Head to head · issuer terms as read 2026-08-30
Venture X vs Sapphire Reserve
Venture X charges $395 a year; Sapphire Reserve charges $795 — a $400 gap the earn rates and credits have to close. Venture X earns Capital One miles; Sapphire Reserve earns Ultimate Rewards points. Both have a cash floor we can stand behind at 1.0¢, so the receipts below compare them in the same unit.
On the published earn tables, Venture X leads on travel booked through the issuer's portal, everything else; Sapphire Reserve leads on dining & restaurants, travel booked direct. Credits, as the issuers state them, add up to $300 a year on Venture X and $2,128 on Sapphire Reserve — if you would have spent that money anyway. Monthly credits have breakage; count only the ones you'd really use.
Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card
Chase Sapphire Reserve
The terms, side by side
| Venture X | Sapphire Reserve | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual fee | $395 | $795 |
| Foreign transaction fee | No foreign fee | No foreign fee |
| Earns | Capital One miles | Ultimate Rewards points |
| Transfers to partners | Yes · 22 on the official list | Yes · 14 on the official list |
| Credits stated | 6 · $300/yr if fully used | 12 · $2,128/yr if fully used |
| Welcome offer, as stated | Not shown on the public page we read | Earn 100,000 points after you spend $6,000 in purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. |
Earn rates by category, as stated
| Category | Venture X | Sapphire Reserve |
|---|---|---|
| Dining & restaurants | base rate | 3X |
| Travel booked direct | base rate | 4X |
| Travel booked through the issuer's portal | 10X | 8X |
| Everything else | 2X | 1X |
Green = the higher stated multiplier. Brand-specific, promotional and rotating rates are on each card page, not modeled here.
What each nets at sample spend
Three sample monthly budgets, every point at 1.0¢ (the Pay-with-Points floor we paid), fee subtracted, no credits counted. Estimates, not promises — your spend is the input that matters.
Run your own spendQuestions people ask
- Which has the lower annual fee, Venture X or Sapphire Reserve?
- Venture X: $395 versus $795, as stated on the issuers' pages on 2026-08-30.
- Does Venture X or Sapphire Reserve charge foreign transaction fees?
- Venture X: no foreign fee. Sapphire Reserve: no foreign fee. Read off each issuer's page on 2026-08-30.
- Which earns more on dining?
- Venture X states no dining rate; Sapphire Reserve states 3X.
- Can I transfer points to airline and hotel partners?
- Venture X: yes (22 partners on the official list). Sapphire Reserve: yes (14 partners on the official list).
- Which is better for me?
- It depends on where your spend goes. The receipts on this page use sample spend profiles at 1.0¢ per point; the Card Stack Optimizer runs your own numbers against every card we track, net of the annual fee.
- Venture X: Card network confirmed as "Visa Infinite" via a legal disclosure line on the main product page ("See Visa Infinite Guide to Benefits for details"); no explicit 'Visa' brand statement was found elsewhere on the page.
- Venture X: The $300 travel credit and $120 Global Entry/TSA PreCheck credit were confirmed on capitalone.com's learn-grow article, not the primary /credit-cards/venture-x/ product page, which referenced the travel credit only indirectly.
- Venture X: Transfer partners: page states 'Transfer miles to your choice of 15+ travel loyalty programs' but did not list individual partner names in the fetched content, so transferPartners is recorded as true (boolean per schema) without a partner list.
- Venture X: 2026-08-30 re-read: the issuer page no longer stated a welcome offer we could read (on 2026-08-29 it stated: "Earn 75,000 bonus miles when you spend $4,000 on purchases within three months of opening an account"). Offer likely personalised; check Capital One directly.
- Sapphire Reserve: Per-authorized-user fee stated on issuer page: $195 for each authorized user.
- Sapphire Reserve: Network confirmed as Visa Infinite via direct quote on issuer page: "eligible U.S. issued Chase Sapphire Reserve® Visa Infinite cards."
- Sapphire Reserve: Several credits are time-limited promotions active as of verification date (Apple subscriptions through 6/22/2027; DoorDash, StubHub, Peloton through 12/31/2027; Lyft through 9/30/2027) and may change or expire.
- Sapphire Reserve: The '$300 in DoorDash promos' credit is stated on the issuer page with a monthly cadence but the total/monthly split was not fully itemized in the fetched summary — verify exact structure against the live page before publishing a precise number.
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