Sign-Up Bonus

If you make purchases worth $3,000 during the initial 3 months after your Capital One account is opened, you will get 50,000 miles as a sign-up bonus. Miles do not necessarily get you a fixed 1 cent each anymore ever since the introduction of transfer partners. Our valuations revealed that their worth is 1.4 cents apiece. We came to this conclusion by studying what redemption options are offered by the various partner airlines. This means that the bonus 50,000 miles amount to $700.

Miles can still be redeemed at the 1 cent rate for travel purchases, so whether you fully capitalize on the sign-up bonus or choose to keep it simple is up to you. You will still get a $500 value from the bonus if you prefer redeeming miles toward statement credits instead of transfer partners. Not only this, but there is no annual fee on your first year of signing up, which practically means you can open an account, get the 50,000 miles bonus as well as a year-long free trial to make sure this card is exactly what you’re looking for.

Earning

There is a relatively simple method of using the Venture Rewards to earn miles, and this is why the card is so attractive for people who can’t be bothered to constantly swap credit cards every time they need to make a different type of purchase. Each dollar spent on transactions with the card will reward you with 2 miles. This means purchases will get you 2-2.8 cents on every dollar during travels without any annual limit.

This rule of 2 miles on every dollar has one exception that we are glad to accept; every time you go through a certain link to make your bookings at Hotels.com with a Venture Rewards card, you get 10 miles in return for each dollar instead of two. These are huge earnings and easily one of the best perks on hotel spending offered by any company on credit cards.

Furthermore, there’s a loyalty program offered by Hotels.com as well – the Hotels.com Rewards – which you can simultaneously take advantage of. This will get you an additional 10% discount on any purchases you make at this hotel. Along with the 10 times bigger benefit through Venture Rewards, your total savings are worth 20-24% on all purchases conducted using your card at Hotels.com.

Redeeming

There’s still more to get you interested. Not only can you pay for travel purchases by redeeming miles earned through the Purchase Eraser benefit, your Venture miles can also be transferred to an array of airline affiliates. The following is list of transfer partners and estimated transfer times:

The ratio of transfer for all partners is 2:1.5 (4:3) except for the 2:1 ratio of Singapore and Emirates. It may look like a complex system, but compare how you earn 2 miles on spending a dollar, 5-7.5 miles per dollar on Hotels.com purchases, and 1-1.5 miles per dollar on transfer-partner spending done with the card.

Each Venture mile is valued at 1.4 cents on redemptions available with Capital One airline partners. Benefits include booking through Avianca LifeMiles for traveling 63,000 miles in Lufthansa Business Class to get zero fuel surcharges, using Alitalia’s MilleMiglia program for 48,000 miles one-way travel bookings to Italy, reserving business class seats to Europe with American Airlines via Etihad Guest or making reservations to travel domestically in the US. If transferring Capital One miles to transfer partners is still confusing for you, here’s how to do it.

Of course, you can always opt for redeeming through the Purchase Eraser plan to stick to straightforward options. They are redeemable for 1 cent each in the form of statement credits to offset travel purchases, such as rental cars, hotel bookings and flights, made in the past 3 months with the card. You can redeem even the smallest travel purchase amounts, so for instance you’ll get 150 miles for a $1.5 transaction, which will cancel out the expense once redeemed.