Capital One is kicking off March with a bang with three announcements. While the generous welcome bonus on the new Capital One® Venture X Rewards Credit Card will officially end this 14th of March, the bank will also create two big moves in the coming weeks: 

1. It will add Virgin Red as its newest transfer partner
2. It will feature “cancel-for-any-reason” coverage within the Capital One Travel portal
   

The bank will offer a 20% transfer bonus to three airline partners to get even more out of Capital One card.

Here's everything you need to know about the Capital One program's upcoming changes.

Capital One Adds Virgin Red as a Transfer Partner

When Virgin Red officially becomes Capital One's 16th transfer partner, you'll be able to transfer Capital One miles to Virgin Red at a 1-to-1 ratio, which means that one Capital One mile equals one point or mile in the respective partner program. With a few exceptions, most of Capital One's other airline and hotel partners will transfer on a 1-to-1 basis as well.

This also means that you can leverage them to get great partner redemptions, like ANA’s first and business class to Japan and Delta One to Europe and at reasonable prices.

The ANA Sweet Spot

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points can be used to buy First and Business Class flights to Japan on the renowned airline ANA (All Nippon Airways).

Let's take a look at this award table:

As you can see, a round trip in Business Class only requires just 90,000 – 95,000 miles, while a round trip in First Class will need 110,000 – 120,000 miles.

That equates to as little as 55,000 miles one way to Japan in world-class First Class and as few as 45,000 miles one way in world-class Business Class. In addition, they are offering two new hard products: The Suite (First Class) and The Room (Business Class). This unique cabin is now available on select flights from New York to Tokyo, but it will be expanded in the future.

To make reservations with Virgin, you can contact and request that the ticket be held for a day while you transfer points from any US transferable credit card point program, including Capital One.

One-way redemptions are now possible too.

The Delta Sweet Spot

For 50,000 Virgin points, you can book any Delta Business Class ticket (Delta One) that Delta makes accessible to partners.

This no longer applies to flights to the United Kingdom, although it does for Delta flights from the United States to the European continent.

Therefore, a flight from DTW to AMS or JFK to AMS would only cost 50,000 Virgin points, a figure that you will never see on Delta's SkyMiles program, even at the lowest level.

Unfortunately, all other Delta flights booked via Virgin now make use of a distance-based award chart.

New Transfer Bonuses

Capital One will also provide a 20% transfer bonuses to the following partners, which will expire on March 31, 2022:

• Aeromexico
• Avianca
• Wyndham
  

This means that for every 1,000 miles transferred, you'll receive 1,200 points in your loyalty account.

Wyndham Rewards is one of the better ones. The typical 1:1 transfer ratio can be handy at times, especially when renting Vacasa properties, which only cost 15,000 points per bedroom. With this transfer bonus, you'd only need to transfer 12,500 Capital One miles per bedroom per night. However, you'd have to do so in 1,000-mile increments. If you have a personal or company Wyndham Rewards Earner card, you can additionally enjoy a 10% discount on award rates. This decreases 15,000 point payouts to 13,500 points, needing just 11,250 Capital One miles per bedroom/night.

Avianca's LifeMiles is the other great transfer bonus here since they have a couple of sweet spots that get even better when you just need to transfer 1,000 miles for every 1,200 LifeMiles.

While the 1:1 ratio is the norm for most transferable currency travel partners, Aeromexico is an exception to some extent. Brex and Citi also transfer to Aeromexico on a 1:1 basis. However, the normal transfer ratio from American Express Membership Rewards is 1:1.6.

Based on statistics from the miles and points community, here's how long Capital One miles normally take to transfer.

Capital One demands a minimum of 1,000 miles for the transfer. Keep in mind that transfer ratios differ from one loyalty program to the next. See the chart below:

UPDATE: Effective October 7, 2021, Capital One raised the transfer ratio for all airline partners, excluding EVA Airways, to 1:1.

New Cancellation Feature From Capital One

Along with the announcement of Virgin Red as a new transfer option, Capital One revealed last year an exciting new feature coming to the Capital One Travel portal: cancel-for-any-reason coverage. For a little charge at the checkout, you may purchase the opportunity to cancel your flight with no questions asked and obtain a refund of up to 80% of your money.

Some travel insurance companies offer this coverage, but it may be costly – and you may not be able to recuperate 80 percent of your flight.

This, combined with additional advantages like price freeze (lock in the current airfare for a modest charge) and price match guarantee (you'll be refunded if you discover a lower rate within 24 hours of booking), gives you plenty of reasons to utilize Capital One Travel for your future travels.

Bottom Line

Thanks to new transfer additions and regular transfer bonuses, Capital one will only continue to get better.

Virgin Atlantic will shortly join the fold as the latest Capital One transfer partner, with the inclusion of Virgin Red. While the most recent transfer bonus promotions have been hit or miss, it's reassuring to see Capital One continuing to provide them as travel season ramps up in 2022.

‍