Wow, you win. :)

I'm staying at the Park Hyatt Vendome in September on points, but I still have to requal for diamond, so I was hoping to use my 110,000 VM to reimburse myself for all of my upcoming Hyatt mattress runs. I sort of like your idea though - save the points, spend the money on the rooms, use the $900 certs, still get diamond bennies and be able to use the suite upgrade. HMMMM.....

Has anybody heard if you can pay for a club membership (say American Admiral's Club) with the card and get refunded?

Apparently you have to have enough points to cover the entire cost (or one CC charge, so one could always ask the hotel to split the bill across two cards/charges).

But you can also redeem ~103k points for $1800 of Ritz certificates. I'm new here, but in my opinion $1800 off is better than $1000 off for about the same number of points.

Well done!

After you receive the certificate, can you confirm if it is one big $900 certificate or if it comes in smaller chunks? I would like to get those, but might not need all $900 of it at once.

Hmm, never thought of that or if that was even possible to transfer all your family reward points to just one account.
So, it is possible to transfer my wife's points and also my son's reward points (as he still lives with us for now) all into my account? This way even as the deadline approaches for yearly card fee renewal, they can both cancel the cards and I could keep mine open if some miles are still unused($57 fee is not a big deal though) and we can all use the miles just off one card.
Addvantages: The bigger # of miles all in one pot will also be easier to book more expensive trips as someone had said you must have all the miles needed in the account inorder to book the trip. ex: $3000 combination package trip (airline and cruise and hotels and car rental), then must have at least 300,000miles in the account. With separate accounts of 100,000miles each this booking will not be possible.---just using this as an example.

Now, does anyone know just how to transfer all family member miles into one account?

Login to Capital One credit card account. Click on "Explore Rewards" link. Then under "My Rewards" there is link for "Transfer Rewards".

$900 Ritz-Carlton and Fairmont certificates seems to be more flexible than Hyatt certificate.
Based on terms and conditions, it seems one does not need to use all $900 in one stay when using Ritz-Carlton or Fairmont certificates.

Don't think they even have to be family members. Transfered points from Mom's account to mine - different address, last name etc

i feel the best option is to buy "name your own price" flight and hotel from priceline and use the award to credit for it .

EDIT: for those who don't stay at Ritz

Best Use of Capone points
 

I checked out Expirations on the Fairmont and Ritz multi-night $900 certificates on the CapOne website. (You may need to use the search function to get them to come up.) They are discounted the same amount as the Hyatt ones, but the Fairmont one say "no expiry" while both Hyatt and Ritz are 15 months. :)

That's completely irrelevant. Buying something through Priceline for $xxx and then getting reimbursed $xxx by Cap One is the exact same as spending $xxx through a different travel provider and getting reimbursed for it. Either way, you're getting reimbursed $xxx. It isn't worth more just because you received a discount for going through Priceline.

If you typically buy through Priceline, then go for it and get reimbursed. But it's not as if getting reimbursed for Priceline purchases is a better deal than getting reimbursed for other travel purchases. It's going through Priceline in the first place that might make something a good deal. The Cap One part is completely irrelevant.

Held off on the 80K US Air miles for 110K C1 points.

Not because I don't think it's excellent use but I feel pretty certain it will be back within a year and something better may pop up in that time.

I disagree with this position.

Most of my frequest flyer programs limit me to their program. In these programs price is not the issue; capacity controls are the issue. Even programs like Citi's ThankYou program which allows you to redeem on any airline at market prices does not give you access to deeply discounted ticketing, just market rates.

CapOne may be used in this capacity where others may not. For that reason alone it will be a special place in my cadre of travel choices. Let me give an example.

I travel frequently to Asia. I'm really just interested in getting there. Yes, it would be nice to go in business but if it's a choice between one biz fare or two cattle fares I choose the two cattle fares. These are big 747-400s and they toss off a lot of deeply discounted bucket fares to fill those seats. If I absolutely cannot locate a Delta 80k redemption it's nice to know I can fallback to a deeply discounted fare requiring a fraction of the points Citi's ThankYou program would require. I might find a market fare at $1500. That's 150k ThankYou points. If I can find the same trip for $900 and use CapOne that's a real value add for me.

When I sit down and decide to travel I have lots of options to get from point A to point B with a little planning. CapOne does fill a unique roll that is not readily available from other programs.

Competitours, 'Amazing Race For Rest Of Us' team travel competition company is actually accepting Capital One bonus points to offset trip cost, up to the full 110,000 ($1100 travel value) of the points.