Capital One Offering 25% Transfer Bonus to Avianca LifeMiles, More Bonuses on the Way

I receive compensation for content and many links on this blog. Citibank is an advertising partner of this site, as is American Express, Chase, Barclays and Capital One. Any opinions expressed in this post are my own, and have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by my advertising partners. I do not write about all credit cards that are available -- instead focusing on miles, points, and cash back (and currencies that can be converted into the same). Terms apply to the offers and benefits listed on this page.


Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card cardholders gained the ability to transfer to airline frequent flyer miles late last year.

At the time Capital One shared they’d be adding airline points transfer partners. And when they ran an Emirates miles transfer bonus in March they shared that there would be more transfer bonuses to come. They added JetBlue as a transfer partner, and highlighted it with a transfer bonus in May (partnership ended). Then they ran an Air France KLM Flying Blue transfer bonus in June.

They’re not missing a beat with transfer bonuses, either — they’ve just announced a 25% bonus on all miles transferred to Avianca LifeMiles in July.

Here’s Capital One’s list of airline transfer partners and standard transfer rates:

Airline Frequent Flyer Program Transfer Ratio
Aeromexico Club Premier 2-to-1.5
Air Canada Aeroplan 2-to-1.5
Air France KLM Flying Blue 2-to-1.5
Alitalia MilleMiglia Program (eliminated) 2-to-1.5
Cathay Pacific Asia Miles 2-to-1.5
Avianca LifeMiles 2-to-1.5
Emirates Skywards 2-to-1.0
Etihad Airways Etihad Guest 2-to-1.5
EVA Air Infinity MileageLands 2-to-1.5
Finnair Plus 2-to-1.5
Hainan Airlines Fortune Wings Club 2-to-1.5
JetBlue TrueBlue (eliminated) 2-to-1.0
Qantas Frequent Flyer 2-to-1.5
Qatar Airways Privilege Club 2-to-1.5
Singapore Airlines Krisflyer 2-to-1.0

Both Capital One cards earn 2 miles per dollar, so with this bonus that’s effectively earning 1.876 Flying Blue points per dollar which is excellent.

And Capital One is in a better position to capitalize on transfer bonuses for new cardmembers and to encourage increased card spend than most issuers because points become available when transactions post to your card account (“between 1-3 business days after pending transactions charge to your statement”) you do not have to wait until statement close (or worse still, paying off a statement or the following statement close).

Lifemiles has no fuel surcharges and a reasonable award chart. However not all connections are bookable, you’re pretty much limited to the options you see on their redemption website (which is serviceable) and telephone customer service is challenging (e-mail is better).

You can fly business class to Europe for 63,000 miles each way or Southeast Asia for 78,000. First class (Lufthansa) is 87,000 miles each way between the US and Europe.

Already on their fourth transfer bonus of the year, having just launched transferable points, and Capital One notes “limited-time offers like this will be another major perk for Venture and Spark Miles account holders to take advantage of.” So we can certainly expect to see more.

Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

More articles by Gary Leff »

Editorial note: any opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any card issuer. Comments made in response to this post are not provided or commissioned nor have they been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any bank. It is not the responsibility of advertisers Citibank, Chase, American Express, Barclays, Capital One or any other advertiser to ensure that questions are answered, either. Terms and limitations apply to all offers.

Comments

  1. LifeMiles old website was not very good. The new site is much worse. It no longer displays biz availability across an entire week; you have to manually check every single day, using a down arrow which is usually covered by a pop up box suggesting a “miles + money” option before you ever find availability. And.. the new color scheme is outright painful to look at!

  2. Now Capital One just need to fix their defective bureau reporting practices for the Spark products, build an Amex/Chase style portfolio of products (Savor paired with Venture anyone) and they’ll be well ahead of Citi with their draconian signup rules.

Comments are closed.