Capital One's Best Transfer Partners: Our Top 4 Favorites

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Capital One was one of the last major bank programs to launch a transferrable rewards program, but it's since made up for lost time as it tries to catch up to established rivals like Chase Ultimate Rewards and Amex Membership Rewards. After launching airline and hotel transfer partners in 2018, Capital One's made big improvements to its loyalty program.

Now, Capital One boasts 19 total transfer partners (16 airline and three hotel programs). Of these, points transfer to 16 programs at a 1:1 ratio. Although the list of Capital One transfer partners may not feature familiar U.S.-based airline programs on the partner list — you can still redeem your Capital One miles for incredible value for flights and hotels.

Whether you're just getting started with the Capital One miles program or want to stretch your miles further, let's review the best Capital One miles transfer partner options.

Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card

How to Apply

Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card

Annual Fee$95

Welcome Offer 75,000 Miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within 3 months from account opening.

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Why We Like ItHighlightsEarning Rates

Following the revamp of Capital One's rewards program and the addition of airline transfer partners, the Capital One Venture has catapulted into our list of top travel rewards cards. The ability to earn at least 2X miles on every purchase provides a decent return on spending. Plus the card offers some great perks.

• Earn 75,000 Miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within the first 3 months of account opening
• 5X miles on hotels, vacation rentals and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel
• 2X miles on all other purchase
• Fee credit for Global Entry or TSA Pre✔^® (up to $120)
• No foreign transaction fees
• $95 annual fee

• 5X miles per dollar on purchases through Capital One Entertainment (through 12/31/2025)
• 5X miles per dollar on hotels, vacation rentals and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel
• 2X miles per dollar on all other purchases

How We Picked the Best Capital One Transfer Transfer Partners

To determine the best Capital One transfer partners, we considered three factors:

1. Transfer ratios: With the exception of two transfer partners (EVA Air Infinity MileageLands and Accor Live Limitless), all Capital One miles transfer at a 1:1 ratio. That helps you avoid losing value on any of your hard-earned miles. In most programs, you'll need to transfer a minimum of 1,000 miles.
2. Competitive pricing: The next factor we considered is the partner program’s award pricing. A good transfer ratio won’t mean much if an award ticket or free hotel night is too expensive.
3. Diversity of usefulness: Lastly, we considered whether a program offers attractive prices on multiple trip options. Almost every program can outshine the competition in specific situations, but providing numerous options in one points program is much more useful in the long run.

Best Capital One Transfer Partner: Avianca LifeMiles

It should come as no surprise that we put Avianca LifeMiles in the top spot as the best Capital One transfer partner.

As a Star Alliance member, LifeMiles offers some of the most generous award pricing you can find while providing access to booking partner flights on Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, and Air Canada, to name a few. The program doesn't add fuel surcharges to your out-of-pocket costs or charge close-in booking fees. This means you can book a last-minute flight for the same cost as one you book months in advance. Plus, you can pay for award tickets using a combination of miles and cash, providing ultimate flexibility.

It's important to note that you must search on the LifeMiles website—not the Avianca website—when looking for award tickets with this transfer partner. Depending on the route, you can even book United flights for fewer miles here than you'll pay when booking directly with United's loyalty program.

Here are some examples of the great redemptions possible with Avianca LifeMiles that make it one of the best Capital One transfer partners:

United economy from 6,500 LifeMiles each way

Los Angeles (LAX) to Sydney (SYD) in United economy

New York (JFK) to Brussels (BRU) in Brussels Airlines business class

Importantly, notice that the taxes and fees on these flights are very low. Not only are you getting a great price when it comes to using miles, you also won't fork over a ton of cash to cover the surcharges after transferring Capital One Rewards to LifeMiles. With a 1:1 transfer ratio, transferring 5,000 Capital One miles will give you 5,000 LifeMiles (but the minimum is just 1,000 miles for a transfer).

Related: How To Transfer Capital One Miles to Airline and Hotel Partners: A Step-By-Step Guide

LifeMiles uses a region-based award chart, and there are three separate regions within the U.S. on the award chart. While other Star Alliance programs like Air Canada Aeroplan, United MileagePlus, and Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer can provide some positive elements, none has a better combination of cheap award pricing and low award fees.

Best Capital One Hotel Transfer Partner: Wyndham Rewards

While not well known for the glitz and glamour of its luxury rivals, you shouldn't ignore Wyndham Rewards. Beyond its partnership with Caesars Rewards, Wyndham has the largest hotel footprint of any hotel loyalty program. No matter where you go, you'll likely find a Wyndham property to rest your head.

One reason Wyndham Rewards is among the best Capital One transfer partners is that nightly redemption rates fall within three award categories on the award chart:

• 7,500 points
• 15,000 points
• 30,000 points

Below are a few examples of good Wyndham redemptions. However, unlike other Capital One transfer partners, it's not always worth making a redemption with Wyndham. When cash rates are low, using points is less attractive. As a general rule, you're looking for redemptions that save you more than one cent per point if you're transferring Capital One miles to Wyndham.

The Wyndham Reef Resort Grand Cayman

The cash rate for this hotel starts at $350 for a studio room and goes up from there. In this case, consider booking with 30,000 points instead. That's a redemption value of 1.17¢ per point.

The New Yorker, A Wyndham Hotel

Credit: Shannon Potter/Unsplash

Off-season rates can be as low as $175. During peak travel time, however, when paid rates are higher than $300, you should consider booking with 30,000 points.

Wyndham Garden Cancun Downtown

Credit: Wyndham

But the same applies to the lowest tier of Wyndham's award chart, as well. This hotel in downtown Cancun charges $80 or more per night, but you'll redeem just 7,500 points.

As with most Capital One transfer partners, you'll transfer in increments of 1,000 Capital One miles. At a 1:1 transfer ratio, you'll get 1,000 Wyndham points for each 1,000 Capital One miles you transfer. And while Wyndham isn't Capital One's only hotel partner, the 1:1 transfer ratio to Choice Privileges leaves something to be desired. That's because you'll find a better 1:2 transfer ratio to Choice from both Citi and Wells Fargo — double what Capital One offers.

Best Capital One Airline Transfer Partner: Air France–KLM Flying Blue

Flying Blue, the combined Air France & KLM award program, is easily one of the best Capital One transfer partners. The Capital One transfer rate is 1:1 here, meaning you'll get 1,000 miles in your account for every 1,000 Capital One miles transferred. Let's look at why this program stands above other airline transfer partners.

Each month, the program offers Flying Blue Promo Rewards. These awards are 25% to 50% off typical pricing, available for one month and typically include flights up to three months out.

Specific routes are discounted, and they are grouped into short/medium-haul flights and long-haul flights.

Flying Blue sweet spots

Furthermore, Flying Blue has a variety of sweet spots. Some of these come in the form of leveraging points with Flying Blue's airline partners like Delta and Aeromexico. You can book a flight from Los Angeles to Mexico City for as low as 16,500 miles one-way flying on Delta or 18,500 on Aeromexico.

Other sweet spots come directly from Air France and KLM. Fly business class from the U.S. to Europe for just 50,000 miles one-way, plus approximately $200 in taxes and fees. These fees can be lower than other carriers, where surcharges can exceed $500.

Interestingly, the award chart lumps several North African countries into the Europe zone, meaning this pricing even applies to trips to Tunisia and Morocco, for example.

Flying Blue family account

In addition to promos and sweet spots, the program is also great for families. There are two important perks you need to know about:

• You can create a family account with two adults and up to six children. First, you need to create a free loyalty account for each person. Then, you can transfer miles between family members, making it simple to track each person's account without having to log in separately.
• Award tickets for children ages 2–11 are 25% off when flying with an adult. This means that a family of four can fly from the U.S. to Europe for as little as 52,500 miles one-way after you transfer Capital One miles into your account.

Best Capital One Transfer Partner for Sweet Spots: Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles

No list of the best Capital One's transfer partners would be complete without mentioning its most unique option: Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles. As a member of the Star Alliance network, you can use Turkish miles to book flights with any of these partner airlines.

Miles & Smiles has some excellent award chart sweet spots because of its region-based award chart. For example, flights from the mainland U.S. to Hawaii are considered domestic flights within one region. Therefore, you can fly from anywhere in the U.S. to Hawaii for just 10,000 miles.

Credit: Turkish Airlines

Some negatives

As great as Turkish Airlines is when it comes to redemptions, it does have one big downside. Unfortunately, finding award availability isn't always easy. Miles & Smiles is notorious for not showing available award flights online.

To remedy this, you can log on to United's website and do an award search. You're looking for the “saver award” note. Once you find this, call Turkish Miles & Smiles at 800-874-8875. You should be able to book the flights over the phone. Don't transfer your Capital One miles until you've confirmed award availability with a Turkish agent.

It's also worth pointing out that Miles & Smiles will pass on fuel surcharges for airlines that charge them. This can tack a few hundred dollars onto your award ticket for some airlines, though the fees aren't as exorbitant as what you'll see on flights booked with British Airways, American Airlines, or Asia Miles, for example.

How To Get Capital One Miles

So how do you earn Capital One miles to use with these valuable partners? Consider any of the following credit cards for their welcome bonuses and earning on daily spending:

• Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card
• Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card
• Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card
• Capital One Venture X Business
• Capital One Spark Miles for Business
• Capital One Spark Miles Select for Business

Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card

How to Apply

Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card

Annual Fee$395

Welcome Bonus Earn 75,000 bonus miles when you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening

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Why We Like ItEarning Rates

The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card is a premium travel-focused card, stacked with benefits. Cardholders get complimentary access to Capital One Lounges, plus more than 1,300 other lounges worldwide, receive up to a $300 annual travel credit for bookings via Capital One Travel and up to a $120 credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck^®. There's also an anniversary bonus of 10,000 miles, equivalent to $100 towards travel. High earning rates include 10X miles on hotels and rental cars and 5X on flights and vacation rentals booked through Capital One Travel, plus 2X on all other purchases.

• 10X miles per $1 on hotels and rental cars booked via Capital One Travel
• 5X miles per $1 on purchases through Capital One Entertainment (through 12/31/2025)
• 5X miles per $1 on flights when booking via Capital One Travel
• 5X miles per $1 on vacation rentals booked via Capital One Travel
• 2X miles per $1 on all other eligible purchases

What makes these miles even better is that you can share Capital One miles with anyone, helping you combine miles for an upcoming redemption. Moreover, if you have a Capital One Savor or Spark Cash rewards card, and a miles-earning card, you can combine your cash earnings with miles. Thus, any Capital One card can essentially earn miles.

Related: The 6 Best Capital One Credit Cards for Every Purchase

What makes Capital One's cards stand out is the ability to earn higher rates on those “other purchases” than what you'll find on most cards. For example, the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card offers 2x miles on every day spending, as well as 5X bonus miles on hotels, vacation rentals and rental cars booked in the travel portal — a standard feature on Capital One's credit cards. It's also possible to earn miles with Capital One Shopping.

Bottom Line

Capital One miles don't expire, and multiple credit cards earn Capital One's valuable miles to use with a wide range of transfer partners. However, we've highlighted four of the best Capital One transfer partners here. These provide excellent opportunities to redeem your miles for flights or hotel stays at outsized value. That's true whether you're flying domestically in economy or redeeming for a luxury hotel stay in a foreign country.

But don't forget that you also can use Capital One miles to cover recent travel purchases on your card, helping you “use miles when you can't use miles.” These fixed-value redemptions offer a quality option for simplicity, but spending the time to redeem through the partners we've highlighted here — Avianca LifeMiles, Wyndham Rewards, Flying Blue, and Miles & Smiles — can yield numerous opportunities for great uses of your miles if you take the time to learn how to use Capital One transfer partners.

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