Capital One Venture 110,000 Bonus Points Deal Of The Year?

I feel like I woke up this morning and someone left me a check for $1,100

I normally do not post about credit cards until afternoon, but this one is hot off of the wire and there is somewhat of a time critical nature to it. Capital One is offering up to 110,000 of their travel reward points for new credit card sign ups.  All you have to do is prove that you have 100,000 miles in an airline account and they will give you that many points.  They are also giving out 10,000 points to everyone as a sign up bonus.

What Is A Capital One Point Worth?

Each point is worth one cent as a statement credit towards any travel related expense such as airline tickets, hotels, or car rental.  Therefore the value of this offer is $1,100 in statement credits, really the same as cash to anyone who travels. Unlike airline miles, flights purchased with these awards also earn miles, accrue status,and can be upgraded. As far as the airline, hotel, or rental car companies know, you just paid with your credit card.

What Do You Have To Do To Get The $1,100 Credit?

First, you have to apply for and receive a Capital One Venture Rewards card.  This is not a bad card to hold even if they weren’t handing out $1,100 in free money.  This card offers two points (2 cents) per dollar spent as a statement credit towards travel charges. 2 cents on the dollar rewards are the highest rewards that are offered on all categories of spending outside of a promotional period. Capital One also charges no foreign exchange fees, unlike most cards.

If you already hold a Capital One card, they will convert your account to a Venture Card without running credit checks or establishing a new line of credit, so existing customers have nothing to loose.  Existing customers will have to pay the $59 annual fee, while new customers do not.

Next, you will have to submit a statement from an airline showing that you have 100,000 miles in your account.  Their web sites list the airlines that they are accepting statements from, basically the major US carriers or discount airline, including Southwest, Frontier, Jetblue, Alaska, Spirit, Airtran, Hawaiian, and Virgin America. It is unclear how they are establishing, or if they care, if the miles were received from credit card spending.  The representative I spoke to told me that they are only asking for your latest airline statement, and that the miles must exist in your account at that time.  I am waiting for more information when I receive the card and the offer form.

Finally, you have to spend $1,000 on the card in the first 90 days.

Act Now

One of the catches with this program is that they are ending the offer once they have given out 1 billion miles or by May 13th, whichever comes first.  It is difficult to tell how quickly they will reach a billion miles, but just to be safe, I won’t be waiting on this offer.

Once or twice a year there is a credit card offer that really hits it out of the park.  $1,100 is a good chunk of money, although there have been 75,000 and 100,000 mile offers that could have potentially been worth much more.  What makes this offer special, is that it is essentially cash that they are giving out in the form of statement credits.  Even better, as an existing Capital One customer, I have nothing to loose by having my existing account transferred to a different card.

You can read our review of the Capital One Venture Rewards Card here.