Venture X Business Priority Pass Restaurants

Pretty soon there will be none, at least it feels that way. A few weeks after Chase announced that they were dropping Priority Pass restaurants from the Sapphire Reserve, it looks like Capital One did it as well – on the sly. That is right, no announcement, no heads up, no warning. It appears the Venture X Business Priority Pass restaurants access is no more, for new cardholders at least. The reports are that if you have the Visa version of the card, after their recent change from Mastercard to Visa, then restaurants are no longer listed in the app (HT Reddit). If you are a longer time cardholder, with the old Mastercard version, then it appears that you still have access in the app.

Why Was There No Announcement?

The fact that this was not clearly announced by Capital One is not surprising, since this card perk has always been a bit muddied. It was never listed on any terms sheets etc. for the card. The access was simply notated by the Priority Pass app once cardholders received their membership. This was true even after Capital One removed Priority Pass restaurants from the Venture X personal card.

How Long Do Grandfathered Cards Have?

This change seems to all coincide with the switch from the Mastercard network to the Visa network. The big question is, how long with Venture X Business Priority Pass restaurants still be attached for Mastercard cardholders? My hope is that it will stay as long as we carry the Mastercard version. I think it is safe to believe that the access will be lost once we receive updated Visa credit cards, if not sooner. That could take weeks, months or years. It all depends on how quickly Capital One wants to move with it.

Venture X Business Priority Pass Restaurants: ToP Thoughts

If you are a fan of Priority Pass restaurants, and don't overvalue them, then this is another blow. Especially if you just grabbed the card specifically for this purpose. Hopefully you got it before the change over to Visa at least, which will give you some time to gobble up your “free” food. If you had been planning on grabbing it for this purpose there are still cards available that have it. You may want to check out one of those options instead now.

I wouldn't plan on any card keeping it long term though. It seems like it is a bad deal overall for credit card companies, and they are cutting bait one by one. I wish there would have been more of a warning here, but as I said above, this perk was never super clear to begin with.

Let us know if you recently grabbed the Visa version of Venture X Business over in the ToP Facebook Group.

HT: DDG