Milezjunkie

Airlines aren't giving anything. Banks buy the miles and give then to you as an incentive to use their card. You're misguided. Also, award seats aren't seats that would otherwise be empty. If that were the case, you wouldn't be able to book an award seat 331 days out.

thehawk75

Interesting deal, however, applying for, and getting approved doesn't mean you'll get your share of the billion miles. They even state so right in the marketing, and not the fine print:

Regardless, I'll give it a shot.

thehawk75

... and instantly approved.

tassojunior

They're not.



I just got approved with $15K cl.

Even though I've gotten about 12 new cards in past 9 months and just got the US Air and a pers and biz SWA last month. I thought I'd only gotten the Barclays US because they used TransUnion instead of the normal Experian, and had to do a lot of talking to get the Chase SWA's.

koctail

has anyone thought of buying a $1100 fully refundable ticket as soon as the 110k posts and then just cashing it in? i think that is what im gonna do.

tassojunior

let the chickens hatch 1st.

BOShappyflyer

No, no plans to do it It's a generous offer, I don't need to milk it for all its worth. I have been traveling a lot, so it'll come in handy for my travel plans. If I get the 100,000 points, I'll probably stick with the card since I'm starting to run short of cards. The benefits seemed reasonable and I like that they have no forex fees. The annual fee seems reasonable too. The starwood would be just as good of a card, but I had it already. If I don't get the venture points, I may not end up keeping the card. I was one of the earlier people to apply for it, so I'm really hoping I get in on the deal.

mreed911

No, they'll get FAR more than that. They'll get merchant fees, which is where they make their money. And a certain percentage will carry a balance, earning them interest. And a certain percentage will pay late (though admittedly small) where they'll get fees.

Believe me, they've done the math - they know that offering the functional equivalent of $10,000,000 to consumers will net them far, far more in return over the expected lifetime of the cardholders.

swag

So how many have applied? Let's do an exercise.

Here on FT, the thread is approaching 500 posts. While I'm sure there are lurkers who have read the thread and applied, there are also those of us who probably have 5 or 10 posts here discussing it. So maybe that balances out, so 500 applicants from FT?

I doubt there are yet many on Milepoint who don't also read FT.

Maybe a few hundred who read Gleff's blog?

Fatwallet and slickdeals have a lot of readers, but that's a differen world, leading to this train of thought...

To take full advantage of the deal, someone needs:
- a frequent flyer account with a balance near or above 100K miles
- an excellent credit score, lets say 750+
- awareness of the deal
- desire to participate

So what is a realistic estimate for how many people have applied and been approved in these first few days, before the TV commercials have started? ANyone up for some back of the napkin math?

scwam

C1 was actually stingy with the deal in regards to knowing how little the wealth will be spread amongst so many expecting applicants by only spending a max of 10 million dollars. This is considering that when I had worked for a cc company in 1994, they easily lost 1 million in fraud each month. We only had 17 million accounts at that time.

Xyzzy

I'm glad t see I'm not the only one who is thinking this way, I'm not terribly concerned that the miles will be gone by the time I send in my statement.

luv2ctheworld

I also suspect not everyone applying will have over 100K in their account. While it would be heresy for a true-blue FT'er to match anything less, I think the general population will probably be less concerned not getting the maximum miles.

Not that there's hard data to substantiate, but 100K for the average person/regular consumer isn't as easy to obtain... then again, they don't read FT or other mileage earning websites to maximize there awards.

ed765

I was turned down for this card in spite of a good credit score. My guess is that it was the large number of inquires on credit reports.

The major reason I see for drawing all three bureaus is that it shows the total number of inquiries made. Most card report to all three for outstanding cards, so you do not need but one to discover what debts someone has (I know of exceptions, but they are probably smaller credit unions etc.). However, if your criteria is aimed to avoid people who have made many inquiries (who may be those who will not use their card after q2ualifying for the initial bonus) drawing on all three bureau's may be needed, since each Bureau knows only those who have pulled credit from it.

longleaf

Well, lets isolate all the other blogs, and deal sites, and credit card forums, and people who visit the capital one website, and all the rest of the world and just focus on FT.

There are over 324,000 Flyertalk members. Many of those are not people who read FT daily or much at all, but if only 1.55% of the members who have 100,000 miles apply themselves and their significant other, then that would take up all the miles.

==
better yet. a better way to isolate the FT community is to look at the number of views on the thread and maybe cut it into a third or half for repeat viewers.

Astrophsx

First thing that comes to my mind is that a charge back would leave you with a negative point balance. I'm not sure what Capital One would do with that large of a negative point balance... kind of like if you did a point loan from SPG and then closed your account before you paid it back.