One insidious feature of the Capital One Aspire Travel World MasterCard is the tiered structure when it comes to redeeming your miles for travel.
With Capital One’s purchase eraser, you can get a statement credit on previous travel purchases. But in order to get the maximum benefit from your points, you need to take care and follow the schedule closely.
Capital One Aspire Travel redemption levels
| Miles Needed | For Travel That Costs… |
| 15,000 | Up to $150 |
| 35,000 | $150.01 – $350 |
| 60,000 | $350.01 – $600 |
| 100x cost | $600+ |
Redemptions must be made within 90 days from when the travel purchase posts to your account. The statement credit is then applied within 5 to 7 business days.
On the plus side, any purchases made from airlines, hotels, rail lines, car rental agencies, limousine services, bus lines, cruise lines, taxi cabs, travel agents and time shares are generally considered to be travel purchases.
Related: Capped earnings on cash back cards
Unfortunately, separately itemized travel transactions on your statement can’t be combined for a single redemption.
For example, you can’t combine breakfast, lunch, and dinner at a hotel into one transaction for the purpose of maximizing your reward miles. So it’ll take 15,000 miles to “erase” your $25 breakfast, and another 15,000 miles to “erase” a $50 lunch. Not a great deal.
To make sure that you always get a 2 percent return on your points you’ll need to get one of the charges to equal exactly $150 or $350. This isn’t a problem for most retailers. The problem is remembering to ask.
Let’s say you stayed at a hotel and you have 15,000 miles to redeem. Your stay came to $288.36. At check-out, simply ask the front desk agent to split your charges so that one of them equals $150. Pay with your Capital One Aspire Travel card and then you’ll be able to redeem your 15,000 miles at the full 2 percent rate.
Related: So you’re ready to dump Aeroplan. Now what?
Note that you’ll always qualify for the 2 percent redemption on purchases over $600. A flight or lengthy hotel stay can easily exceed that amount, and so if you have enough points to cover the cost then you will get the full redemption value.
The key is that you need enough points to cover the entire purchase. For example, if you have 73,000 miles and you book a flight that costs $778.50, you won’t be able to use your miles to cover a portion of the flight cost. The flight would have to cost $730 or less to qualify for the purchase eraser.
Final thoughts
The Capital One Aspire Travel redemption level tiers are a bit puzzling for what is otherwise considered the top travel credit cards on the market. But with careful planning you can find creative ways to work around the problem.
For Aspire Travel cardholders, have you encountered any problems with the purchase eraser? How do you get around the redemption level tiers?
Back in March, I wrote a story about Bob Muir, a 53-year-old consulting manager from Ontario, who was upset because the two business class flights to Scotland that he tried to redeem through Aeroplan would have cost him $2,200 in surcharges and fees.
Related: Why Aeroplan Collectors Are Fed Up With Their Rewards Program
To make a long story short, he didn’t end up booking the flight and instead sent emails to Air Canada and Aeroplan to try to figure out why his so-called “free” flight cost so much money. Aeroplan was no help and Air Canada offered a measly 10 percent off his next flight.
But after my article in the Toronto Star, and some thoughtful reader comments and suggestions, Mr. Muir was able to figure out a plan to get to Scotland and to use up the rest of his Aeroplan miles.
Here’s how he did it:
Hey Robb,
I thought I would drop you a line and give you an update. We are booked on flights to Edinburgh in July.
I had to use 180,000 points and pay $556.00. It wasn’t easy. The date was not my first choice, nor was the airport (Glasgow is our destination). It probably took me 6 hours to finally get the flight booked. I even called the Contact Centre and they were useless. In fact, the woman said to me “the website is probably more help than I can be”.
I took the advice of the guy who responded to your article recommending a flight through the U.S. We are booked on United. Anything involving Air Canada into Europe was well over $1100.00 in fees.
I also checked into the merchandise you can “buy” with your points. Now that is where I will use my points from now on. I picked up a Bow Flex exercise machine that my son, who is starting the Paramedic program in September and will put it to good use.
A 42″ plasma TV for me is next. Now we will enjoy those.
Thanks again for sticking up for the little guy.
Final thoughts
It was nice to be able to help a reader save money and figure out a good way to spend his Aeroplan miles.
I know that Mr. Muir will look for a new rewards program after this Aeroplan fiasco, but at least he found a decent solution to his $2,200 flight reward shock and can feel some satisfaction in saving 75% on the fees that were originally quoted.