How To Earn Free Disney World Travel With Capital One Rewards Miles
The number one way I stretch our travel budget is by leveraging the points and miles I earn by putting my everyday spending on a rewards card.
Right now one of my favorites, Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card, is offering an incredible welcome bonus: enjoy $250 to use on Capital One Travel in your first cardholder year, plus earn 75,000 bonus miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within the first 3 months from account opening.
This bonus is easy to use to save $1,000 on a vacation to Walt Disney World (or anywhere else you want to go)!
Read on to learn all about this excellent travel credit card.
How Do Capital One Rewards Miles Work?
What I like most about Capital One Rewards Miles is how easy they are to use.
In fact, they might be the easiest to use of all reward program miles.
My preferred way to use miles is to “erase” travel purchases I make with the card.
I just use my qualifying Capital One card to purchase my hotel, flight, or park tickets, then I use miles to get reimbursed with a statement credit.
I’ll explain in detail below how to use miles for statement credit so you can use them to erase part or all of your Disney World ticket or hotel costs!
How Do I Earn Capital One Rewards Miles?
The easiest way to get lots of Capital One miles is to sign up for one of their credit cards.
My favorite card is the Venture Rewards Card.
As I mentioned, the thing I love most about this card is how easy the miles are to redeem for a travel statement credit.
But a close second is that this card earns at least 2 miles per dollar on every purchase every day.
For example, if you earn 75,000 miles after meeting the minimum spending requirement of $4,000 in the first three months after opening the card you’ll have at least 83,000 miles to redeem.
75,000 from bonus + 8,000 from minimum spending (4,000 x 2 miles per dollar) = 83,000 miles
If you redeem for a statement credit you’ll get $830 worth of travel costs erased from your balance. If you can get your partner on board to get their own card then you can double this to $1,660.
That’s great value from one card bonus!
The Capital One Venture Card does have a $95 annual fee, but it comes with benefits that help offset that cost (read on for the details).
What Can I Use Rewards Miles For?
You can use miles for a statement credit for any purchase that codes as “travel” with Capital One.
As an example, you can book your hotel directly with Disney, or through a travel consolidator such as Priceline, and use your miles to “erase” all of part of your purchase with statement credit. .
It is hard to find miles you can use to book hotel rooms or packages directly with Disney, so this is a massive plus for Capital One miles.
But if you want to use your miles to buy Disney World park tickets be careful!
If you buy tickets directly from Disney they will NOT code as travel and you won’t be able to use your miles to erase the purchase.
But if you buy discount tickets from my recommended ticket provider Undercover Tourist, the purchase WILL code as travel!
I confirmed this recently by buying one ticket from Disney and another from Undercover Tourist for my upcoming trip.
So if you want to use your travel statement credit to offset the price of theme park tickets, be sure to purchase from a site such as Undercover Tourist that will code as travel.
You can also use Rewards Miles to book a trip in the Capital One Travel portal or transfer your miles to 17 different loyalty programs.
I find the Capital One travel portal very easy to use and have used miles to book trips there.
In my opinion, the transfer partners for Capital One are not as good as the Chase or American Express transfer partners.
The only hotel brand partner is Choice Privileges. Choice has great hotels in Europe, but not here in the US.
There are also no domestic airlines as transfer partners. However, you can use Capital One Miles for flights on domestic airlines, but it involves booking through a partner which gets more complicated.
I suggest using them for statement credit if you have any vacation expenses that are impossible to book with points and miles, such as theme park tickets or rental cars.
Venture Rewards Card Benefits
The Venture Rewards Card has an annual fee of $95 but I think the benefits that come with the card justify the fee.
First, you’ll get up to a $120 credit for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck when you use the card to pay the fee for these services.
I’ve had PreCheck since it began and I can’t imagine traveling without it. Children 17 and under will get PreCheck status for free, so you only need it for the adults on your reservation.
Even if you only fly once each year, I think getting PreCheck is a good idea – especially if you have a card that essentially offers it for free.
Click here to learn how to apply for TSA PreCheck.
Capital One Offers
Another benefit of the Venture Card I use often is Capital One Offers.
You can add cashback offers to your card and get statement credit when you use your card for a purchase.
The other benefits of the Venture Card include:
- No Foreign Transaction Fees
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver
- Travel Accident Insurance
This is all in addition to earning at least 2x miles on every purchase.
This is why I’ve had this card in my wallet for over five years. Earning 2x miles makes it excellent for everyday spending.
Click here to learn more about this card – thanks for using my links and supporting my small business!
I hope this post answers all of your questions about this card and using Capital One Miles for a vacation to Disney World or elsewhere.
Anything else you want to know? Just leave a comment below!
Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.
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Do the 83,000 points expire? If so, how long do you have to use them?
Great question – they do not expire. As long as you keep the card open, the miles will not expire!
Are you able to build up the same amount of points each year or is this something you can only pull off the first year with the points you get from opening the card?
The welcome bonus is a one-time-only thing, however I put most of my everyday spending on this card because it earns 2x miles. Even putting $1K monthly expenses earns you 24k miles annually. These go a long way!
I receive your helpful emails! You mentioned that the Venture card couls possibly purchase 14 one way trips to Europe with just the bonus. I am trying to figure this out:) I thought you mentioned that 83, 000 points equaled about $800. Just one way to Europe is about $800…I am sure i am missing something. Could you help me figure it out:)
Yes! These miles transfer to Virgin Atlantic at a 1:1 ratio. Virgin flights from New York, Boston, and several other cities to London start at 6,000 points + $109 in taxes/fees. That’s how the 83k miles you’ll earn from the welcome bonus can get you 14 flights. We are taking a flight tomorrow I booked with this method! I hope that helps.
Awesome!
Shoot! I grabbed this card thinking you could just use points to book flights with airlines…now I’m confused. I’m planning to setup regularly occurring monthly expenses on this card and pay it off every month so I can unlock the bonus miles and even secure more points before our Disney trip next October. You’re saying that I can ask for points to be awarded in a credit and then pay for flights with that? Also thought I read that the 75000 bonus miles were = to $1000 travel dollars?
Yes, you can use the miles to book flights with airlines! You can transfer the miles to 15 different airline partners. Just Google “Capital One airline transfer partners” to see the list. However, that is more complicated than simply using the card to pay for the flights then using the miles as statement credit to “erase” the purchase. You don’t have to ask for anything – you will be awarded the miles ino your account, then you choose how to redeem them – transfer to partners, use as statement credit, etc. The bonus is worth $1,000 – after approval you’ll receive a one-time $250 Capital One Travel credit to use toward purchases made through Capital One Travel. The Credit will expire after the first year of account opening. Then after meeting the minimum spend (good strategy to put recurring expenses on the card!) you’ll get your 75,000 miles welcome bonus, which is worth at minimum $750. $250 + $750 = your $1,000 in travel! I hope that helps – email me here if you want more explanation: leah@thebudgetmouse.com
Can I purchase Airline Tickets from Spirit and get a statement credit after purchase?
Yes absolutely! I just did this with Frontier, actually. As long as the purchase codes as travel you can erase it with miles.
Are you able to erase travel purchases you make in the first 4 months? I know I won’t get the bonus until I spend the full 4,000, but wondered if you could only erase purchases after the first $4,000 is spent? I see the $250 is there to erase, but wasn’t sure about the other chunk
Great question! You have 90 days from the date a travel purchase posts to your account to redeem Capital One miles for a statement credit. So as soon as your bonus hits your account (which in my experience is 3-5 days after I hit the minimum spending requirement) I suggest going in and using the miles to erase purchases right away. You will get an email when the bonus arrives.