What’s the Value of Capital One Miles?

Capital One miles are worth up to 1.3 cents each, but that value depends on how you redeem them.

You'll get 1 cent per mile as a "baseline" value when they're redeemed through the Capital One Travel portal or for a statement credit against travel purchases.

But you can often do better by sending miles to Capital One’s transfer partners.

Based on our analysis, Capital One miles are worth around 1.3 cents each when you transfer to Avianca LifeMiles — Capital One's most valuable transfer partner. And you can get even better value for your transfer if you wait for a credit card transfer bonus.

» Learn more: The best travel credit cards might surprise you

The value when booking through Capital One's travel portal

Your Capital One miles are worth exactly 1 cent apiece when you use them in Capital One's travel portal.

But that's the same value you get when you redeem miles for a statement credit against travel purchases.

For that reason, you'd do better to use your card to pay for travel directly with the airline or hotel, then redeem miles against the purchase. That way you earn miles from your card on the purchase and gain the benefits of booking directly, which often include more favorable pricing and cancellation policies, plus the ability to earn additional airline or hotel rewards and elite points.

Another downside to using the travel portal is a lower value for your miles. Getting 1 cent per mile isn’t terrible, but you can often do better with transfer partners.

» Learn more: Credit cards that earn Capital One miles

» Learn more: How the Capital One Miles program works

What’s the value when transferring to Capital One partners?

Based on the transfer partners we analyzed, Avianca LifeMiles is Capital One's most valuable partner, making miles worth around 1.3 cents each.

To arrive at that median value, we compared cash and points prices for a main cabin economy seat across 40 domestic and international flights booked between 15 and 180 days before departure.

Avianca offers good value on Star Alliance partners like United Airlines and Air Canada, and you won't pay carrier-imposed surcharges when you book partner awards.

Even better, you can use a limited-time credit card transfer bonus to get increased value from a transfer.

Here's how the value of other Capital One transfer partners stack up. There are more Capital One transfer partnerships than what's shown above. These are the partners for which we have an estimated value.

Although JetBlue TrueBlue points are individually worth more than Avianca LifeMiles, Capital One miles transfer to JetBlue at a less favorable 5:3 ratio. That means 10,000 Capital One miles become just 6,000 TrueBlue points, compared with 10,000 LifeMiles through Avianca’s 1:1 transfer ratio.

» Learn more: The best Capital One transfer partners — and which to avoid

How much are Capital One miles worth?

Use our calculator below to convert any given number of Capital One miles to dollars, based on both the baseline and NerdWallet estimated values.

Credit cards that earn Capital One miles

The simplest way to amass a large number of Capital One miles is to earn a sign-up bonus and ongoing rewards from a credit card.

Here are our favorites:

How did we determine the value of Capital One miles?

NerdWallet estimates the value of Capital One miles at 1.3 cents based on the transfer partner with the highest value rewards: Avianca LifeMiles.

To arrive at this median value, we looked at cash and award prices across 40 flights booked at 15 days, 60 days, 90 days and 180 days until departure.

» Learn more: The best Capital One credit card offers for travel