Capital One Travel Launches Vacation Rentals Through Boutiq and AvantStay

Capital One Travel has introduced upscale vacation rentals in a launch Tuesday through partnerships with Boutiq and AvantStay. A CapitalOne spokesperson said the company will bring on Inspirato and Key.co as inventory providers later this year.

Capital One is an investor in both AvantStay and Inspirato.

This is the first time Capital One Travel, which is powered by Hopper, has offered vacation rentals, and they are only available to its Venture X, Venture X Business, Venture and Spark Miles cardholders.

The vacation rentals — exclusively in the U.S. for now — can be booked through Capital One Travel’s Premier Collection and Lifestyle Collection, which also offer hotels.

Hopper doesn’t provide any of the vacation rental inventory.

Vacation rental bookings on Capital One Travel come with perks. Bookers earn five miles per dollar, and Premier and Lifestyle collection bookings come with $100 and $50 experiences credits, respectively. The credits can be used on everything from ordering groceries before arrival to mid-stay cleaning and meals cooked by a chef at the property.

In addition, Venture X cardholders can apply a $300 Capital One travel credit toward vacation rentals through the Premier Collection.

Credit Card Companies Get in the Travel Game

The debut of vacation rentals on Capital One comes as major credit card companies in the U.S. such as American Express, Chase, and Citi pick up share in the U.S. travel industry.

American Express Travel likewise offers vacation rentals in an offering called Select Homes + Retreats. Chase Travel doesn’t offer vacation rentals through its luxury hotel collection, The Edit, but does so through the Frosch Villa Collection, a spokesperson said.

Property management companies provide all of the homes on Capital One Travel.

A Capital One spokesperson said the debut includes more than 1,000 properties.

Capital One cited a 9-bedroom estate from AvantStay in Coachella, California; a 5-bed alpine ski property from Boutiq in Telluride, Colorado; and a 3-bedroom apartment with a large chef’s kitchen from AvantStay in Nashville, Tennessee.

Boutiq CEO Rena Pacheco-Theard told Skift that one attractive part of the launch is that Capital One will offer properties all over the U.S.

“If you can give your cardholders a consistent brand quality standard, and you’re in multiple locations, I think that’s a winning proposition because you have this curated portfolio that is going to serve cardholders, wherever they’re traveling,” Pacheo-Theard said.

Boutiq was founded during the beginning of the pandemic, and the Capital One partnership talks began a couple of years ago, she said.

“For us to be able to partner with them (Capital One Travel), especially as one of these two or three initial launch partners, it’s a really big deal,” Pacheo-Theard said. “We take that opportunity very seriously, we need to deliver. We’re hyper-focused on the quality and making sure that we uphold all of our responsibilities as part of the deal. But we’re also just really excited that Boutiq is going to be out there in the world for more travelers who may never have heard of us. And that’s a really big opportunity that we’re very grateful for.”