Capital One points transfer security delay issues.
 

Couldn't find a thread on this issue, so hopefully this helps someone. Or, maybe someone could help me lol.

Tried transferring 350,000 points from Capital One to Aeroplan last night. Then, I get a fraud alert call from Capital One the next morning saying that the points transfer triggered a fraud alert?!

I spend 2 hours on the phone with 2 unhelpful and unsympathetic representatives who have me verify my information 20 times over, and send them pictures of my license multiple times, to no avail. Not only am I still locked out of my Capital One account now (no issues before or last night), the points are now in no man's land. Capital One says they are showing that the points have transferred...yet they are 100% not in my Aeroplan account. They now say they will escalate but that it will take 10-12 days...which is great since I wanted to book a flight ASAP for a flight in a few weeks. We all know how point prices change, too.

Has anyone else had issues of point transfer triggering fraud alerts?! This has been an extremely frustrating experience, and Capital One really is losing favor in my eyes versus Chase and Amex.

I've had the same issue. You do need to clear the fraud alert (had to take picture of license). I had to do it twice. Once to login...then had to call back to clear the original point transfer that caused the lock.

Damn...time to dedicate some more hours on the phone with them then. Thanks for the info though.

To close the loop in case anyone has this issue in the future, the points ended up transferring successfully (finally). All in all, took about 48 hours, and a total of 3 hours on the phone with Capital One trying to clear the fraud alert. In the grand scheme of things, I'm glad it all worked out. However, in this day and age of dynamic award pricing, I hope people in the future don't run into this issue and get stuck with transferring points...only to find that they are now short because of an increase in redemption prices/points the next day.

I guess I'm curious if there is anything actionable here? Is there a way to head this off so it does not happen? For example, can a points transfer be done over the phone, with a rep?

I wondering if perhaps doing a first time points transfer of 350K, out of the gate, might set off an alarm (though the OP doesn't state if this was their first transfer).

I certainly appreciate the heads up from the OP, but I'm left with not really having any solid idea on how to avoid this situation at the point where I'm ready to transfer points from Cap One...

Regards

Update, talked to capital one fraud to be sure and they claim all is clear on their end. Called Aeroplan this morning and they said chase is instant, capital one is 24hrs to 36hrs. Worst case aeroplan said call capital one after 24hrs & have their designated contact person reach out to aeroplan to investigate. Basically don’t fall for those bloggers saying it is instant, may be it was back then or for them.

Came out of the wood work to say, transferred 400k points and has been 3 hours, called capital one and still nothing! Should have went with chase.

FYI Data point
I tried to do a 500k to Emirates from Capital one in January - my first transfer - then had second thoughts - I tried to cancel the transfer but was told it could not be reversed
Due to fraud the transfer failed - good for me! The miles came back and were used slowly

I found that 100k transfers went through to TK and EK with no issues and I did some to Aeroplan and some to SQ - the last one was 500k - went without issue but was after I had done a few transfers before

ALL my transfers - TK, EK, SQ, AC went through in seconds

Points transfers can only be done online.

This sounds like a winner to me. They're just making sure no one hacked you and redeemed your rewards. I think adding 2-step authentication before completing transfer would help here.

Had a similar issue with my 1st Capital One transfer of 350k miles to Aeroplan. So far, no intimation of fraud in the first 12 hours - will call Capital One after 48 hours has lapsed. Hoping that I won't have to and the awards are still available when the miles finally hit my account. Before transferring to Aeroplan, my SO had requested transferring 150k miles to my card, which was instantaneous. I wonder if should have waited 24 hours after the transfer between accounts, before initiating the partner transfer!?

On a related note, I transferred 150k to Aeroplan from my AmEx account and that reflected immediately.

Like the OP, I triggered a fraud alert with a Spark card open since 2011, but I was transferring to BA and it was only 1000 miles. C1 has always been more difficult to work with compared to Amex, Citi, or Chase. At least that's my experience. This is true for reporting fraud transactions as well, where C1 doesn't seem to take a proactive approach once contacted.

Tried transfering a little under 100K points to Finnair about 8 hours ago. No points have shown up on the Finnair side thus far, and no perceived fraud issues on the C1 side, so my assumption is that Finnair transfers are not actually instant, as opposed to what the blogs say.

EDIT: Called CapitalOne and was told no issues on their end (no fraud block, etc.), and that in their systems it stipulates 48-72 hour for transfers to Finnair to fully complete. Kind of odd in every blog it says "instant." Has anyone recently done such a transfer?

EDIT 2: Also called Finnair, which said that there are no issues or flags on their end. After reviewing everything again, I noticed that I haven't yet received the email from Capital One saying that the miles are now ready to be used in the partner program, as I have always received for previous transfers. So that leads me to believe that the transfer is indeed still in progress and will probably take the 48-72 hours I was told by Capital One. Not thrilled, but there seems to be plenty of space for this particular redemption, so not overly worried (and I have a plan B in place if it doesn't work out).

FINAL EDIT: For posterity's sake, here is the final outcome of the situation: At around T+30 hours, I received an email from Cap1 saying the transfer failed, and I was welcome to try again. Indeed, the points were returned to my account and ready to use (which is far better than other issuers like Citi that make you wait 2 weeks...). Upon reviewing the redemption history, there was a remark along the lines of "general failure" in the line item for the failed transfer, which led me to believe that this was.... a "general" issue, and not some kind of block by either program :-). I then tried to transfer 1000 points, which posted to Finnair immediately. A subsequent transfer of the rest also posted immediately and the desired redemption has been booked.

is C1 the only one this happens with?
does going to a branch work?
anyone had this happen with virgin red xfer?

DId a transfer of 200k capital one miles to aeroplan about 20 hours ago and still waiting on them. First transfer to aeroplan. First transfers from chase and amex were both instant. No issues according to capital one.

I would think the actual fraud risk is low as you can only transfer to an FF account in the same name as the account holder.

But a ticket can be issued in anyone's name, and I think that's why airlines sometimes delay processing transfers that are large enough to redeem for an expensive ticket.