UPDATE: This offer is no longer available.
If you're a fan of flying Southwest, you're probably also a fan of their easy-to-understand frequent flyer program— Rapid Rewards. Fly 8 roundtrips anywhere, and get one roundtrip free. Couldn't have been much more simple than that!
Unfortunately, as of March 1st 2011, Southwest's frequent flier program just got a lot more complicated. The major change is that they will now issue points instead of credits, and your points will have different values depending upon what type of fare you choose for your award.
I'm not a big-time Southwest flier, but I think it's safe to say that a lot of their customers won't be happy with this change. I've had several friends already talk about getting rid of their Southwest Rapid Rewards credit cards since they are moving to a new points-based system too. What I've been telling them is that if you're looking for a new airline rewards credit card, you should really check out this huge promotion that Capital One is starting today for its Capital One Venture Rewards card.
This might be the first time you hear about the new offer, but it certainly won't be the last. Capital One is pulling out the big guns and promoting this with the help of Alec Baldwin, whose cheesy grin you'll likely see plastered all over your TV, the web, and billboards in the coming months. All media hype aside, I think this really is a great deal from Capital One.
Here's why:
The Capital One Venture Rewards card will match 100,000 miles from another airline rewards card after you meet their spending threshold during the first 3 months. So how do you get your 100,000 in miles matched? It's really pretty simple.
Let's say you have a United Mileage Plus card with 100,000 miles. To get your match from Capital One, you would need to submit your airline rewards statement to Capital One and meet the spending requirement during the first 3 months ($1,000 in purchases). Then voila—your new Capital One Venture card will get 100,000 miles plus a 10,000 mile bonus.
Nothing happens at all to the 100,000 miles from your United Account. They remain untouched. The fact that Cap One is also waiving the $59 annual fee for the first year really makes this a no brainer. It's at least worth trying out, which is why I'll be applying for my Capital One Venture Rewards card this month too.
While the promotion is set to run from March 9th through May 13th, Capital One plans to pull the plug when they match a total of 1 billion miles. Who knows how fast that'll happen, so I wouldn't wait around too long if you're still sitting on the fence.
Comments
Well said.
Are miles acquired via a Citibank/ AAdvantage card eligible for this promotion?
If yes, are the bonus miles received when I signed up for the above card counted for this promotion? Or are only the miles earned via dollars charged to said card counted for this promotion?
@Eddie Yes, the American Airlines card is listed as one of the eligible credit cards. And this is what the terms and conditions say:
"You will need to complete a form and then submit a current airline rewards program statement as proof of your existing miles/rewards."
They're asking for an airline rewards program statement, not your credit card statement, so it's still a bit confusing. I've reached out to Cap One to see what their response is.
Here's the response from a rep at Capital One:
"Basically the customer needs to be a co-brand airline credit cardholder and needs to send us their airline card rewards statement. So it's the total miles balance on the statement and we understand that in some cases it's hard to separate the miles earned via a co brand airline credit card or the miles earned from flying. In this scenario, we will accept general airline rewards statements for those programs that accrue the card miles into the airline's general rewards account."
Based upon this response, I would say your bonus miles are considered miles earned from your credit card. They would be matched as well.
Capital One Venture card is one of the best airline miles rewards credit cards that I've seen in a while. I'll be checking out Cap One on what kind of statement is really needed in getting the 100k airline mile points.
Thanks for the reply, Josh. I am afraid a Citibank/AAdvantage card is NOT an American Airlines card, eventhough it falls under the definition of "co-branded".
True, but it is an American Airlines card. We're getting conflicting responses from Cap One on this question at the moment. It's not quite clear yet, but I think people with the Citi AA should still have hope since Cap One is obviously trying to attract customers that earn miles with their credit cards.
The actual "American Airlines" card doesn't even earn miles. Frankly, I would be really surprised if Cap One chose to not match miles that flowed through to your AA account from the Citi AAdvantage card. As in the rep's statement above, it was made clear that they would accept general airline rewards statements for programs that accrue card miles directly into your frequent flier account. I don't personally use the Citi AA, but isn't that the case with this card?
I'm awaiting further clarification from a Cap One rep on the Citi AA card, and I'll keep you updated.
@Eddie Response from the Sr. Communication's Manager at Cap One is as follows:
"The Citi AAdvantage card is considered an "American Airlines Card" for the purposes of this promotion. Consumers will need to submit their airline rewards statement as proof of their existing miles. They must be listed as the primary account holder and their statement must be dated within six months of the time they submit it."
You're good to go. As I suspected, the Citi AAdvantage is included too.
YES! Signing up. Thank you Josh!
The 100,000 miles promotion doesn't really give you 100,000 miles usable at another airline. This is how it works. You purchase your ticket using your Venture card then call Capital One to let them know that you would like to be reimbursed for the purchase. If your ticket costs $400 you will use up 40,000 of your 100,000 and will be sent a check for $400. The reimbursement is at the rate of 10,000 Capital One miles for each $100 reimbursed to you. On American Airlines I can use for example 75,000 AA miles to get a ticket to the Seychelles. But if I purchase the ticket from AA it will cost me $2,400 of which I will only be reimbursed $1000 from Capital one. It's still a good deal but not nearly as good a deal as I thought at first.
That's right- 110,000 Cap One miles are worth $1,100. Not a bad deal at all since it's free!
Given my experience trying to redeem miles on United, American, and Continental these days, I'll take it. I have 150,000 United miles I've been trying to redeem for 2 years and I still haven't been able to find a flight...grrrrrrr :-)
I've been an AAdvantage member for 15 years and now have total miles earned of 1,300,000. My goal is 2 million within the next 4 or 5 years. I book well in advance but have had no problem using my miles. I've used about 700,000 of my miles for "free" tickets. The amazing thing is that only around 20,000 of my miles have been earned by actually flying somewhere.
My problem is I never seem to book far enough in advance. By the time I get around to planning a trip, all the FF seats are gone so I end up paying and just earning more miles :-).
I'm curious...how have you earned most of your miles?
I've earned most of my miles through credit card offers. AmEx has a card that gives you 35000 AA miles. At times they have offered 50,000. My wife and I both got 50,000 miles when we signed up for their business card and 40,000 for their regular card. Citibank has offered for the past few years 20,000 for signing up for a checking account, another 20,000 for a savings account when you put $25K in as an initial deposit. No requirement to keep it there though. Most of these offers require you to spend $1000 or $2000 before you get the reward. It's easy to spend that amount though because the US Mint will sell you $1000 of dollar coins for $1000 and ship them to you for fee and allow you to charge it on your credit card. Look into their Direct Ship program. The points you earn from using your AmEx card can
be converted into AA miles on a 1 for 1 basis. Spend $50 on your amex card and you can have them converted to 50 AA miles. The neat thing is if you have them convert 20000 points they will give you 25000 miles. So every dollar spent on the AmEx card is worth 1.25 miles if you can accumulate 20000 points. Hope this helps.
Major props to you for learning how to get the most value out of your rewards credit cards!
Another easy way to earn AA miles is through BankDirect. I have had an account with them for awhile now and have earned 116,000 AA miles. They offer 100 miles/month for each $1000 you have on deposit with them. I think there's an upper limit of $200,000 to earn at that rate. $25,000 on deposit earns you 2,500 miles/month. They give you bonus miles just for signing up for an account, more if you do direct deposit and more if you use their bill pay system. Your money isn't tied up either. You can write checks, do electronic transfers, etc. It's a checking account that essentially pays no interest, just miles. They are the online division of Texas Capital Bank. With my B of A checking account I earn 0 so I keep as little as possible there and the bulk at BankDirect. If you only use your AA miles for international travel they are worth around $.035 each and are tax free. I can't earn 3 1/2% on any checking account around where I live.
You do all of this stuff and it's amazing how quickly the miles add up.
I forgot to mention that American Airlines has a link to the BankDirect web site. AA has made stuff much harder to find though so now I just go to their site and do a search. There are links to other offers also. Fidelity Investments will give you 50,000 for opening a brokerage account with them and depositing $x. I forgot how much. Several years ago my wife and I both got 50,000 miles for opening an account with TD Ameritrade. I don't know if that offer is still available.
Does Capital One Venture accept Continental Onepass and American Aadvantage miles ????????
Yes, but you've already missed the promotion. Capital One ended it once they matched 1 billion miles. You can still get the card because it's a great travel rewards card, but you won't get the 100,000 mile match.