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How to Book Flights & Pay with Capital One Venture Rewards “Miles”

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Good morning everyone, I hope you enjoyed yesterday’s post on How to Redeem Capital One Venture Rewards “Miles” for Travel Purchases.  In today’s post, I will show you how to book flights and pay with your Capital One Venture Rewards “miles.”  This process is very similar to booking paid tickets using Chase Ultimate Rewards Points, Citi Thank You Points, and American Express Membership Rewards Points.  To get started, log into your Capital One account and click your “miles” balance.

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Then click the blue Book a Trip button.

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The Capital One travel portal has a pretty standard flight search engine.  Enter your flight search details and click the green Search Now button.

a screenshot of a travel application

Prior to going through the above steps, I did a quick Google Flights search for Lihue (LIH) to Maui (OGG).  I found a $118 Hawaiian Airlines flight leaving on Saturday, April 7 at 12:31pm.

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I then entered the Hawaiian Airlines flight details into the Capital One travel portal, then clicked the green Search Now button.

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On the search results page, there are 52 possible results.  To find the exact flight that you want, click the white Filter By button.

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You can now filter the search results by airline, flight number (very specific), number of stops, flight times, and booking class.  After that, click the blue Apply Filters button.

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After adjusting the search filters, there are now 2 flight choices, with the top flight being the flight I want.  To continue with the booking process, click the green Select button.

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You now have the a few payment options available.  You can pay with all Capital One Venture Rewards “miles”, pay with all cash, or pay with a combination of “miles” and cash.  I want 2 tickets and want to pay with only Capital One Venture Rewards “miles”, so the total price is 23,598 Capital One Venture Rewards “miles.”  To continue, click the green Add to Itinerary button.

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If you do not want to add a hotel or car to your travel itinerary, click the green No Thanks, Go to my Itinerary button.  I just noticed that the 23,598 Capital One Venture Rewards “miles” were subtracted from my starting balance of 104,015 Capital One Venture Rewards “miles.”  Interesting…

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Confirm all the details of your trip are correct and click the green Begin Checkout button.

Enter each passenger’s name, email address, gender, and date of birth.  Then enter your home address and phone number.  Lastly, check the box confirming all passenger information is correct and click the green Next button.

Confirm your flight details are correct, all your passenger details are correct, check the terms & conditions box, and click the green Complete Checkout button.

Congratulations, your flights have been booked with Capital One Venture Rewards “miles.”  You will have a TRIP ID (useful for Capital One), an Airline Reference Number (your airline confirmation number) and an Agency Reference Number (useful for the travel agency that powers the Capital One travel portal).

You will also receive a confirmation email with all the same details as the confirmation page.

Since our flight is on Hawaiian Airlines, I copied the Airline Reference Number from Capital One and entered that reservation number into Hawaiian Airlines’s website to view our reservation.  I then entered out Trusted Travel Numbers (TSA PreCheck numbers), our Hawaiian Airlines frequent flyer numbers, and picked our seats.

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To view your Capital One redemptions, click the View Rewards Transactions link.

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You can then see all Capital One Venture Rewards “miles” earning and redemption transactions.

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If you have any questions about booking airline tickets with your Capital One Venture Rewards “miles,” please leave a comment below.  Have a great day everyone!


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22 thoughts on “How to Book Flights & Pay with Capital One Venture Rewards “Miles”

    1. Grant Post author

      Unfortunately, no. You are basically buying a cash ticket and redeeming your Capital One Miles/Points to offset the purchase.

      Reply
      1. Terri Wiebe

        I have a question, I want to book travel from Houston to Vegas. I am not happy with the choices of flight times offered for flights to and from. Can I book one way tickets from Houston to Vegas and one way ticket from Vegas to Houston? The Itinerary will not let me put more than one, one way ticket in the portal. What do I do?

        Reply
        1. Grant Post author

          Yes, you can book 2 one way flights, just do 1 at a time. If you still have trouble, you can call the Capital One Travel rewards department and they can help you book the flights.

          Reply
  1. Labman

    I have my flight itinerary purchased w/Capital One travel center rewards program.
    Do I simply take this to the gate to get my boarding pass, or do I still need to go through the airline’s ticketing process?

    Reply
    1. Grant Post author

      If you look at your confirmation email from Capital One, it should have 2 different record locators. One is related to the Capital One Travel Portal and the other is related to your airline. Copy that airline record locator and then go to the airlibe’s site and view your itinerary, pick your seats, add your TSA PreCheck number, and add your frequent flyer number. Use the same record locator to check in for your flight. Let me know if you have any questions.

      Reply
  2. Bee

    I have followed along and my issue isn’t mentioned….when I type in the Air Canada reference number from my CapitalOne booking, it says that this is not a valid booking number. I can’t get thru to Capital one rewards customer service either. Geez, any suggestion of what I need to do?

    Reply
    1. Grant Post author

      There should be a Capital One record locator and an Air Canada record locator. Maybe you swapped the 2 record locators. See if you can find and enter the other record locator.

      Reply
    1. Grant Post author

      Yes, any airline ticket that you can book through Expedia / Travelocity should be bookable through the Capital One travel portal. If you cannot find it online, you can call the travel portal and they will book the ticket over the phone.

      Reply
  3. Sara

    Hi, So if you want to make any changes, cancellation or corrections to the ticket purchased from Capital One portal, then it will similar to hassle of buying ticket from a third party like Cheapoair or Orbitz, right? you are not buying directly from the airlines , correct? Thanks

    Reply
    1. Grant Post author

      Correct, you are buying your airline tickets through an online travel agency (OTA), so making changes or cancellation will be similar if you booked through Expedia, Travelocity, etc.

      Reply
  4. Virginia

    Can I book with a third party such as expedia or hopper and use my miles or do I have to book through the capital one website?

    Reply
  5. Mike

    Hi Grant, great article about their travel portal. Very insightful. Do you happen to know who is the provider of this travel search engine (or which travel agency fulfills the bookings for Capital One)? Also, how’s their ticket or hotel price compared to sites like Expedia/ Kayak etc.?

    Reply
    1. Grant Post author

      I’m not really sure who powers the Capital One travel portal (I think Expedia maybe). The prices were the same as Google Flights and booking directly on the airline’s website.

      Reply
          1. Jasmine

            If me and my boyfriend each booked our own flight using our individual venture cards, do you think it would be possible to get seats together? Thanks!

          2. Grant Post author

            It would depend on the airline and whether you booked regular economy or basic economy. You can usually pay a few dollars more to select your seats, which will make it easier to sit together.

  6. Jane

    Can you still earn points on mileage account say at AA when you purchase thru Venture portal using points? Thanks in advance.

    Reply

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