Sorry for being imprecise. CapitalOne, or any other credit card, other than some legacy CO/UA credit cards, don't earn PQM based on spending. What I meant to illustrate is that by using CapitalOne's "miles" to purchase cash fare tickets on United or most *A flights, you can earn PQM and redeemable miles, just as you would on any other BIS flight.

When you use United "miles", you don't earn PQM or redeemable miles.

For the flights I buy the most (long haul to Asia, discount economy, bought months in advance) that normally means an airfare of about $ 1000 r/t, yeilding 15K PQM. This means I effectively get 15K PQM for every 50K in spend with CapitalOne Venture ($ 1 spend gets 2 miles), where Chase PP yields 1K Flex PQM for every 5K in spend. That means I'd have to spend $ 75K with Chase PP to get the same number of EQM. They are not exactly equal (one can be used over three years, the other can be used beyond 75K), but for me, I get the PQM 50% faster (assuming you redeem Venture miles for UA flights) and earn reedable miles as well. That said, I don't think the typical airline elite earns their status based on low CPM flights that I do, so for those that tend to have a higher CPM, I suppose the grandfathered PQM earning $ 395 PP card might be worth keeping. If you don't really care about PQM, only redeemable miles for last minute "business" bookings, then I agree, you want a Chase card of some sort.