are you guys talking about this?
and is it worth it?
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from FT
It's Capital One's Venture "Match My Miles" Challenge
http://www.capitaloneventure.com/#/WelcomeAnd it's up on the CapitalOne.com home page as well.
After credit card approval you'll need to submit proof of your current mileage account balance, then spend $1k on the card within 90 days and they'll match your account balance up to 100,000 miles. (Competing statement must be received within 45 days of account opening.)
They've capped the matching program at "one billion miles." I suppose it's an open question how long that'll last but we should be good for a month. Though the offer also ends May 13.
It's unclear if you have to show you've earned 100k miles from a co-branded credit card or if you have to have 100k miles in your account. It almost certainly has to just be the latter, since the FAQ says what you have to do to receive the miles is "Reserve your miles by registering online and submitting proof of your airline miles within 45 days of being approved for the Venture card." (emphasis mine.) Elsewhere they reference 100,000 credit card miles but I suspect that's just their marketing pitch to conflate credit card miles with miles.
They will 'match' Alaska, American, Continental, Delta, Frontier, Hawaiian, JetBlue, Spirit, United, US Airways, and Virgin. They'll also match Airtran (1000 miles in their program per credit) and Southwest (1200 miles in their program per credit).
There's also a 10,000 point account opening bonus that you'll get after qualifying spend as wel, so it's really a 110,000 mile signup bonus.
Do I still get the one-time bonus of 10,000 miles?
Yes! New Venture cardholders who spend $1,000 in the first 3 months will automatically receive the one-time bonus, in addition to the matched miles. Existing customers who upgrade to Venture are not eligible for the 10,000 bonus miles.
So for folks who have a mileage account with 100k miles in it, they can get an $1100 credit towards paid airfare by signing up for this card.
Now, it's not a terrible card for someone who wants to earn domestic airfare for their credit card spend. I'd still recommend a good 2% cash back card instead for such a person. That's not my goal.
But as far as proprietary points programs go, with the past Thank You Points devaluation, this one isn't terrible since all spend earns 2 points per dollar and with each point worth ~ a penny that's a 2% rebate towards travel. And of course Capital One pioneered no foreign currency fees.
I'll definitely sign up for this card, and I'll meet their minimum spend requirement. The extent to which I put additional spend on the card, however, is a different question entirely.
