I am completely becoming a Capital One convert as I am trying to accumulate as many Capital One Miles as I possibly can to supplement the hefty price tag that we are paying for a Xmas 2022 trip to the Galapagos Islands.
Recall, Rob already had a Capital One Spark Miles Business Card, and towards the end of last year, I started moving a lot of spending to that card. Remember, Capital One Miles can be used to erase travel purchases at the rate of 1 cents per mile.
And towards the end of 2021, another opportunity to amass Cap One Miles came along. Capital One debuted the Venture X with a 100,000 Capital One mile offer for spending $10K in 6 months. But would I get approved?
Note, in the past, I have often applied for a Capital One Venture Rewards Card. Despite a soaring credit score, I have gotten rejected for either opening too many cards recently or having too many cards. Those two factors would never change as I am constantly applying for cards, owning cards, and scoring big bonuses. I resigned myself to the fact that I would never have a Capital One card. But when I heard that the Venture X was being pretty lenient in their approvals, I said what the heck and applied!
OMG-approved in seconds! I finally had my own Capital One card. And now, with the approvals being this easy, I went for one for Rob, APPROVED! and why not throw in an application for my 19-year-old son, Daniel, who has had his own card since he was 18 and who had an amazing credit score. APPROVED! What? he is so young, has limited income, etc. Now, let me add that it was a big process actually getting Daniel the physical card and setting up the account despite the easy approval. They needed to know it wasn’t a fraudulent account, and this required submissions of many documents, some phone calls, etc., before Daniel actually had the card in hand. But the 100,000 Mile bonus is worth it!
So with the three 100K bonuses (we are still working on 2) and the $10K in spend requirement to get the bonus at 2x Miles per $, that yielded 120,000 Miles per card for a total of 360,000 Capital One Miles aka $3600.
And the best part is, Capital One lets people combine their Miles, so both mine and Daniel’s buckets will be combined into Rob’s (where the Miles from his Spark card already live), which will be a lot easier to use when we PURCHASE ERASE part of our Galapagos trip.
And then the next part happened! Capital One threw out this unprecedented offer towards the end of January 2022. The Capital One Spark Cash Plus Card is for a limited time, offering UP TO $3,000 CASHBACK (previously $1000 potential). You read that right, but the spend requirement is pretty steep. For a limited time, you can earn up to a $3,000 cash bonus; $500 once you spend $5,000 in the first three months, and $2,500 once you spend $50,000 in the first six months.
Making this offer even more enticing was that if you have a card that earns Capital One Miles, which I do with my Venture X, you can convert this cashback to Capital One Miles.
Hmm, Capital One approved me once already, and I have demonstrated good behavior with them so far; why not just fill out the application? APPROVED!!! WHAT?!?!?!?
Hmm, now I need to figure out how to meet that $50K spend requirement for that $3,000, which is $4,000 after I spend the $50K (2% cashback on all purchases) that will ultimately move to Rob’s bucket of Capital One Miles.
And maybe, if the offer is still around in a few months, maybe I will try for Rob or even Daniel. 🙂
I will knock $7600 off of our Galapagos trip in mere bonuses alone. Insane!