Hidden Gems: Unique Ways to Use Venture Miles

I'm Katie and I'm here because I know that travel costs add up , especially for a family , but I believe travel isn't just for the rich .

That's why , on Points for Normal People , I share the tips and tricks that my family has been using for over a decade to help you use your everyday expenses and credit card welcome offers to supercharge your travel points so that you can pay for entire vacations every year .

Last week we talked about the perks and benefits of the Capital One VentureX Rewards credit card . This card earns a points currency called Venture Miles . Those miles can be redeemed for any travel expense and even for some non-travel expenses like baseball tickets . Today I'll walk through some of the sweet spots you should be aware of , as well as some tricks .

I did a few episodes just like this in Season 1 , where I focused on Chase Ultimate Rewards . If you missed those , I'd recommend going back and reviewing them . If you're also earning ultimate rewards points . The VentureX isn't the only Capital One card that earns VentureMiles . You can also earn them with a Venture card which has a lower $95 annual fee .

You can earn them with the VentureOne card , which has a $0 annual fee . There are also some business cards that earn Venture Miles too , like the Capital One Venture X business card , and then there's a business card that earns Spark Miles , which . Those are essentially the same thing .

Just a cautionary note with that card , though the Spark Miles card does report to your personal credit report if you get it , so it will add to your 524 count .

If you're new here and you don't understand what 524 is , welcome and that's okay , but also it's one of those lingo terms and ideas that you really need to wrap your head around so that you can have a simple strategy for points . I did a whole episode on it early in Season 1 , and I recommend that you review that .

An unpublished perk with Capital One is that any of their cards that earn cash back also let you convert your cash back to Venture Miles if you have both kinds of cards . So I opened a Capital One Spark Cash Plus earlier this year , which earned a $2,000 cash back bonus . When I got my bonus .

I just converted that cash back to miles and when I moved it over to my VentureX card it was now 200,000 miles . Even better , you can actually send VentureMiles to anyone , not just in your household , but to anyone . This can make it really easy to combine points and book trips together with friends or family .

Capital One has the most generous combining policies of any bank and most of the cards have very straightforward earning rates , like the VentureX or VentureCard is going to earn two points per dollar on pretty much every purchase . This is a great , solid rate . You'll earn more points when you book travel via Capital One Travel .

If you hold the VentureX and book hotels , for instance , you can earn 10 points per dollar . We'll talk in a minute how to maximize this . Originally , you could only redeem venture miles to offset travel purchases , and this is still a very popular use . For these points , the purchase has to code as travel for this to work .

Basically , every place you swipe your card has a business category and we use the term coding as to talk about the category . So we say McDonald's will code as restaurants Giving a donation to Habitat for Humanity would code as charity . Plane tickets code as travel . Bus tickets , hotels , rental cars those are all broadly in the travel category .

Rental cars those are all broadly in the travel category . So anything that's in that travel category you can use your venture miles to later give yourself cash back on your statement . If you bought a $100 plane ticket , you could use 10,000 venture miles to offset that purchase . It just needs to code as travel .

One thing a lot of people use Venture Miles for is to cover Disney tickets . But Disney tickets purchased straight from Disney will not code as travel but as entertainment . But if you purchase them from an online travel agent like Undercover Tourist , they will code as travel . So then you can use your points to cover them .

So you just have to be mindful of these categories . As an added plus , undercover tourist often has cheaper tickets than buying direct with Disney . Redeeming your points this way is going to give you exactly one mile per cent value , so you'll know exactly what those points are worth .

Just take off two zeros on your balance and that's how much you could use to offset travel . If you have 75,000 miles , that's $750 . There are a few tricks to take note of if you plan to use your points this way . First , it's good to know you can sort of use your points before you even earn them .

I love this because it provides a way that you could get a venture or a VentureX and use your points or earmark your points to use as soon as you get the card , and then the travel spending that you're doing will actually count towards your minimum spend . Let me explain .

If you get a VentureX card , you have to spend $4,000 in three months to get your 75,000 mile welcome offer . Let's say you have a cruise you've been waiting to book that costs $4,000 . I'm just using this as a nice round number . This isn't based in reality . You could get the new card and put your $4,000 cruise purchase on it .

You don't have any miles yet , but don't worry . After your statement closes , or sometimes even before , because Capital One sometimes gives points and miles before then , you'll earn the 75,000 mile bonus as well as 8,000 miles for your spending , because you earn two miles per dollar .

So you'll have 83,000 venture miles when you go to redeem your miles for travel purchases . You can do that for any travel purchase that you've made in the past 90 days .

So , even if it takes you almost three months to do all of your spending , to get that bonus , any initial travel purchases that you've made will still be in this 90-day window of eligibility to be reimbursed . Now , in my example , you won't have enough points to cover your full purchase , but you can get $830 back with the 83,000 miles you have .

I love this option for people who just want a quick win . Now , if you're booking through Capital One Travel and you have miles in your account , it will prompt you to see if you want to use miles right there to offset your purchase . You don't want to do this , well , you can .

If you want to use miles right there to offset your purchase , you don't want to do this ? Well , you can if you want to . But here's a way to do the same thing but to use fewer miles . If you have the Venture X , you earn 10 miles per dollar on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel .

You earn five miles per dollar on flights that you book . But you don't earn those miles if you pay with miles , and Capital One Travel gives you the same rate with your miles as it does to redeem for any travel purchase .

So instead of using your miles directly in Capital One Travel , I recommend that you instead make your booking in Capital One Travel and pay with your VentureX card . So if you book a hotel for $100 , you would earn 10 miles per dollar and you've paid $100 , so you've earned 1,000 miles .

Now keep in mind that , specifically with the VentureX , you'll first need to use your annual $300 travel credit up before you're earning any miles on this . Now you have a $100 travel charge you've made on your statement from Capital One Travel so you can go and redeem 10,000 points to offset it .

This is the same as what Capital One Travel offered you when you were booking . They said you could have used 10,000 miles in order to make your travel purchase , but because you paid with your VentureX , you came out with more miles because you've also earned 1,000 miles . So really the net cost to you is only 9,000 miles .

Now if you're trying to earn elite status with a hotel chain or you have some sort of status that gives you perks , you won't want to book hotels through Capital One Travel as it won't let you add your loyalty number , so you won't earn hotel points or be able to use those perks .

But for independent hotels or hotel chains that you're just doing a one-off stay , this is a decent option . You're essentially locking in a 10% discount . Capital One Travel also has a price match guarantee , so if you book and within 24 hours you find a cheaper rate , you can submit it to them and they will give you a credit for the difference .

Another unique way that you can use Venture Miles is for Major League Baseball tickets . These cost 5,000 miles per ticket and if you can snag them to a good game with infield seats , it can be a decent value . These seem to become available to book in chunks , so you do have to kind of watch for it .

Beyond those more straightforward uses , you can also transfer your venture miles to a number of hotel and airline partners . I want to go through and highlight some of the potential sweet spots that you can find .

I won't go through every airline and every sweet spot because there's a fair amount of overlap with airline options from the Chase Ultimate Rewards episodes that I did , but I do want to highlight ones that are unique to Capital One .

I'm also going to focus more on highlighting sweet spots than giving you every single airline and every airline what the pros and cons are . If you're new to transferring points , I really recommend you grab our Travel Points 201 guide in the show notes .

This walks through the basics of transferring points and also includes a handy chart which will show you which bank points transfer to which airline and hotel programs . The first transfer partner I want to mention here is Air Canada Aeroplan .

I actually did discuss this in my Ultimate Rewards Sweet Spot episode because Aeroplan is also a transfer partner with Chase , but since releasing that episode we have added a new in-depth blog post on how to book stopovers with Aeroplan and I wanted to point that out here .

Air Canada is in the Star Alliance , which means with Aeroplan points you can book flights on other airlines that are also in the Star Alliance . But , importantly , air Canada does not pass along fuel surcharges that some airlines have , so it can be cheaper for you tax-wise to book with Air Canada .

But the most unique thing is their ability to add stopovers for 5,000 miles . This can really be a great way to see multiple countries on one ticket and we have a whole post that walks you through this .

Avianca Life Miles is another Star Alliance transfer partner that Capital One has . Like Air Canada Aeroplan , they will not pass along fuel surcharges , so that means taxes and fees stay relatively low . Pricing with Avianca Life Miles is often on the low end for Star Alliance flights . This is what we used when we went to Japan last year .

We transferred to Life Miles and then used those points to book onto United flights . This way it cost us fewer points than what we would have paid with United miles . Plus , we could use Capital One miles and American Express membership rewards to transfer to Avianca .

Neither of those transfer to United , but Avianca has a few quirks , like their website is a pain to deal with . They don't always show taxes and fees accurately until you get to the final checkout and you can't see that until you've transferred your miles to them . And , like Air Canada , there's a steep fee for canceling your ticket .

Both charge around $150 per ticket , I believe . So really both of these are for trips that you're sure you're going to take . Earlier this year there were a lot of secret Avianca Life Mile sweet spots to Europe , but those have largely disappeared since then .

So these points are for when you want to book Star Alliance carriers without fuel surcharges and you know you're going to take that trip . Like Chase , capital One also transfers to British Airways , and British Airways is part of its own ecosystem of partnership with airlines that all use Avios as their currency .

This means that if you transfer your Capital One miles to British Airways . You'll also be able to move them over to other Avios airlines like Aer Lingus and Iberia and Qatar Airways and now Finnair too , so you'll have all of those sweet spots of that whole ecosystem at your fingertips .

Now , these airlines do pass on fuel surcharges , so while the cost and points can be low , usually taxes and fees are a bit higher . Again , I went over the main Avios sweet spots in the Chase episode , so I'm not going to go over them here . It's also something .

You could always google Avios sweet spots and you'll come up with a lot of blog posts from different people about those . Another overlapping popular transfer partner is Flying Blue , which is the program for Air France and KLM .

Again , I highlighted this in the Chase episode , but I also want to pull some of these out to show you that if you're earning with Capital One and Chase , you can combine all those points for one redemption . Flying Blue is a popular one because it offers low points cost flights to Europe .

Every month Flying Blue has promos and it's fairly common for these promo rates to be 15,000 points each way or 30,000 points round trip from the US to Europe . Now , overall , I still think this is somewhat average value , since it's also very common for flights to Europe to cost round trip in the $400 to $500 range .

And with Flying Blue you're going to pay the points , but you're also going to pay over $200 in $500 range . And with Flying Blue , you're going to pay the points but you're also going to pay over $200 in taxes per person .

But it does offer the ability to get a free stopover in Paris or Amsterdam , and they even have a route from LAX to Tahiti and some decent pricing to South Africa . I have a full post on Flying Blue to Europe that I will link in the show notes below if you want to go over that .

But again , it's nice that you can combine chase points with Capital One Miles in order to book some of these types of trips . Qantas is a new one , so Qantas is one I want to draw attention to for a very specific region . This one is especially worth noting if you're hoping to go to Australia or New Zealand .

Qantas is based in Australia , but also has a non-stop from New York to Auckland , new Zealand , and the economy pricing is very reasonable . The routes we found when we were researching our Australia and New Zealand guide were about 75,000 points round trip plus about $150 in taxes and fees .

Qantas comes up in our other flight destination guides sometimes , but usually on other routes the taxes and fees are much higher . But if you're saving up Capital One miles and you're planning a trip to Australia and New Zealand , this is definitely a program that you'd want to think about .

Singapore Airlines is another overlap with Chase , but I do want to mention it again because it's especially good for flying on Singapore Airlines itself for trips to Southeast Asia . So again , if you're planning a trip to that region , that's a program that you would want to look into .

But we also have a full guide on flying to Southeast Asia that would walk you through various options .

I'm skipping over some of the airline transfer partners that really don't have that much that's exciting to offer .

So if you go back and review a list later and you wonder why I'm not talking about TAP , miles , go or Etihad , that's why there are usually at least one to two very niche uses for any program out there , but they can be very specific and not applicable to most people . So for the last two , I want to focus on airlines that have a broader appeal .

One of those is Turkish Airlines . Now Turkish Airlines has some real pluses , some sweet spots in their chart , but I generally consider it to be a more intermediate redemption just because their customer service isn't great . Their website is particularly hit or miss and so it might take more work to book this way . It might not .

It might go smoothly , but you have to mentally prepare . If you're booking with Turkish . This isn't simple like booking a Southwest flight where the website is just going to work and it's going to be easy to do .

The big sweet spot with Turkish Airlines is the ability to book a one-way ticket from anywhere in the US to anywhere else in the US for 10,000 miles each way , and that includes Alaska and Hawaii . So that comes out to 20,000 miles round trip for any domestic flight . But that comes with a big asterisk .

Turkish Airlines , as you might imagine , doesn't operate any flights in the US , so this is the rate for booking on Star Alliance partners , which in the US is United , and you can't just book any old United flight . It has to be one that United is pricing at what they call a saver level award , which basically means it's their cheapest ticket .

And even if you find a saver level ticket , it's often that it's not going to even show on Turkish's website . So you often have to call in , and then many of the agents don't even know how to book this . So then some people email in . Even then sometimes they say it's still not bookable . See what I mean ?

It's complicated , but it can be a great value , especially if you're in the Midwest or further east and you want to go to Hawaii . Or it can be a great deal for flights to Alaska or other routes . It can work for those too . It's just not always straightforward , it's not always a sure bet .

Now , turkish used to have decent deals to Turkey and Europe , but most of those have recently largely dried up because they raised the price of those routes and points . So there's usually a different way to book that's cheaper now .

And then the last program I want to talk about here when it comes to flights is Virgin Red , which actually isn't even technically an airline program . It's more of a general loyalty program . But Virgin Red connects with Virgin Atlantic . So by transferring to Virgin Red you have access to both options , both programs .

These are also available with chase points , but there's some new info here , which is why I want to highlight it . Virgin Red lets you book cruises with your points . These are somewhat limited and you usually can't book super far in advance , but there are cruises offered in both Europe and the Caribbean .

And then this year we also saw some transatlantic cruises being offered to book for points as well . These are adults only cruises , so this is not family friendly . Points as well these are adults only cruises , so this is not family friendly .

But we have a new guide up on our site from our writer , sadie , who recently went on one of these cruises with a friend out of the Caribbean and had a really great experience . She walks through how to book it and what to expect . So if you're interested in that , definitely check out that link in the show notes .

Virgin Atlantic previously was a very infrequently recommended airline for me because they have had very high fuel surcharges that they add on to award tickets so high it really didn't make sense to use them hardly ever .

But this fall Virgin Atlantic switched to dynamic pricing for awards and what we've seen again and again when airlines and hotels switch to dynamic pricing , there's some really good deals that pop up . Now the deals become less predictable , but they're still there , especially if you're willing to book economy tickets .

It's usually when people go to dynamic pricing the business class flights that suffer the most . Interestingly , virgin even made the taxes and fees somewhat dynamic , which is what really changed the landscape here . In economy , you can now find some flights from the US to London on Virgin for only 6,000 points each way and less than $80 in taxes .

Now , return flights are always going to have higher taxes because there's this departure duty from London that's always pretty high . On the flights that we priced , it was more like $350 in taxes and fees for the flight from London back to the US .

This would be a great option , though , for pairing with a different way to get home , especially if you live in an airport that is served by Virgin Atlantic . You could book a nonstop to London . If you snag one of these cheap fares , then you could enjoy London , which is a city we've loved visiting with our kids .

Take a cheap budget airline somewhere else in Europe , because we've done that so many times . It's really easy to find tickets for even as cheap as like $20 or $30 , and then return home from that city using a different kind of points .

Then you get to see a few different cities or places , as you can see a lot of the airline transfer partners with Capital One have fairly specific uses . It's not like Southwest Airlines , where it's pretty good to almost anywhere in the US . These are specific like Transfer to Qantas to fly to New Zealand or Transfer Virgin Atlantic to fly one way to London .

Now British Airways Avios do have some more general uses , thanks to all the Avios partners . Flying Blue is generally decent for many cities in Europe and , if you know , you're taking a Star Alliance trip . Both Aeroplan and Avianca life miles can be a decent way to use your points . You don't have to memorize all these sweet spots .

One resource we have on our blog is detailed flight destination guides and these help you walk through building a strategy for going to those specific locations with your points . We always list out our favorite three options at the top of the article , but then we go through all the alternatives , especially because your specific routing or situation might be different .

We have these guides for Australia and New Zealand , europe , japan , southeast Asia , india and Africa right now . In the next few months we plan to add Central and South America and then I think we've pretty much covered the world . So if your brain is on overload thinking about all of this , relax . You don't need to memorize this .

I just like to highlight a few options in these episodes , because part of learning points is just getting a general sense of how this all works , and sometimes hearing specific examples helps you build that awareness . Venture Miles also have two hotel partners and I want to highlight those too . The first is Choice Privileges .

Now , I think Choice Privileges is a very underrated hotel program . I mean it's underrated for good reason . This is the hotel loyalty program of hotels like Comfort Inn and Quality Suites . Those hotels don't always have the best reputation in the US , although almost every time we've stayed at one we've had a decent experience .

I'm going to tell you some of my favorite choice suite spots , but I'm also going to tell you that , if any of these appeal to you , the truth is that transferring Venture Miles is not your best option . Venture is a transfer partner but it's not your best one . That's because Venture Miles transfer at a 1 to 1 ratio , which is a normal transfer ratio .

But if you get a City Strata Premier , you can transfer at a 1 to 2 ratio , which means your points double . So 1,000 City Thank you points becomes 2,000 choice points . So it would be easier for you to earn a lot of choice points with a City Strata Premier .

Wells Fargo also has a card called the Autograph Journey , which also transfer at a one to two ratio to choice . Now choice points are especially good for . I'd say three things . The first is hotels in Europe that sleep a whole family .

Choice has more of those than many other brands and their hotels seem to be , on average , a higher quality than their US counterparts . Actually , we stayed at a hotel in Venice called Hotel Aquarius , which is an independent hotel that partners with Choice , and it is one of the favorite hotels that we've stayed at in the whole world .

It had really beautiful local art throughout it , lots of Murano glass and a nice breakfast buffet that's included for everybody . You don't need any status to get it . We also , on that trip , stayed at a comfort hotel in Rome , which was booked with choice points too .

I have a map that shows hotels in Europe that sleep a family of four on my blog and you can browse the options with choice . You'll see that there's quite a few Now .

Previously , one of the big disadvantages with choice was that you could only book with points if you were 100 days before your reservation , or less book with points if you are 100 days before your reservation or less , so you couldn't plan in advance .

But starting in 2025 , you will be able to book almost a year out , which will make it much easier to book these hotels . Now , choice changes its pricing on hotels every few months and it is really up and down , so the pricing is kind of unpredictable , but generally it seems to cap out at about 30,000 points per night .

One nice perk with Choice has been that the same number of points can be used to book almost any available room , and that's meant that you could book into bigger family rooms or suites . We're really hoping that this remains , because this is a great part of that program , assuming that this stays that way .

Another sweet spot of choice is booking one-bedroom suites or bigger with your points in the US .

I also have a map on my blog that shows these options , specifically the ones where you can book into these bigger rooms , and there's some really neat properties in their Ascend collection that includes a lot of different independent hotels , so there's properties on the Oregon coast or near Yellowstone or near Disneyland and lots of other places , and being able to book

those bigger rooms is such a great perk . And then the last sweet spot is booking preferred hotels , which is higher range independent hotels , and you might be catching the pattern here . We have a map of these as well . These are priced higher , so a lot of them are 55,000 points per night .

Well , these are priced higher , so a lot of them are 55,000 points per night . But there are even some all-inclusives that you can include a family of four for that price , with no extra upcharge in cash . So again , you could use your venture miles this way .

I think that Choice has some real advantages , but if you really like these options , get yourself a City Strata Premier instead . Then the last hotel program is Wyndham Rewards . Wyndham has a variety of hotels and resorts in the US . Rooms start at 7,500 points per night , but more commonly are priced at 15,000 to 30,000 points .

They do have some all-inclusive options too . One part of Wyndham I like is the ability , like Choice , to book bigger rooms . When we were in Scotland we booked a three-bedroom lodge at what is essentially a timeshare property for 30,000 Wyndham points per night . It could sleep eight people and had a whole kitchen .

So there are some nice big options in the Wyndham program , some nice family-friendly options too . Wyndham also has a unique partnership with Vacasa , which is a vacation home rental company , and this is a super popular way to redeem Wyndham points . Vacasa operates similarly to Airbnb , but Vacasa manages the properties itself instead of having the homeowner manage them .

When you book a Vacasa property with points , you also don't pay any cleaning fees or other taxes , so that's really nice , as those can add up , as you know , if you've ever booked an Airbnb . But the pricing model with points is a bit complicated . It's recently changed too , and it takes a bit of hunting to find a good option sometimes .

So the way pricing with Vacasa works is that you pay per bedroom and then for each bedroom it costs 15,000 points for up to $250 per night . So if a home costs $250 per night and has one bedroom , it would cost 15,000 points . But if it costs $250 per night and it has two bedrooms , just having that extra bedroom doubles the price to 30,000 points .

For 30,000 points you could also book a two-bedroom house that averages $500 per night . So , as you can see , with these ranges there's some finagling that you need to do and some comparing you need to do , but overall it still has the potential to offer decent value .

If you're booking a cheaper rental , it might not make sense to use your points this way , because if your rental costs just $150 a night , you may as well just book and then use your points to offset your purchase . Wyndham does also have a partnership with cottagescom in the UK , which is like Vacasa but in the UK .

But I've looked on their website a fair bit and find very little that's bookable there with the points . If you really like the sound of this Wyndham and Vacasa option , you'll also probably want to add a Wyndham card to your card list . Once you hold a Wyndham card , you also get 10% off any award booking .

So what was going to cost 30,000 points a night will now only cost 27,000 . Like with the flight options , there are options here for booking lodging , but they are somewhat more niche in their appeal . One more small point I want to mention before I close is referral bonuses .

Capital One has this annoying term on its referrals that if you refer someone to a Capital One card , you will only get the referral bonus . If you refer someone to a Capital One card , you will only get the referral bonus if they have never been a Capital One credit card customer before . This isn't about affiliate links , this is just for personal referrals .

So if you're trying to refer a friend or someone else in your household , so you just need to be aware of that . If you're planning to refer a partner or a friend , if they already have a Capital One card , you're probably not going to be eligible to get a referral bonus , even if it's their first time getting that specific card .

I listed out a lot of supporting resources today that I have on my blog , and you can find those all in the show notes , but the best way to make sure that you don't miss offers and you don't miss notifications about new resources that we're creating is to get on our newsletter mailing list .

Every Saturday morning , we send out a newsletter with any new posts we have and any relevant offers and other news . You can sign up for that in the show notes , too . Thanks so much for spending time with me today . I look forward to seeing you next time , where we will continue to unlock these secrets of travel points together . Thank you .