Originally Posted by mia
All points are not created equal. Earning "points" twice as fast doesn't necessarily generate an award for half the spending. Typically "generic" programs assign a monetary value to the points which they use to buy a ticket, while airline mileage redemptions are based on zone and seating class without regard to the dollar cost of the ticket.
What airline(s) might you fly to Australia, and how many points would Capital One require for an economy or business class ticket to Australia?
Could you generate any miles from other sources, such as domestic flights, hotel stays, car rentals, online shopping portals etc? You can accumulate all these miles in a single airline program, but (to my knowledge) Capital One awards points only for credit card transactions.
Mia is right about all points not created equal. I suspect without knowing that your better bet would be a Starwood Amex card, which I think gets you 1.25 miles per Starwood point on most airlines, and an American Airlines Citibank (?) Visa (or is it Mastercard?) for those expenses you can't charge to Amex. You'd thus open an AA account, convert the Starwood points into AA miles and combine them with the miles you'd directly accumulate through the AA Visa/Mastercard. Then get the Qantas tickets using your AA miles, since they're partners in the One World airline alliance. By searching online or through Flyertalk you can find the best deals for getting bonus miles just for opening these CC accounts.
Sorry I don't know all of the details, but if you do the math re accumulation and redemption miles this might be a better option than Capital One. You also might post a related question on the AA or Qantas forums re this approach.
Be aware, by the way, that free tix to Australia can be hard to get, and often require calling ahead 330 days and/or persistent follow-up.