Today Capital One has announced a major improvement: As of this morning, Capital One now has 14 transfer partners that transfer 1:1, which includes all but one airline and one hotel partner. If you’ve been sitting on Capital One “Miles”, you can remove the quotation marks: they are now fully miles indeed.
Capital One partners improving to 1:1
Today Capital One increases the transfer ratio to 1:1 for the following programs: Air Canada (Aeroplan), Air France KLM (Flying Blue), British Airways (Avios), Emirates Airlines (Emirates Skywards), Singapore Airlines (KrisFlyer) and Turkish Airlines (Miles&Smiles).
This means the full list of 1:1 transfer partners is now:
- Aeromexico Club Premier
- Air Canada Aeroplan
- Air France KLM Flying Blue
- Avianca LifeMiles
- British Airways Avios (which can transfer to Iberia or Aer Lingus)
- Emirates Airlines Emirates Skywards
- Etihad Etihad Guest
- Cathay Pacific Asia Miles
- Finnair Finnair Plus
- Qantas Qantas Frequent Flyer
- Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
- TAP Air Portugal Miles&Go
- Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles
- Wyndham Hotels & Resorts Wyndham Rewards
The only two programs left that do not transfer 1:1 are:
- Accor Live Limitless (Transfer ratio is 2 Capital One : 1 ALL point)
- EVA Airways (Transfer ratio is 2 Capital One: 1.5 airline miles)
Quick Thoughts
This is obviously huge news for Capital One cardholders. With this announcement, Capital One now has fourteen 1:1 transfer partners (with a 15th partner, Choice Privileges, slated to join as a 1:1 partner sometime this year). By comparison, Chase Ultimate Rewards also has 14 transfer partners. Citi has a couple more and of course Amex has the most, but adding these 6 new partners to the mix at 1:1 obviously makes Capital One more of a player in the transferable currency market.
Personally, I really value the ability to earn 2 Turkish Miles & Smiles miles, 2 Aeroplan Miles, 2 LifeMiles, and 2 Wyndham points all on the same card. And those aren’t the only good partners. Capital One has a number of sweet spots (that will now require some updating).
Unfortunately, while I’m excited personally since I already have Capital One cards in my household, I nonetheless find it hard to recommend Capital One cards to new cardholders given how they closed Greg’s account without warning or explanation and redeemed all his miles at half a cent each without any opportunity to transfer. I know that probably won’t happen to most people, but the way it was handled doesn’t inspire confidence.
However, again, for current cardholders, the ability to transfer 1:1 to so many programs is obviously good news. My Venture card has popped in an out of my wallet as an “everywhere else” card for the past year or so already — now with Capital One’s attractive mix of partners, the Venture card will split time more evenly with the Bank of America Premium Rewards card and Blue Business Plus. That’s a surprising development.
Keep in mind that one of the nice things about Capital One miles is that they typically post to your account within 1-3 days of a charge to your card. This means that if you need to top off an account for a near-term redemption, you don’t need to wait until your next statement cuts. You just need to make a charge and wait a few days and then the miles will post to your Capital One account and can be transferred right away. That certainly adds a convenience factor in some situations.
Overall, this is good news and it continues to build on Capital One’s commitment to continue adding value to their program. The press release for this change noted “Capital One is always looking to improve its program by adding new loyalty partners, and will also continue to run miles transfer bonus promotions on an ongoing basis.” It sounds like we should continue to expect enhancements and that is good news for current cardholders.
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I could not find where capital one lists their transfer ratio for their travel partners. Would you please provide the URL? TIA!
[…] credit card applications over the years). I decided to give Capital One another chance since they recently improved the transfer ratios to almost all of their transfer partners to 1:1 (1,000 Capital One Miles = 1,000 airline miles). This time, my Capital One application was […]
[…] Capital One Improves Transfer Ratios: The Capital One Venture card used to be an ok card since you could use your miles for travel statement credits. However it improved by allowing your points to be transferred to several partners. The latest improvement is their transfer ratios to those partners! […]
My only experience with Cap One was interesting. A new card, and I tried to use it for an upcoming trip. After giving them my travel dates, I tried to reserve a train ticket in Switzerland the night before departure. The charge failed, so I just used another card. Fortunately I took the second card along on the trip because CO had locked my card without telling me (never actually got to use it). I only found out when I went to cancel it since they let me go to Europe without telling me the card wouldn’t work.
So, uh, CO isn’t even on the bottom of my list.
Are # of TAP miles for TAP flights as good as using Avianca LifeMiles for same flights, or at least more flexible with stopovers?
never been approved for cap1 card…even w/ a pre-qual code.
If you didn’t start the game with Cap 1 and never close it you are locked out for life pretty much. They are taking it to the next level though with the current saver card bonus. If you have “good” credit no SUB for you! Seems they only want people with garbage credit who pay them tons of interest or people who only have 1 card (the venture card) who put tons of spend at meh earnings rate(taking the annual fee into account). Should probably invest in their stock, sounds like a good plan.
that’s what i’ve thought, need crappy credit.
I have gotten their checking acct bonuses. Got one recently, though had to call in cause they “forgot” about it, or something like that.
should be back under 5/24 next year for P1…maybe will try.
Still need US transfer partner
Do they? Which domestic transfer partner is going to offer better value than Turkish for United to most destinations or British Airways or Iberia for AA short haul? Don’t forget that you can book paid flights and use the Capital One miles at a value of 1c each also. I think domestic flights are mostly covered.
Overall, their partners have better award charts than US-based airlines (AA may beat Asia Miles and Avios in some situations, but not all and Etihad offers better value on AA metal except when there is a web special). I’d much rather they added ANA or Virgin Atlantic than JetBlue (the only likely US transfer partner since not even Citi could work out a deal with AA until recently, Amex obviously has the exclusive on Delta and Chase on United and Southwest). I can earn all the United and Delta miles I want with Ultimate Rewards and Membership Rewards and there are enough AA and Southwest cards that I don’t care about a transferable currency for those points. Again, I just can’t think of a domestic partner I’d want them to have.
Yes…but you can’t book online with Turkish so it’s a massive PIA.
You can argue that this is a good thing. Some blogs (maybe this one) have made the very good point that there is often a correlation between how good a deal is and how difficult it is take advantage of. The easy deals that can be done in second easily online tend to disappear. The ones that are thought to be too much trouble often stick around. There are lots of good examples, but Korean Air is a great one. You used to have fax in passports and go through all sorts of gymnastics to be able to redeem flights, but availability was great. You want 8 seats on business to Australia for the holidays? No problem. Within a few months after they made it easier, they pulled Chase as a transfer partner, got rid of the generous hold policy (which was like months) and now it’s a program that virtually nobody uses.
RE “Etihad offers better value on AA metal except when there is a web special”
Based on several experiences trying to redeem Etihad on AA metal this year (domestic), this appears to only be the case when the flights booked are non-stops. They consistently calculated the price charging for each segment this year where as in previous years I successfully redeemed a few connecting tickets without paying for each segment.
I think this puts citi double cash in the sock drawer. It still has some advantages, like the 10 percent redemption points back when you couple it with rewards plus and premier. But the whole thank you points system is so stone age and confusing — merged but separate accounts and restrictive transfer rules for P2 — that I am not sure that 10 percent is worth it compared to the simplicity of just using C1 for 2x nonbonus spend. The ability to transfer C1 points without restriction between members really ups its value to me for 2 player mode.
What cap one card is 2x with no AF?
None. There isn’t one. But there also is no no-fee citi card that earns 2x that can be transferred to miles. In order to be able to transfer to miles for citi you need a separate premium card that has at least a $95 fee. The only 2x card that has no annual fee and can transfer to miles, that I’m aware of, is the Amex Blue Business.
“I nonetheless find it hard to recommend Capital One cards to new cardholders given how they closed Greg’s account without warning or explanation and redeemed all his miles at half a cent each without any opportunity to transfer.”
So one person’s poor experience means the entire portfolio is no good? Come on! Be objective on the products that they’re offering not the personal experience of one person you know.
Yeah, it’s very different in this case. Since I do have the benefit of knowing Greg so well and knowing that he didn’t use the account for any questionable purchases at all and that Capital One has completely stonewalled him on any sort of explanation or opportunity to get better than half a cent value for the miles he’d already earned when they inexplicably decided to sever ties with him, I just don’t know who that may happen to next. It’s hard for me to recommend their products when I don’t know if they may do the same to you since I don’t know why they did it to him.
To be clear, that’s not the same as someone having a “poor experience” at a hotel because there were hairs in the drain or with a bank because a representative was rude on the phone. In this case, he dedicated spend to the card with an expectation of value based on the rewards being offered and they not only closed the account without reason but gave far less than expected value for the rewards he earned. Had he had any reason to expect one cent per dollar spent, he obviously wouldn’t have opened or spent any money on their card. If their business model includes approving a customer, letting them spend enough to earn a big bonus, and then pulling out the rug without warning or explanation and redeeming the bonus for less than half of the value they market in their TV commercials, then yeah I have a hard time recommending them. And that’s coming from me as a long-time Venture cardholder with plenty of positive experience with Capital One. I can’t ignore how they handled his account – that would be doing more of a disservice to readers in my opinion.
Readers need to know when banks are known bad players, or that they at least sometimes act severely for little or no reason. Nobody complains about Amex RAT warnings, right?
I might have to run the numbers on upgrading my old venture one credit card to a Venture card. This is great upgrade!
PS I will be using my card at Uber eats (5x for both Venture and Venture One.
Cap 1 really upping the game here !! Nick can you highlight which partners were previously not 1:1 ?
All cap 1 needs now is a premium travel oriented card and they are king
The second paragraph of the post (first one under the first picture) has the list. It says:
“Today Capital One increases the transfer ratio to 1:1 for the following programs: Air Canada (Aeroplan), Air France KLM (Flying Blue), British Airways (Avios), Emirates Airlines (Emirates Skywards), Singapore Airlines (KrisFlyer) and Turkish Airlines (Miles&Smiles).”
My bad
[…] HT: FM […]
This probably makes Cap 1 the best transferable card out there.Once they add a few hotel partners they will be putting Amex membership rewards in their rear view mirror. I am interested what value Frequent miler will assign to Cap 1 points now