How To Earn Free Disney World Travel With Capital One Rewards Miles
The number one way I stretch our travel budget is by putting our everyday spending on credit card that earn the most valuable points and miles for travel!
Right now one of my favorites, Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card, is offering an incredible welcome bonus: earn a $300 Capital One Travel stays credit, plus 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 at least $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.
You’ll also earn $300 to use on hotel and vacation rental bookings through the Capital One Travel portal in your first cardholder year.
That’s over $1,000 in 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!
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I just signed up for this card and am having some difficulties understanding what should code as travel. I added luggage to my upcoming Disney trip through my airline and it didn’t code as travel, which I was very surprised with. Is there a way to look up what codes as travel and what doesn’t. I am working hard on reaching the $4000 in 3 months to get the 75,000 miles. Will the statement credit automatically apply with a purchase coded travel after the first 3 months or how to I get the statement credit for the $300? I think I’m a bit confused.
Hi! ” Travel,” according to Capital One, includes a wide variety of charges, including tickets, baggage fees, and direct carrier charges from airlines, Hotels, vacation rentals, car rental agencies, cruise lines, trains, Taxis, rideshares, travel agencies, and tour operators. If I have anything I’m not sure about, I often do a search on forums such as Reddit for others’ experiences with what will be coded as travel.
After you meet the minimum spend, the 75k points will be added to your Reward Miles balance. I usually get an email notification, but you will also see the miles when you are logged into your account – just scroll down the page to see your rewards balance. Then you have to manually apply the miles to each purchase you want to erase by selecting “Cover Travel Purchases”. If something doesn’t code correctly (like the baggage charge), you can call the number on the back of your card and they will fix this. Hope that helps!