We’ve seen some incredible offers from Capital One Shopping recently, but I received one today which is one of the most eye-catching yet. Hidden at the bottom of an email was a targeted rate of up to 25.5% cashback when booking flights with British Airways. There is a reason to use caution with this offer though.
The Deal
- Earn up to 25.5% cashback on British Airways flights with Capital One Shopping.
Key Terms
- November 15, 2025 at 11:59 PM PST
- Max $5,000 back.
- Only eligible for flights.
- Not eligible for short-haul flights.
Quick Thoughts
This is an incredible rate because very few airline websites are available through shopping portals. Of those that are, the cashback rate is usually in the 1%-3% range, not anything close to as high as 25.5% cashback.
This offer appeared at the bottom of an email from Capital One Shopping which had the headline rate of 15% back at Caesars Rewards properties. When seeing the 25.5% rate from British Airways, I’d figured that perhaps it related to buying British Airways Avios from Points.com (which in itself would be a very generous rate).
However, the small print at the very bottom of the email had the terms listed above for British Airways which explicitly stated that it was only eligible for flights. Indeed, when clicking through from the email, it took me to BritishAirways.com rather than Points.com. When clicking on the Extensions icon in my Chrome browser and then clicking the Capital One Shopping extension, the following popped up:
You can’t get any clearer than that. Well, actually, you can because the terms are still a little confusing. Flights at 25.5% seems obvious enough. However, there are the two other entries too. Holidays at 10% also seems fairly clear as it presumably relates to booking some kind of vacations package such as Flight + Hotel or Flight + Car.
It’s that second entry that’s a tad mysterious. FLIGHTSH and Short Haul can earn 24.5% cashback. FLIGHTSH presumably stands for ‘Flight Short Haul’, which would mean that Flight Short Haul and Short Haul (flights) will earn 24.5% cashback. However, the exclusions in both the email and the popup state that the offer isn’t eligible for short-haul flights. Perhaps that means that FLIGHTSH and Short Haul are valid purchases, but short-haul (with a hyphen) flights are ineligible 😉 My bigger suspicion is that the short haul flight wording is a remnant of a past offer that they forgot to remove this time around, but if you’re targeted for this promo and book a short haul flight, I’d take a screenshot of the offer specifically listing the cashback percentage for FLIGHTSH and Short Haul in case you need it for a future claim.
Something important to bear in mind before booking a long haul cash ticket in the anticipation that you’ll earn 25.5% is that you’ll presumably only earn 25.5% on the base fare. Much of the makeup of a British Airways fare will consist of taxes, fees, fuel surcharges, etc., so you’ll likely only be getting 25.5% back on a much smaller percentage of the overall cost.
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Capital One never tracks properly
I’ve actually had good luck with them tracking with the sole exception of Enterprise car rentals. For some reason I have never had a single Enterprise rental to finalize. They stay pending forever.
Every one of my few dozen transactions through the C1 portal has tracked. Do you perhaps have an ad-blocker or other extension that’s disrupting tracking? Check out Nick’s recommendations for portal hygiene in this post:
https://frequentmiler.com/shifting-shopping-portal-habits-on-nicks-mind/
Excellent point regarding the base fare versus total price of the ticket. Given the UK’s high departure taxes for long-haul flights, this deal is likely more lucrative for inbound flights than returns.