Miles One (discontinued?) WAS Much Better Value than the new Go Miles program
Written: Aug 25 '04 (Updated Feb 13 '05)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Customer Service: |
 |
|
| Web Site Experience: |
 |
|
|
Pros: Simple to use. Worked with any American carrier. Not many restrictions.
Cons: Being switched to Go Miles; a degradation to program costing more in the long run.
The Bottom Line: Capital One has "enhanced" Miles One to Go Miles. It will usually cost many more points to earn air travel under the new program. Go elsewhere.
|
|
|
| foveator's Full Review: MilesOne Platinum (Capital One) |
The Miles One card from Capital One allows the cardholder to use accumulated points, accrued at one point per dollar spent, to purchase airline tickets at a fixed conversion rate. As of August 2004, they discontinued (*) the Miles One program and replaced it with the Go Miles program.
The Go Miles program works the same way, except instead of airline tickets being purchased at a fixed conversion rate, actual prices are used at a point-to-dollar conversion rate of ticket price times 80. A $1,000 European ticket will cost 80,000 points under the new Go Miles program. With the previous Miles One program, a European ticket could be purchased at a flat rate of 50,000 points for up to a $1,000 ticket.
The benefit is that cheaper tickets will use less points under the Go Miles program. There are fewer restrictions on carriers and tickets may be purchased anywhere, such as internet, travel agent, or from airlines. The more expensive tickets to Europe or Asia will use significantly more points than before and take much longer to earn.
My recommendation is to examine what kind of airline tickets you plan to use the card for. If they are the cheapie or promotional specials offered by airlines, Go Miles makes sense. If you use full fare, upper classes or international flights, check to find out if there are plans for the specific airline which will convert points over at a better rate than 80 points per dollar. For longer, more expensive flights, Go Miles stinks.
UPDATE: (Sept. 2004) After comparing many other programs, most of the credit card issuers are cutting back on the rewards they will offer. While most are in the range of 1% of your total dollars spent, the rewards must be purchased from their "partner" retailers, who are probably contributing a discount to the credit card issuer to capture your business. So while you may receive 1% worth of rewards, the card issuer doesn't have to pay a full 1%. The cards that will pay you more that 1% for items through certain "partner" retailers limit the total you can receive per month to an amount that serious card reward users would laugh at.
So look at the amount of the reward given and see if there is a monthly or yearly cap. You may not be able to accrue enough points, even at double the rate, to earn the reward you desire.
I only awarded one star when I wrote this review, but after seeing how the industry has made the "rewards" cards a kind of shell game, where you may not necessarily get what you think you will get when you sign up, I'm upping it to 2 stars. This may not be the best card out there, but there are worse. At least they don't severely limit the rewards you can earn, and the flights are a good reward.
(*) 1/2005 Although they sent a letter stating that Miles One had been discontinued and replaced with the Go Miles program, I have received several solicitations at work for a new business card which is a Miles One card. There appear to be severe milage restrictions on it compared to the previous version, so the name may still be in use. Check to see if there is a monthly limit on the number of miles you can earn.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
foveator
|
|
Member: Jeff
Location: East Hampton, CT USA
Reviews written: 11
Trusted by: 5 members
About Me:
Eye doctor in CT. Interests include healthy homebuilding, energy efficiency and technology.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.