Since my wife and I are in paying off bills mode, and since we're looking at having an infant sometime next year, this $1100+/- will likely pay for airfare for a "last hurrah!" vacation for her birthday in July. Between $1100 from C1 for airfare, and enough HHonors points to drown a cow, it should be relatively easy to pick a place and enjoy a weekend for relatively little spend.

Even if we're out of pocket for a month before C1 credits the points, that's fine... I'll just shift $1100 of business travel spend to the C1 card and take the reimbursement against it. Either way, we're up $1100 net.

Thought about just doing pure mileage runs to hit EXP earlier, but a short vacation sounds nice!

Will be coming in handy for rental cars, I have coming up. Hope that is fine, as nobody mentioned car rentals sofar, espeically if it is an outfit such as Autoeurope, which is not that well-known stateside.

I wouldn't count on being able to purchase metro tickets with a US credit card. When I was there last spring, the ticket machine spit mine out and the agent in the booth just rolled her eyes when she saw it was a magstripe card (not their fancy new chip-and-PIN variety). Perhaps if you get them at the tourist office at the airport....

If you buy your transit pass at the airport you'll have no problem at all with using a mag strip card. Cap1 should accept the charge as a travel purchase as well.

My current plan is to use this for a trip to Italy. I can't wait! I was this || close to booking the trip using my CO points, but it looks like I can save those for something better, like the Virgin Islands.

I can then use the card in Italy w/ no transaction fee. I think this was a mega-deal. I just hope I get my points reserved before it runs out.

If this works, and you can use it, here's a way to get more than $1800 of value for your 112,000 C1 points.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hyatt...l#post16088707

just to reitterate
 

okay..lemme get this straight (cuz I only got 826 on my SAT's)......Once I get these Capital ONE points (110,000 total after $1000 spend), I can use my venture card to purchase USAIR Miles (100% bonus match currently) for $1072.50 ...(39,000 + 39,000) = 80,000 US AIR Dividend Miles....

Then pay off the $1072.50 with the Venture 110,000 points?????



..and please..no wisecracks about my SAT score and how I shouldnt be doing math with a score like that hehehe :p

Possibly (probably?) not. Someone posted that idea here but no one has verified that the purchase of US miles, which goes through points.com, will count as a travel purchase for reimbursement at 1 cent/point using the new C1 points. If you want to buy US miles anyway (decision isn't impacted by their reimbursement potential), then go for it. Otherwise, there's a decent chance you'll be disappointed.

I am thinking of buying some US miles anyway since I just burned a metric boatload of them (and won't want to reimburse the purchase if the Hyatt check idea works) so can probably be the guinea pig once I get my C1 card (should be later this week).

You'll also have 112,000 C1 points after spending $1000 (100,000 match + 10,000 sign-up bonus, + 2000 points for the $1000 purchase).

Interesting..............I just logged into my account, cuz I have some points from my C1 Orbitz points....and when I put in 110,000 points, it said it would credit my card account $550.00.......
Now unless its a different rate of return for the Venture card...but looks like you can get credit on your card..

Yes, it's a different rate. Venture points are a penny per point.

I know this is a travel oriented forum, but no one seems to be commenting on the fact that you can just redeem your points for $1100 worth of gift cards. They offer cards from Amazon, Walmart, Sears, Lowes, etc. And at 2 points per dollar spent, this may turn into one of my regular credit cards.

Do you know for sure that's $ for $ on the GC? Someone posted that you take a xx% "hit" on them. Anyone know for sure?

Yes I know for sure. I've already ordered $130 worth of gift cards with my 10 thousand point sign on bonus and 3000 points I earned with my first purchase.

Best Use of Capone points
 

I'm just planning on using mine for national parks lodging. National parks lodges don't belong to any of the major hotel chains.

Let me correct you, if you are trying to get a statement credit for lets say 100k point that would only give u $500 credit. Now if u want to apply 100k points towards a previous purchase of lets say a cruise of $1400. U will get $1000 credit because u are redeeming the points for travel instead of redeeming it for cash.

Does that make sense?

I know this because i have used this in the past with Captial One World MasterCard.