Capital One Venture card

By Joyce Renee Lewis
This item appears on page 14 of the January 2018 issue.

I initially got a Capital One Venture® Rewards credit card because they didn’t charge interest when I used the card outside of the country, plus I got 2 miles for every $1 I spent. Also, I was tired of the low seat availability and all the blackout dates when trying to book a flight with an air-miles card I had.

In early 2017, I found the best price for a round-trip business-class flight in September from Seattle, Washington, to London, England, on Icelandair (via Reykjavik both ways).

The ticket price was $2,108. I had 160,850 miles in my account, which gave me $1,608 to work with. I booked the ticket, charging the $2,108 to my card. I then notified Capital One with the details of my purchase, and within 10 days $1,608 was credited to my credit card account, using up my accumulated miles in my mileage account.

Also, after purchasing that ticket, I had a time-frame of 90 days in which I could accrue more miles and apply them to that same purchase. (I did accrue about 15,000 miles within the 90 days and could have called Capital One and asked them to apply those miles to my airfare as well, but I didn’t pursue it, as I wanted to just start accruing miles for future use.)

The best bonus was that Icelandair is a partner with Alaska Air, and within a week of my flight home, my accrued miles for the flight were credited to my Alaska Mileage Plan account. (Normally, when you use air miles for a ticket, you can’t accrue the air miles flown.)

Overall, I think the Capital One Venture (877/383-4802, www.
capitalone.com/credit-cards/travel-
and-miles)
is the best card for travel.

JOYCE RENEE LEWIS

Camano Island, WA