Capital One has some explaining to do.
The bank popular for the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card and the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card kicked off yet another week with a critical function still offline. As of Monday morning, Capital One transfer partners were still down for maintenance.
Transferring to these partners has been one of the best ways to use Capital One Venture Miles, but it's been unavailable for nearly two weeks. Over that span, travelers have waited in frustration as award space has come and gone, unable to transfer the miles they've earned to book a ticket in time.
On Monday, Capital One told Thrifty Traveler that transfers may not be back online for up to another week.
“We are continuing to make system improvements to our rewards platforms that are temporarily offline. We expect them to be restored online within a week and will round back at that time,” a bank spokesperson said in a statement.
That means it could be three-plus weeks without the ability to transfer Capital One miles. That is unacceptable.
The issue first cropped up sometime around Wednesday, Sept. 21, maybe even earlier. A phone call to Capital One won't resolve the issue, either: A phone agent confirmed Monday that transfers by phone are also not currently available.
Among the big banks with transferrable points, outages like this happen occasionally. But they typically only affect one transfer partner at a time and get resolved in a matter of hours, maybe days. Plus, Capital One Entertainment – the portal where cardmembers can redeem miles for tickets to sporting events or concerts – has been down all the while.
All that alone is bad and out of character for Capital One, which prides itself on its stable and easy-to-use platforms. But worst of all, there has been a glaring lack of communication and transparency from Capital One about what is happening.
Capital One didn't publicly address the issue until late last week – and only after Thrifty Traveler and other sites emailed seeking comment. To our knowledge, there has been no communication directly from the bank to cardholders.
The root of the problem remains a mystery, too. Officially, a Capital One spokesperson faulted “system improvements to some of our rewards programs” for the temporary outage last week.
Taking a critical function offline for almost two weeks and counting … with no advance warning or notice to customers … for system improvements? Sorry, but that doesn't pass the smell test.
With transfers still down, we emailed Capital One first thing Monday morning with the following questions:
- What caused this outage?
- How, if at all, has Capital One communicated directly with its customers about this issue?
- What is the estimated timeline for bringing this functionality back online?
- After nearly two weeks and counting, how will Capital One make this right with customers?
The bank responded with a generic statement, offering no insight into what has gone wrong or how they will fix it. And it could still be another week before transfer partners return.
Capital One owes cardholders and customers some better answers. That's especially true of travelers who opened the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card this time last year, some of whom might suddenly be thinking twice about renewing their card.
Bottom Line
Capital One has cemented its place in the travel world with miles that are easy to earn, easy to use, and incredibly valuable, as well. But this is inexcusable.
If this problem isn't resolved by this Wednesday, it will mark two full weeks without the ability to transfer miles … with little to no communication from Capital One. And the problem could drag on even longer.
The bank simply must do better.
I have been pretty unhappy with Capital One and the ability to use my points for travel for several different reasons this year. Each time I call regarding an issue they offer me points to make up for the inconvenience, but it’s not enough. Don’t get me wrong I still take them haha, but I hope they get it together soon.
It’s ALL partners, and to my knowledge no other card is having transfer issues, so the problem is clearly on Capital One’s side.
What’s weird is that transferring miles is a pretty simple function technology-wise. Yes, you have to integrate with a lot of external companies, but each transaction is just calling an API and deducting miles from your account.
So something clearly catastrophic but also extremely narrow in terms of scope happened on their end (security breach, ransomware, etc.)
Just very very frustrating from the POV of someone who is trying to book a flight using Avios.
Completely agree with everything you said. Well written. C1 needs to answer. Has anyone had luck asking for points regarding this issue? Something needs to be done. Going on a 3 week blackout is absolutely unacceptable.
In addition to the miles transfer option being down, it appears that the $300 travel reward is also not functioning. It’s been nearly 2 weeks since I booked a hotel room through the portal trying to take advantage of the $300 annual travel reward, and to date, no sign of the credit. Capital One has said I will likely have to wait 1-2 billing cycles before I see the credit or if I don’t get it by then, I’ll have to call to escalate the request. Not happy with that option at all — I am a new cardholder and so far, very displeased with the card and the customer service.
I have called multiple times over the last two weeks, each time the agent tells me they were just notified about the problem today. Seems very fishy and like this is something they were instructed to say. We got the Capital One Venture JUST for the transfer partners, and now when it’s finally time to book a flight, ALL partners are down with no explanation?! Unacceptable ðŸ˜
Its interesting that they are issuing statements to travel sites, but when I called, the agent would still not give a timeline. They are not offering anyway to make it right for their customers. And we pay to use this card. What a joke this company is. Never seen such poor customer service.
Thank you for staying on this. It is unacceptable, and without the travel blogging community publicizing it nothing will get fixed.
This is truly frustrating and unacceptable. It is an immense failure for CapitalOne and what’s more, the way they are handling this issue is unprofessional. There is no transparency on what happened or how they will address this situation. They clearly do not value their customers’ satisfaction.
this is looks like to me capital one got hacked. maintenance does not take weeks.
They are also making mistakes with our monthly billing losing your bank acct and saying that you committed fraud. After researching they agreed it was their fault. It has taken 3 months to straighten out,——very poor service without taking responsibility. —and we pay for this card!
Thank you this update. I check daily as I am trying to book a vacasa with transfer points. I agree that Capitol One needs to make this right with their customers!
Can we talk about how the addresses went haywire this week? My address was randomly changed and I was told it was a widespread problem. Two other accounts I work with- their address were changed too.
The Capital One transfer to Virgin Red does not work. I have been trying since September 19 to transfer points to Virgin Red with no success (after multiple conference calls with Capital One and Virgin Red). It simply does not work. This is nothing more than a bait and switch from Capital One. I got a call back from them today and they admitted there was nothing they can do. Penelope at Capital One suggested I simply try using my Capital One points another way. Very disappointing.
transfer between accounts is also down, they need to extend the period that you can redeem rewards for travel purchases….