority Pass memberships seems to be something different. It could be that Capital One simply does not want heavy lounge users as Venture X cardholders, or it could be that something has changed in their contract with Priority Pass, and we might not see parallel changes from other credit card issuers until their contracts renew.