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Update 10/7: After two weeks of transfer futility, Capital One’s partners are working again as of this afternoon. I didn’t try each partner, but was able to successfully complete a transfer to Avianca. Hopefully the fix is permanent. – Tim (h/t: Thrifty Traveler)
A few days ago we started seeing reports in the Frequent Miler Insiders Facebook group and elsewhere that there was some kind of problem with being able to transfer Capital One miles to transfer partners.
When clicking on the ‘Convert Rewards’ option when logged in to your Capital One account, there was an error message displayed next to each airline and hotel program stating ‘Down for maintenance. Please check back later.’
Well, people have been checking back later and transfers have continued being down for maintenance.
We reached out to Capital One to find out if there was any reason for this and the reply we received was as follows:
We are currently making system improvements to some of our rewards platforms, and because of that they are temporarily offline. We will let you know when they are available.
While it’s frustrating that it’s been a week or so since Capital One cardholders last had the ability to transfer their miles to travel partners, at least it sounds like this is more of a system issue rather than them getting rid of the ability to transfer to partners. Unfortunately there’s no indication as to how long we’ll have to wait before transfers will be back up and running.
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Looks like it is working now
The Capital One transfer to Virgin Red does not work. I have been trying since September 19 to transfer points to Virgin Red with no success (after multiple conference calls with Capital One and Virgin Red). It simply does not work. This is nothing more than a bait and switch from Capital One. I got a call back from them today and they admitted there was nothing they can do. Penelope at Capital One suggested I simply try using my Capital One points another way. Very disappointing.
What’s in your wallet? Amex.
seems to me capital one got hacked. Maintenance doesn’t weeks.
This inability to access my Rewards points for over a week is going to cost me over $3000. I have 220,000 points and have been trying to book 3 nonstop round trip flights on Virgin Atlantic to London next March since last week. All I needed was $1300 + 90,000 rewards points for all three flights. Booking through Capital One (or with the airline without the points) would cost me over $1400 per ticket (totaling around $4300). I have been unable to book for the last 7 days because I cannot access the 90,000 points and get them transferred to Virgin Red. As of this morning the $1300 + 90,000 point fare is not longer available and I will end up paying over $4000 for these flights. I call Capital One every day, and I’ve asked for some manual workaround to an electronic reward transfer (which must exist) but no one can help or knows anything.
Capital One is obfuscating. Businesses do NOT take down their entire public-facing software system to make improvements to their platform. Every software engineer knows that software is updated and tested internally BEFORE it is released to the public. Something is terribly wrong if the system is down this long. Cowboy up, @CapitalOne. What is REALLY going on?
Tell that to British Airways. When it switched to a new back-end for Avios accounting and booking, it was completely unavailable for weeks. It ultimately took a few months for all of the bugs to be worked out.
What you’re neglecting to mention is that was communicated ahead of time. This mysteriously went offline with no explanation. It was not planned and certainly not for maintenance.
What a bummer. Really makes me question the value of the Venture X. Hopefully this is fixed soon and we get some transfer bonuses!
This may also be affecting the Venture X $300 credit for Capital One Travel purchases. I booked a flight on 9/16 through Capital One Travel and the $300 still hasn’t been credited, even though the credit usually posts within a week.
Same – I used Cap1 Travel on Sept 15 and still nothing. Looks like it’s all related
Me too — purchased a flight and hotel on 9/18 and nothing yet. I agree. It’s all related.
The hotel offer from Marriott also disappeared?
Doesn’t affect me but inexcusable to be down for a week. Should always notify people ahead of time prior to maintenance. And I can’t imagine any maintenance that would take a week. Sounds more like a hack or a big system crash.
Yes, this. There is zero chance that system maintenance would take a week and even if it did, that should have been communicated to members ahead of time (with downtime provided).
A week plus isn’t a “system problem” nor an “improvement” – it’s an outright failure.