I have one of these and for what it is, it's pretty good. It's just another tool in my toolkit, and for $19 it's not that expensive to keep. I have not been using it because it is a lot of 'points' for tickets to the islands on it, but I did get some good use out of it last year and I still have it. I also have a similar card from my credit union, but their program is not as good as the Cap One Miles One program. Points are slow to post and you have to use their travel agent (Cendant Travel) for tickets. If you have a late payment or other problems you might end up loosing all your accumulated points, so understand the rules and use the thing for what it is. (Like all tools available to you.)

They have an award schedule and a chart of ticket prices. If your ticket costs more than the amount in the chart, you can pay the difference out of pocket. In my case, I used it for a holiday time (December/January) r/t between HNL and TPA. The ticket was 40k 'points' (I think it was 40k), and they allowed $800 for the ticket. The actual ticket cost $1050, so I got a $1050 ticket for $250 out of pocket that had no blackout dates, accrued Mileage plus status miles, was fully upgradeable and I could select whatever flights I needed to at that fare so we were able to travel together. Had I waited a little while, I could have gotten the ticket cheaper and it wouldn't have cost me as much out of pocket. Because of these status miles, my stepdaughter will probably get to Premier status on her own on UA this year.

Contrast this to the free tickets I used for my wife and my other daughter on this trip. I transferred a Marriott award into 60k Delta miles, and got two free DL coach tickets between HNL and TPA. We didn't get to select the flights, the tickets were not upgradable and didn't earn miles or status. We had to work pretty hard with DL (who did a nice job of it) to find availability and be flexible to get award flights between HNL and TPA during that period. On the plus side, those two tickets cost $0 out of pocket.

As far as being upgradeable, earning miles and earning status and not subject to blackout dates and being able to pick any flight available, this is the only type of award program that does that. So if that's a goal for you, this is not a bad deal at all.

I agree with the people that said make sure you know and understand the rules of the program. That's good advice for any of these programs including this one.

-David