Capital One just paired its standard 75,000-mile Venture Card bonus with a $300 credit … one of the better offers we’ve seen on this card in a while. Also today: how one reader stitched together a Qatar Qsuites redemption, and a last-call deal worth up to $100 in free credit before it disappears tomorrow night.
- 🍭 Capital One’s Venture Card Just Got a $300 Sweetener
- 🤝 Deal of the Day: Last Call for Up To $100 in Credits from Paze
- 👕 Give $20, Get $20, and a T-Shirt!
- 📖 Gettin’ Booksy: Janine is Flying QSuites!
- 🎙️ Starter Kit: How to Transfer & Redeem Your Hard-Earned Points
- 🧳 Come Work With Us: We’re Hiring a Hotel Expert!
- ✈️ Other Travel Tidbits
🍭 Capital One’s Venture Card Just Got a $300 Sweetener
Capital One just rolled out a bigger bonus on the popular *capital one venture card* … and it’s one of the best offers we’ve seen on this card in a while.
For a limited time, new cardholders can earn 75,000 miles after spending $4,000 in the first three months – plus get a one-time $300 credit for hotels and vacation rentals booked through Capital One Travel. That credit lands in your account right away, no spending required to unlock it and you’ve got a full year to book.
Best of all, the card’s modest $95 annual fee and added credit of up to $120 for TSA PreCheck® or Global Entry make it a keeper for the long haul.
While the bonus is nice, the Venture Card’s real appeal is how simple it is to use. You’ll earn 2x miles on everyday purchases and 5x on hotels, rental cars, and vacation rentals booked through Capital One Travel.
From there, miles work in one of two ways: You can cover almost any travel purchase at 1 cent apiece, or transfer them to Capital One’s growing list of airline and hotel partners – Japan Airlines Mileage Bank (JAL), Air France/KLM Flying Blue, Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles, and Finnair Avios, to name a few – for outsized value on business class flights and luxury hotel stays.
Here are a few of our favorite redemption options:
- Book American Airlines flights to Hawaii (from anywhere in the U.S.) for just 15,000 Finnair Avios each way, transferred 1:1 from Capital One
- Or you can book lie-flat seats on Hawaiian/Alaska for as few as 38,000 miles, again with Finnair Avios
- Roundtrip business class flights to Europe for just 85,000 miles with JAL – with a routine 30% transfer bonus to JAL, that’s just 87,200 Capital One miles
- One-way business class flights to Spain from 40,500 Capital One miles, booked with Iberia
Now, for the bad news: Capital One added new restrictions to its family of Venture Cards last year, making it harder (for some) to earn this big offer. But so long as you haven’t earned a bonus on this card or the pricier Venture X in the past 48 months, you should be eligible.
Bottom line? We’ve seen Capital One run similar bonuses in the past, but pairing the standard 75,000-mile bonus with a $300 “stays” credit is about as good as this offer gets. If you’ve been waiting for the perfect opportunity to apply, now is the time.
Get the full scoop on this card and big limited-time bonus offer!
– Jackson Newman, senior editor
🤝 Deal of the Day: Last Call for Up To $100 in Credits from Paze
Heat scale (out of 3): 🔥🔥
Why we love it: Tomorrow (Thursday, Sept. 10) is the last day to use a Paze promo that lets you earn up to $100 in statement credits ($10 at a time), per card!
Cards issued by Chase, Capital One, Citi, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and more are all eligible for the promotion that includes merchants like Domino’s, Dunkin’, Little Caesars, GNC, Stubhub, United Airlines, Wendy’s, Whataburger, and more!
Activate Paze today through your bank and make your purchases by tomorrow night!
– Gunnar Olson, Thrifty Traveler Premium deal analyst
👕 Give $20, Get $20, and a T-Shirt!
Refer a friend to Thrifty Traveler Premium, and they receive $20 off their first year, and you receive a $20 credit toward your next renewal!
Plus, the first 25 members with an approved referral will receive a free Thrifty Traveler T-shirt featuring our plane logo on the front and “Draining PTO One Flight Deal at a Time, Since 2015” on the back!
We’ll track the referrals on our end and contact those who qualify. Your renewal credits will continue to stack with every successful referral, but T-shirts are limited to one per member.
Find your unique referral link here!
– Kat Erdahl, community marketing manager
📖 Gettin’ Booksy: Janine is Flying QSuites!
Welcome to Gettin’ Booksy, a celebration of our favorite feeling: Booking something awesome! Book something lately? Let us know at [email protected]!
What Did Janine Book?
Janine shared in our Thrifty Traveler Premium Slack Community that she booked Qatar Airways QSuites – widely considered the best business class in the world – for a trip in March 2027, but she didn’t have a way to get home … until now!
How’d Janine Book It?
Janine used a Thrifty Traveler Premium alert to book QSuites from Philadelphia (PHL) to Doha (DOH) for 70,000 Alaska Atmos each way a few months ago. Then, this week, she searched for the return flight using Qatar Avios on the exact day she needed, and it was there!
She had 3,000 Avios in her account ready to go, and then she transferred 52,000 Amex points to British Airways Avios using a 30% transfer bonus, which she then transferred to Qatar to get the 70,000 she needed to book the return flight, too!
What Makes it So Awesome?
Janine said this is her “first real points transfer redemption” and boy is it a doozy! Not only did Janine get that awesome partner booking with Alaska, but thanks to a big transfer bonus and the points she happened to have, she got her ride home for just 52,000 Amex points. What a steal!
From Janine:
I’ve only been in points & miles for 9 months or so, and this is the first redemption that I chased and did an actual transfer from bank to mileage program. And then to have all of the stars align for such a great redemption was so rewarding and gave me the confidence that I CAN do this and these kinds of redemptions ARE possible.
With an attitude like yours, Janine, anything is possible in the world of points and miles.
Congrats on the booking and enjoy the ride!
– Gunnar Olson, flight deal analyst and travel reporter
🎙️ Starter Kit: How to Transfer & Redeem Your Hard-Earned Points
⭐ It’s time to learn how to redeem those points and miles you’ve earned for travel! We walk through the basics of redeeming your points – including a step-by-step guide to transferring to partner airlines and hotels.
Watch it now on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And stay tuned for the next installment next week!
🧳 Come Work With Us: We’re Hiring a Hotel Expert!
Are you a diehard traveler and bona fide “sicko” (that’s a term of endearment around here) when it comes to hotels and award travel?
Do you love nothing more than scouring for the next great hotel redemption? Want to help others do the same? Loathe the prospect of another devaluation but relish the thought of breaking that news?
We don’t just want you. We need you.
Here at TT HQ, we’re hiring again – this time for a dedicated hotel deal analyst & reporter. It’s a hybrid role, split between the two worlds of what we do here at Thrifty Traveler:
- You’ll spearhead and even expand the hotel deal alerts that make our Thrifty Traveler Premium+ service so special, and
- Help us cover the news and must-knows of all things hotels on our site, social media, and in this very newsletter!
Not the right fit but know someone who could be? Send them our way – if we hire them, we’ll give you a $500 airline gift card to an airline of your choice!
There’s tons of additional details, responsibilities, qualifications, and basics about the job on our site, but here’s a big one: We’re specifically looking for someone who can join us in our Minneapolis office.
Fit the bill? Be sure to apply by the Sept. 27 deadline!
… and see you soon in the office?
– Kyle Potter, executive editor
✈️ Other Travel Tidbits
- 🇺🇸 American and Hyatt are ending their enhanced loyalty partnership, but linking your accounts by Nov. 15 keeps earning benefits alive through early 2027. (American Airlines)
- 🏨 A new targeted Amex Offer gets you $200 back after spending $450 at Marriott hotels through Nov. 30. We’ve only seen it show up on Marriott co-branded Amex cards so far.
- 🎁 Wells Fargo is ending points transfers between cardholders on Sept. 25. You’ll still be able to move rewards between your own accounts, just not to someone else’s. (AwardWallet)
