Capital One is offering up to 56,000 miles for signing up with Yieldstreet via Capital One Offers. The real value here is you need to open an account, but it doesn’t look like you need to fund the account or invest. For the largest points payout you do need to qualify as an accredited investor.

DP: 56k miles signing up for Yieldstreet
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• Access the Yieldstreet deal through the Capital One Offers portal then create an account using the provided offer link.
  
• Link a Bank Account: Verification of identity and linking of a bank account is part of the process.
  
• Prove Accredited Investor Status: Some report not being asked for this. But you may need to upload documents proving accreditation, such as: W-2 forms or tax returns for two years (if qualifying via income); net worth documentation showing over $1 million (excluding primary residence); or proof of professional licenses (e.g., Series 7, 65, or 82).

The points, of course, are worth 1 cent apiece redeemed towards travel or can be transferred to a variety of airline or hotel programs with eligible Capital One cards.

The Accredited Investor Test

An accredited investor requires either $200,000 individual annual income ($300,000 with a spouse) or $1 million net worth, although there are professional licensing ways to qualify as well. It’s such a strange requirement.

Generally, retail investors are only permitted to invest in public investments subject to disclosure requirements so that they know what they’re getting into – of course no one reads prospectuses. And you could do stupid things in public companies, like investing in Bed, Bath and Beyond when they told the world they were issuing shares to dilute equity in order to repay bondholders prior to bankruptcy.

Meanwhile wealthy investors are supposedly savvier. Good luck with that, besides with inflation the standards no longer restrict other investments to those actually wealthy.

Besides, private deals are often the most lucrative. With the best companies staying private longer, non-public investors reap the greatest returns and going public happens to let those earlier investors cash out. It’s a shame to reserve those only for the best-off investors. On the other hand, the dumbest deals are also frequently private.

Matt Levine says the solution is the “Certificate of Dumb Investment.”

I want to buy a dumb investment. I understand that the person selling it will almost certainly steal all my money, and that I would almost certainly be better off just buying index funds, but I want to do this dumb thing anyway. I agree that I will never, under any circumstances, complain to anyone when this investment inevitably goes wrong. I understand that violating this agreement is a felony.

And then the SEC will slap you in the face and say “really?” and if you say “yes really” then they give you the certificate and you can buy whatever private investment you want.

You Can Also Just Get 17,000 Miles Without Accreditation

If you don’t have the resources or want to demonstrate accreditation to YieldStreet, just signing up and linking an account should qualifying you for 17,000 miles.

Let Me Know Your Experience

The offer requires an “eligible purchase” but that’s standard language which here appears to mean completing the required steps (opening account, linking account, etc.) rather than actually investing. Rewards can take up to three billing cycles to post.

And as a result, no one has yet gotten the points, so until we see it work (by which time the offer may be gone) there’s ambiguity over actually receiving the full reward.

Will you take advantage of it? Let me and other readers know your experience.