Leveraging Transfer Partners to Pay $200 for a $10,000 Flight

To give you a better idea of how all of these numbers work in action, here’s a real story of how our friend (let’s call him Joe) used credit card points to get a massive discount on his aspirational travels. 

Joe opened up a Capital One Venture X when the sign up bonus was at 100,000 credit card points because we recommended him to get the card since he had travel plans to Europe. His plans were aspirational, as he wanted a business-class flight on Delta Airlines’ premium Delta One cabin. Unfortunately, this flight costs more than $5,000 one way, making it a very expensive ticket to purchase.

100,000 credit card points goes a long way, however, and Joe’s dream of flying business-class became closer to fruition when his points were posted to his account. Joe had to complete one final step before purchasing the ticket at a discounted rate: transferring his points to a partner airline. 

Seeing that Joe wanted the premium flight experience to be on board Delta One, all Joe had to do was transfer his points to an airline that was partnered with Delta Airlines, and this airline was Virgin Atlantic (Delta is not a direct transfer partner of Capital One). When Joe deposited 100,000 credit card points into his Virgin Atlantic account, the search to book his flight began! Joe quickly found availability for a flight from Los Angeles to London for $5,000 each way ($10,000 round trip), or alternatively, that same flight costs 50,000 credit card points plus $100 in taxes and fees each way (100,000 credit card points plus $200 in taxes and fees round trip). By leveraging the many transfer partners that Capital One has, Joe was able to afford his most aspirational business-class flight for only $200!