Can I ask for what reason you're interested in a premium travel card? That would help narrow down alternatives.
The $300 rebate is a big part of what makes the AF worth it, so it's a much harder sell if you don't use it. Personally, I've found the portal to be not-that-bad so far, and I think it would be relatively easy to get the credit if you travel domestically at least once a year.

If you're considering alternatives though, have a look at this spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

You can use it to compare the expected rewards from Venture X and its alternatives based on your spending habits. And it lets you plug in your own personal value for things like Priority Pass (e.g. $50), so it's a good measure of how much value you would get out of each card.
And here's a video explaining how it works:

Thanks actually, this helped a lot. The calculator did show me that the Venture X is pretty good for me. I'd be happy to book things through the portal to use up the credit, I just wouldn't do it normally. But the 2X for all spending does seem to be the best return vs other cards.

Been pricing rental cars to use my $300 annual travel credit. What I am finding is many reservations are non refundable, or “conditional refundable”. Rental from others sites are generally cheaper too. What has other people’s experiences been. I don’t see a $300 value in it.

How much are people valuing the $300 travel credit via the portal at?
It's a strong card overall but I am having hard time assigning an estimated value for the $300 travel credit.

I have access to corporate rates for rental cars (Personal use explicitly allowed). Not being able to add membership number for OTA bookings also blocks express checkouts and that is a non-starter if traveling to a busy destination.
For hotels, Corporate rate/AAA rates is usually 10-15% lower than hotel BAR for hotels and allow status benefits. Hotels treat OTA bookings like second class citizens. For nicer hotels I'd rather book via Virtuoso or other similar programs.
For flights, I am drawing from airline/UR/MR miles.

Without a detailed analysis, I can only value the travel credit as worthing ~$150 between the higher prices of the Portal versus Corporate/AAA/Virtuoso rates and the typical drawbacks for portal bookings. Thoughts?

Fair enough regarding rental cars and I fully agree regarding hotels. But for airlines, the vast majority of folks cannot book 100% of their flights using miles - there's gotta be some of them which are cash.

I agree that only providing credit for travel portal purchases significantly limits my ability to benefit. However, I have managed to find one use which is for a hotel that is not part of any major chain, therefore I am not missing out on any loyalty benefits. So I have managed to get $177 of benefit so far for a one-night reservation.

DAK

Agreed, it's a pain but doable. I just booked an AA flight on it, that was the same price as booking directly.

Agreed.
To add to this, I looked up Rentals for YYZ and they only have Thrifty and Dollar at premium $ and nothing from all the other major car rental chains.
Really trying to figure out how me and p2 will make use of the $300 credit

Does anyone have any data points of Capital One clawing back part of the $300 travel credit, after a hotel/flight cancelation? I made a booking and decided to cancel, once I realized that booking directly with the property would save me $40.00 in resort fees.

When I got the Venture+ in December, I made two hotel reservations for $161.00 and $145.00. I canceled the $161.00 reservation and am curious if Capital One will claw back $161.00 or $155.00, or nothing.

I normally like booking direct to earn elite benefits, but could make another booking before the end of the year if needed.

Is there any way to use the $300 C1 travel portal credit for travel on Southwest Airlines?

No, SWA does not participate in their travel portal. Im not sure if SWA participates in ANY third party booking portals.
So far I have seen Delta, United, American, and oddly enough, Frontier in the C1 Travel portal.

SW has to be booked via SW and to my knowledge, they have no airline partners. I would love it if Capital One could land a 1.75:1(at most) transfer deal with SW, but that is highly unlikely.

Apologies if this has been answered, have tried to follow the thread from the beginning, but it's getting pretty big at this point.

Any experience with the $300 travel credit counting toward the $10K spend. For example, if booking a $500 hotel through the Capital One Travel Portal, will the full $500 count towards the spend or just net of the credit (i.e. $200 in this case)?

I'm assuming the full amount will not count towards the spend, once the credit is applied, but curious if anyone has direct experience.

Regards

The full amount will count

Thanks. That is a pleasant, unexpected surprise.

Regards