If you haven’t been earning Capital One miles, perhaps you should start paying attention. Not only did Capital One launch transfer partners at the end of last year and it has been crushing it with transfer bonuses the last few months. We’ve seen transfer bonuses to Air France-KLM Flying Blue and Emirates Skywards and they’ve just launched another to Aviance LifeMiles.
Do we have your attention?
Good. Now, let’s dig into this.
Capital One Transfer Details
From July 1, 2019 until July 30 at 11:59 pm ET, you can transfer Capital One miles to LifeMiles and receive a 25% transfer bonus. Typically for every 2 Capital One miles you transfer, you’ll receive 1.5 LifeMiles but, with the 25% bonus, you’ll receive 1.876 miles. More practically, that’s 2,000 Capital One miles for 1,876 LifeMiles.
If you’ve been debating whether to transfer to LifeMiles, now is that time to make that call.
How To Get Crazy Value From Avianca LifeMiles
LIfeMiles has a great reputation for offering reasonable award rates — so you don’t waste all your points — AND not passing on carrier-imposed surcharges to you. This 1-2 punch makes using LifeMiles to book business and first class award tickets to Europe an amazing option.
Let’s take booking Lufthansa first class as an example.
You could book with 70,000 Aeroplan miles, but you’d have to pay nearly $830 in taxes and fees. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an amazing flight but $830 for a one-way ticket to Europe on top of the points and miles you’d need is steep. Typically, you’d need to transfer 94,000 Capital One miles but you can get the 70,000 Aeroplan miles for only 75,000 Capital One miles during the promo.
Alternatively, you could use United MileagePlus miles since it doesn’t pass on the surcharges. That keeps the total taxes and fees closer to $80 since there’s a close-in booking fee and you can only book Lufthansa first class with partner miles within 14 days of departure. However, you’d need 110,000 United miles for the one-way flight. During the transfer bonus promotion, you’ll only need 118,000 Capital One miles instead of the usual 147,000.
With LifeMiles, you get the best combo. You can use 87,000 LifeMiles and about $5 in taxes and fees. So, you’re looking at 17,000 more miles than Aeroplan but you’ll have over $800 in cash and 23,000 fewer miles than United and you save about $75 in cash. Normally, that’s 116,000 Capital One miles but it’s only 93,000 during the promo.
Seriously, why do people forget about LifeMiles?
If you don’t know much about Lufthansa first class and its First Class Terminal in Frankfurt, please read about our favorite ways to book flights with LifeMiles.
What About Speculative Transfers?
Speculative transfers are always risky. While most airlines don’t devalue their loyalty programs on a regular basis (except for Delta, it’s always Delta), you don’t want to run into a devaluation while figuring out when you can travel. For that reason, unless you’re a points pro and willing to accept the risk, we suggest holding off on transferring points until you are ready to book.
How To Earn Capital One Miles
Capital One has 3 cards which earn transferrable points — well, they call them miles. Two of these cards earn 2X purchases and come with a $95 annual fees that are waived the first year.
- Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card (Learn More)
- Capital One Spark Miles for Business (Learn More)
As an added bonus, the Capital One Venture earns 10X at Hotels.com when you use the dedicated Capital One Venture page. For many people, this is the best way to earn a ton of miles on hotel bookings.
The two cards with no annual fees earn 1.5X Capital One miles:
- Capital One VentureOne Reward Credit Card (Learn More)
- Capital One Spark Miles Select for Business (Learn More)
Curious about Capital One miles? Check out some of our favorite ways to use this valuable transferable points program.
Final Thoughts
I really like what Capital One has been doing with its program this year. If it continues to run fun transfer bonus promos like this one, earning Capital One miles is going to become more of a priority for many people. If I could only get approved for one of their cards, it would be a priority of mine — not bitter about it.
So, if you’re looking to book an award ticket on a Star Alliance carrier whether its Lufthansa first class to Europe or EVA Air business class to Asia, see if this 25% transfer bonus can help save you some points.
