PSA: Capital One Travel price match has an unpublished “banned site” list
Just a heads up for anyone using the travel portal and planning to price match after booking. I recently booked a flight through the portal ($257 on Cap1 vs. $201 elsewhere) to use part of my annual credit and get the 5x back. I found the cheaper fares using Google Flights, and both websites matched the terms Cap1 sets (no promo code, no login, no special membership pricing, etc.). The cheapest one I found for $201 was LY.com. I looked online and saw on both this subreddit two years ago and another forum/site that people had been able to price match to this site before, and it matched the terms, so I assumed it would work.
When I called in, they asked me for the company name, put me on hold for around 10 minutes, then came back and said that LY.com is on a list of “banned” sites. I asked if that list is published anywhere so customers can check before wasting their time, and they said no. I then asked why and was basically given no response other than “we will pass that along as feedback.” Also, the fact that they needed to waste 10 minutes to tell me it was on a no-go list blows my mind. I asked to be transferred to a supervisor to see if they could match it, but after waiting another 10 minutes on hold, they said it was out of their hands. There was one other good match for $217 (so still $40 cheaper than Cap1) called Jettzy, so I asked about this after I realized they wouldn’t budge on the first site. They said this wasn’t on a banned list, but because the fare was displayed in another currency and the site did not show a USD toggle, they refused to match that one too (I'd like to introduce them to this thing called a calculator). The next cheapest was GoToGate, which they accepted but only gave me $17 back instead of the nearly $60 LY.com would have given me, so all in all, a complete and utter waste of time.
Other than when I absolutely have to use the credit, I will definitely not be booking anything else on this portal. The fact that they don’t just publish the list, which would cost them nothing and save everyone time and headaches, makes me assume they are doing it to save money and prey on customers booking, assuming they can price match, then finding out otherwise and being stuck with the booking. It is predatory as fuck. So if anyone from Cap1 is reading this, your policy is atrocious and a major fuck-you to customers.
Side note: I have also had repeated issues where calling Capital One Travel or customer service triggers some fraud review on my account, even when I have not reported fraud or disputed anything. Before they will help with the actual reason I called, I have to get transferred to fraud, confirm random charges are legitimate (charges which went through and range from $5 at 7-Eleven to a subscription that I’ve had for months), then get sent back.
Overall, while I’m keeping the Venture X as I get enough benefit with the credits/points, I just wanted to let anyone know who may be considering using the travel portal in the future (or anyone thinking they can price match ly.com).