KEY LINK – Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card – Earn 75,000 bonus miles when you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. $395 annual fee

I had an interesting question come up the other day about Capital One Venture X authorized user lounge access and I thought I would share my experience here. I am hoping that others can learn from what happened to me, and also kind of hoping that someone in the comments will think of a trick that I didn’t think of!

Adding Authorized Users To Your Capital One Venture X Card

The Capital One Venture X is my vote for the best “luxury” credit card out there – yes, it comes with a $395 annual fee, but every year you get a $300 travel credit and 10,000 Venture miles. To me, those 2 things alone make the annual fee worth it. Add on the fact that you get Priority Pass airport lounge access, outstanding Capital One Venture X trip delay insurance and Venture X roadside assistance, I find this to be one of the few cards I will pay the annual fee on. When you compare it to its closest competitors like The Platinum Card® from American Express or the Chase Sapphire Reserve®, in my mind, the Venture X card comes out on top.

One additional benefit of the Venture X card is that you can add up to four authorized users to your card at no additional cost. This is another huge advantage that the Venture X has over some of its competitors mentioned above, as both of those cards charge additional fees for adding authorized users. And while AUs on the Venture X don’t get ALL the benefits that the primary cardholder does (for example, you only get 1 Global Entry credit), Capital One Venture X authorized users DO get airport lounge access.

Capital One Venture X Authorized User Lounge Access

Capital One Venture X authorized users DO get airport lounge access, both a Priority Pass Select membership as well as access to the various Capital One airport lounges

(SEE ALSO: Capital One Lounge Dallas / DFW lounge review – one of the best lounges I’ve been to)

This is an amazing benefit, since each cardholder can guest in 2 additional people. So one cardholder could potentially get lounge access for 15 people (1 primary cardholder plus 4 authorized users, each getting in themselves and 2 guests). Maybe that’s why lounges seem so crowded these days 🙂

Anyways, my son is flying back home for Christmas and I realized that he would be flying through Dallas. So I thought I would add him as an authorized user to my Venture X card so he could use the lounge during his layover. The process to add a Venture X authorized user was simple and straightforward, and once I had his card number, I was able to have him download the Priority Pass app and register for Priority Pass access.

Capital One Venture X Authorized User Lounge Access Without The Physical Card

The problem came in getting him access to the Capital One lounges. By default, Capital One ships the authorized user cards to the address of the primary cardholder (i.e. me). This makes sense as a fraud prevention tool, but the problem is that my son is at college currently. I know that the PRIMARY cardholder can access Capital One lounges without the physical card (via the Capital One app), but I wasn’t sure if authorized users of the Venture X could access Capital One lounges without the physical card.

Everything I read online said you needed to open the Capital One mobile app, go to the “Explore Rewards & Benefits” section and select “Travel” and “Lounges”. Then you can pull up lounge information, including adding yourself to the waitlist and pulling up a QR code for lounge access. But when I talked with my son, he didn’t have those options in his app. Further complicating things, my ancient phone (Galaxy S8) can’t upgrade its Android version so the Capital One app doesn’t even work on my phone :-/.

I called up Capital One and the agent told me that Venture X authorized users need the physical card in order to get into Capital One lounges. Venture X authorized users can access PRIORITY PASS airport lounges without their card (via the Priority Pass app which you can access with just your 16 digit Venture X card number). In my case, I decided to have Capital One ship out a new card directly to my son in college, and I’m hoping that should solve the problem of his lounge access.

The Bottom Line

KEY LINK – Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card – Earn 75,000 bonus miles when you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. $395 annual fee

While Capital One Venture X authorized users are able to access Priority Pass lounges without a physical card, it appears that Venture X AUs must have their physical Venture X card to access Capital One lounges. Only the primary account holder can access Capital One lounges without their physical card as far as I could tell. But I’d love to hear any suggestions in the comments below.

Have you entered Capital One lounges as a Venture X authorized user without a physical card? Any suggestions? Leave them in the comments below

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