Murc

I am looking at the Miles One program...Sounds to good
Features:$19.00 annual fee
:Mile for dollar spent
:No restrictions or black out periods
:Any Airline
:9.9 %
Any one farmiliar with this program? Good or Bad.

ontheroad

This was discussed a lot in the 'Visa / Mastercard forum':
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum...ML/000049.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum...ML/000009.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum112/HTML/000023
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum...ML/000110.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum...ML/000050.html

Just be sure you read the fine print before you enroll ... limits on ticket price, 21 day advance ticketing required, de facto blackout periods, points expire if not used quick enough, etc.

There is more info in the 'Visa/Mastercard' forum on this and similar non-airline points credit cards. Try using searching for older posts.

------------------
He who dies with the most miles ... is dead.

[This message has been edited by ontheroad (edited 03-24-2001).]

shinbal

Capital One is one of the most customer UNFRIENDLY companies I have ever encountered. They "hidden fee" you to death, have terrible customer service, and don't deserve to handle your money. I had two different credit cards with them over a two-year period. NEVER again. There are better offers out there.

Efrem

Read those threads carefully. These cards have several drawbacks. The biggest is probably that the miles are not in an airline program, so you have to earn a whole award by charging rather than a combination of charging, flying, hotel stays and so on. Many types of awards that provide high value per mile are also not available through this and similar programs.

fastflyer

It is important to understand why you are earning miles with a credit card before you commit to a non-airline-based points program.

As I understand it, the Capital One program, and other programs like it do not accrue miles in the airline programs. You cannot transfer points to airlines for airline awards. Instead, Capital One maintains its own award chart, and award availability will have to conform to the price Capital One would be willing to pay for your award ticket.

Many of us use credit card miles to supplement other source miles for awards on a specific airline award chart. Programs that are wholly outside of the airline mileage programs do not benefit from these advantages.

BBRebozo

The best thing about this card, at least in my case, is that it has a 9.9% APR. If you are careless and undisciplined enough to carry a balance (which, unfortunately, I am), this is one of the lowest APRs out there for an unsecured credit card.

The worst thing is that the mileage tracking is very slow. The mileage statements are mailed separately, sent every three months, mailed about 45 days after the end of the quarter, and don't include all of the most recently earned miles for the quarter. The mileage statement is not posted on the internet. This means that it can be as long as eight months between the time a mile is earned and the time that you are aware that it has been posted. This, of course, makes correcting errors difficult if not impossible, and slows down the rate at which card holders can collect their tickets.

I've repeatedly written to them, pointing out that if their bills were posted and sent this slowly they'd go broke. I have not yet gotten the courtesy of a reply.

clanson

In my opinion these programs are inferior to the straigt mileage cards from Citibank, Chase or MBNA. Mileage earned for example in the US Airways program do not require 21 day advance booking, Saturday night stay and can be used for upgrades and Business/First Class tickets. Of course, in my opinion the best card by far is the AmEx Optima Sheraton/Srarwood card. It has no annual fee, earns Starwood points which can be use at their hotels or converted into most airline programs and earn a 25% bonus when converted 20,000 points at a time.

LIH Prem

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

BBQ_Pork_Sandwich

Beware of Capital One! From personal experience, I can tell you that they are a terrible company to deal with. For instance, they may decide to raise your APR to the maximum rate allowable in your state, with no just cause. They say that they reserve the right to change their terms, and it is their choice to charge you whatever they want. Customer service is awful, and it will take you many, many frustrating calls to resolve even the most simple issue. I don't mean to flame the company, but I have been round and round with Capital One, and you deserve an outside opinion. Personally, I have a United First Card, and am perfectly happy with it (as long as you pay off your balance every month - 18.4% APR). Good luck.

jwhite4

Huh? Unless I'm missing something, you can always request specific flights with FF award tickets. The difference between it and the Cap One FF program being discussed is with Cap One, you are looking at the pool of purchaseable seats, whereas for FF awards, it's the pool of award seats, which is going to be much less, and especially for Hawaii routes, much much tighter.

As an exercise, I'd suggest you price out the DL award tickets on delta.com, and divide the cost of the lowest price ticket by the 60k points you used to get it. Do the same for the tickets you purchased (subtracting what value you assign to the FF miles you'll earn for the flight). See which one offers the better value.

Jeff

neophyte

Looks like there are two deals better than Miles One available now:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum...ML/000112.html

LIH Prem

Jeff:

Yes, that's what I meant and that's a good way to put it. You can request any flight with airline award tickets, but the availability pool for revenue tickets is much greater and more flexible than the pool for award tickets. Since the Miles One award doesn't limit the price of the ticket, but limits the amount they will contribute, there's a lot of flexibility there.

Basically, with the DL award tickets, we had to work our way backwards from the outbound date we wanted to find availability and work our way forwards from the return flights we wanted. They ended up traveling outbound about a week earlier than the rest of us and returning several days later. It's not always possible to do that, especially if you have a job or attend school. We were fortunate that it did work out well for two of us (my wife and our 4 year old.) My teenager and I didn't have that flexibility.

Using your calculations, I spent 60k miles to get 2 tickets valued at $2100. The value is $.035 per mile. The UA ticket purchased with Miles One "miles", the cost was $250 out of pocket plus 40k Miles One "miles" and we earned approx. 10,000 UA status miles (HNL-ORD-TPA-ORD-HNL). At $.035 per mile, the value is $350 which is greater than the out of pocket cost. Is that what you meant? That doesn't take into account the "cost" of the Miles One "miles".

-David



[This message has been edited by LIH Prem (edited 03-28-2001).]

rmccamy

Neophyte: Keep in mind that the NEA card technically is only available to NEA members. This is clearly stated in the fine print associated with the card. I realize that some non-NEA FT'ers have gotten the card, and have used it successfully. I suppose it's up to the individual to determine whether the risk/reward of getting caught is worth it.

Also...Providian...I won't go near them for any reason. Just personal preference there...

Unless you plow a LOT of money through a credit card, the best deals in the Visa/MC market are the airline cards during promotional periods where they offer 10,000 bonus miles (they all do it - as AA is right now). The hotel cards aren't a bad alternative either, if you already accumulate points with one of the big three hotel programs.

[This message has been edited by rmccamy (edited 03-30-2001).]