Two of the most sought-after premium travel credit cards are quietly retreating from the guest-access benefit that once made them worth their annual fee. Chase’s Ritz-Carlton Credit Card is capping complimentary lounge guests at two per cardmember starting January 15, 2026, with each additional guest charged $27, according to the change detailed by Upgraded Points and confirmed independently by Doctor of Credit. Capital One’s Venture X card follows on February 1, 2026, with a $125 lounge-access fee for each authorized user and new per-guest charges that used to be free. Both cards built their reputations partly on unlimited or generous guest access — and both are now pulling that lever back.
What the Ritz-Carlton card is losing
Until this change, Ritz-Carlton cardmembers and their authorized users could bring an unlimited number of guests into Chase Sapphire Lounges by The Club and participating Priority Pass lounges at no additional cost — a benefit that made the card genuinely useful for families or groups traveling together. Starting January 15, that unlimited access becomes two complimentary guests per cardmember, with a $27 charge for anyone beyond that. Cardmembers will also need to show either a physical Ritz-Carlton card or a Priority Pass digital membership to get through the door at all, an added friction point that didn’t previously exist.
Capital One’s changes hit two different groups
Capital One’s restructuring is more layered. Previously, Venture X cardholders could add up to four authorized users for free, and each one received automatic lounge access as part of the deal — a major reason the card became popular with families splitting one account across several travelers. As of February 1, 2026, that free authorized-user access disappears, replaced by a $125 annual fee per authorized user who wants lounge privileges. Separately, primary cardholders who used to bring two free guests into Capital One Lounges and one into Capital One Landings now face a $45 per-adult guest fee at those properties, unless they’ve spent $75,000 or more on the card that year. Guests entering through Priority Pass will pay $35 per person. Capital One described the changes as a response to overcrowding, saying in its own announcement that it was “making some changes to lounge access for additional cardholders… and guests” — without specifying how much revenue the new fees are expected to generate.
The pattern is the story
Neither change happened in isolation, and neither was framed publicly by either bank as anything but a benefits adjustment. But taken together, the two moves mark a shift for an entire category of premium travel card that spent the past several years competing largely on how generously it treated the people traveling with the cardholder, not just the cardholder alone. As lounges built for a smaller, more exclusive customer base fill up with cardholders from increasingly mass-market premium products, both banks are now betting that raising the price of bringing people along is an easier fix than building more lounges.
