With a new “almost” best ever offer on the Capital One Venture X credit card on right now to earn 100,000 bonus miles once you spend $10,000 on purchases within the first 6 months from account opening, I took a minute to think about how I personally use Capital One Miles.
Note that the Venture X Business has a whopper of a bonus as well if you can manage the spend:
As a reminder, here are the current Capital One Miles transfer partners:
| Capital One Miles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Transfer Ratio | Expected Transfer Time | |
| Air Canada (Aeroplan) | 1:1 | Instant |
| Air France / KLM Flying Blue | 1:1 | Instant |
| Avianca Lifemiles | 1:1 | Instant |
| Aeromexico | 1:1 | Instant |
| British Airways Avios | 1:1 | TBD |
| Cathay Pacific Asia Miles | 1:1 | Nearly instant |
| Choice Hotels | 1:1 | 1 day |
| Emirates Skywards | 1:1 | Instant |
| Etihad Guest | 1:1 | 1-2 days |
| EVA | 2:1.5 | 1-2 days |
| Finnair | 1:1 | Instant |
| JAL (Japan Airlines) Mileage Bank | 2:1.5 (Account must be open for 7 days before transfer) | TBD |
| JetBlue | 5:3 | TBD |
| Qantas | 1:1 | 1-2 days |
| Qatar Avios | 1:1 | TBD |
| Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer | 1:1 | 1-2 days |
| TAP Air Portugal | 1:1 | TBD |
| Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles | 1:1 | TBD |
| Wyndham Rewards Hotel Program | 1:1 | Instant |
| Virgin Red | 1:1 | TBD |
| Accor Live Limitless (ALL) Hotel Program | 2:1 | 1-2 days |
| I Prefer Hotel Rewards: | 1:2 | TBD |
My top picks of these are, depending on what I want to book, British Airways Avios (to use with any Avios program), Air France Flying Blue (for SkyTeam, but mostly for Air France flights), Air Canada (for Star Alliance flights), and JAL (for oneworld and JetBlue flights).
And it’s that last one, and the newest Capital One Miles transfer partner, that has become my #1 favorite, despite a 1:0.75 transfer ratio.
I wish it were 1:1 (and it was almost 1:1 at launch thanks to a transfer bonus that gave you 975 JAL Mileage Bank miles for 1,000 Capital One Miles) but even at the lower ratio, the value on JetBlue is really sweet.
Still, my favorite redemptions are a combination of JAL and Avios (of various flavors). Please note that you must have a JAL Mileage Bank account open for 7 days before you can redeem via Capital One Miles transfers, so go ahead and open that account now, even if you have no near term plans to use them.
I’m going to focus now on the JetBlue Sweet Spots.
In this article
Capital One Miles Sweet Spot: Use JAL Mileage Bank to Book JetBlue Mint
This is my current favorite use of Capital One Miles and part of the allure is that when you book round trip, you get some really insane deals. The best part is that you can now use the United website to find the award space. If it is available via United (which will cost many multiples of JAL), you should be able to book it on JAL’s website. And while some of my other favorite sweet spots below are similarly great, JAL is the only one of them that you can easily and consistently book online without any fuss. Transfers from Capital One (in my personal experience) take less than 30 minutes, though your mileage may vary there and it could take longer.
Note: to book JetBlue on JAL, go to this link to sign in and click the + under Redeem your miles
Then JMB Partner Airlines Award Tickets
Then the same again…
The booking screen is pretty intuitive though don’t miss the drop down to choose JetBlue here.
Example 1: Transcontinental flights in Mint
Example 1: Transcontinental flights in MintI found a JetBlue transcontinental in Mint on my first try looking at United. 80,000 miles one way? Hah. I don’t think so!
Using the date I found, though, I can plug that in at JAL.
42,000 miles for a JetBlue Mint transcontinental flight including the new aircraft configuration is solid (though to be clear, not the best you can do for a transcon! You can book for 35k Alaska miles on AA or 33K Cathay on AA).
Yet here is where it technically does beat Alaska and Cathay – on a round trip. The price for this route round trip drops to just 60,000 JAL miles (30k each way). (Less miles, though again, if coming from Capital One you do lose the 25% to the transfer ratio.)
That’s 80,000 Capital One Miles without a transfer bonus and I do find that JetBlue has much better award space on that route unless you don’t mind a 6am flight or the last flight of the day on AA.
Example 2: East Coast to the Caribbean (i.e. JFK-AUA) in Mint
This is one of the furthest distances you can book from NY in the Caribbean, with Aruba practically in Venezuela.
United would charge you 75,000 miles each way for JetBlue Mint, so I bet 30,000 points one way in Mint Business Class on JetBlue sounds via JAL pretty great, right? Yes, it is!
But you know what will blow your mind?
42,000 miles ROUND TRIP!
That works out to just 21,000 miles in each direction – again in BUSINESS CLASS on a flight that is over 4 hours. That’s just 56,000 Capital One Miles (1:0.75 transfer ratio) in Business Class round trip to Aruba from New York.
Example 3: Europe (i.e. BOS-CDG) in JetBlue Mint
Oh là là!
You can book from Boston to Paris (or other transatlantic flight from the east coast) in JetBlue Mint on United for just 115,000 UA miles ONE WAY.
Or…. how about just 42,000 JAL miles for JetBlue Mint from Boston to Paris?
A round trip doesn’t give you the same bonkers savings as the first two routes I showed, but it still saves a few miles at 80,000 round trip vs. 84,000 if you book two one ways. Personally I prefer booking one ways! But for the savings domestically or to the Caribbean, I’ll book round trip!
You will need to transfer 107,000 Capital One Miles if there is no transfer bonus, but that is still the best possible mileage for business class I can think of on that route save for when there is a transfer bonus elsewhere.
That’s 53,500 Capital One Miles each way, effectively.
Other uses of JAL Miles
JAL Business Class or First Class are clear winners. Business is 55,000 miles and First runs you 110,000-140,000 miles – with the best availability.
But you can also book a Round the World ticket which I covered here and I think it’s the best RTW option since ANA ended their RTW.
JAL Mileage Bank Change and Cancellation Fees + Mileage Expiration
You can’t technically change an award booking but you can cancel and rebook for a very reasonable 3,100 yen which is about $21.
Also keep in mind that miles expire 3 years from the month they were earned or transferred and cannot be extended.
The Capital One Venture X and Venture X Business Offers
To recap:
The Capital One Venture X credit card has an offer to earn 100,000 bonus miles once you spend $10,000 on purchases within the first 6 months from account opening, I took a minute to think about how I personally use Capital One Miles.
The Venture X Business has an offer to earn up to 400k bonus miles:
Just from the personal Venture X early spend bonus, you would have 120,000 Capital One miles after spending the required $10,000 in 6 months.
That’s 90,000 JAL Mileage Bank miles at the 1:0.75 transfer ratio.
And 90,000 JAL is enough for a round trip Mint Business Class ticket in Mint.… from JFK-LAX or SFO or LAX/SFO-JFK/BOS for 60,000 miles with 30,000 JAL miles to spare.
It’s also enough for TWO JetBlue Mint Business Class tickets from JFK to the Caribbean (42,000 JAL miles Round Trip – where they have Mint service).
Or a one way to Europe in Mint (42,000 JAL miles)
My favorite of these is the Caribbean as I think it’s insane to get business class for two people in JetBlue Mint on a 4+ hour flight both ways – for one credit card sign up bonus requiring $10,000 in spend in 6 months. The lowest I can imagine JetBlue selling that round trip off peak is around $1,100 and it goes well up from there – but worst case, at $1,000 a ticket X 2, you are looking at a bonus worth $2,200 – more than a 20% return on your spend.
The sky is literally the limit with the Venture X Business card bonus.
Note that you won’t be eligible for a Venture X card if you have received a bonus on the Venture X card in the last 48 months.
Want to make sure you don’t miss out if Capital One does another transfer bonus to JAL Mileage Bank? Make sure you are subscribed to free transfer bonus alerts!
Thoughts?
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Great summary and great thinking– really giving my brain a workout!!