I’ve just reached three months with my new Capital One Aspire MasterCard. My wife and I travel a great deal and a travel rewards card fits our lifestyle perfectly. I have to say that I have very mixed feelings about this acquisition. I was so excited to apply for and receive this card that it could do no wrong for my honeymoon phase. Unfortunately, the honeymoon seemingly can’t last forever.
On one hand, you really cannot beat the rewards that are offered by this card if you are a traveler and if you know you way around the rewards program. On the other hand, I have had nothing but issues in dealing with Capital One. I guess it comes down to a balance between whether or not the higher rate of rewards is worth the hassle of dealing with Capital One. I just realized that the Capital One tag line for rewards is “No-Hassle Rewards” … how ironic that rewards is the only thing I’m really thrilled about.
Earning points is extremely easy. You get 2 “miles” for every one dollar that you spend. Those “miles” can be redeemed for account credits or miscellaneous other reward merchandise or non-travel related account credits. As with any of these programs, the merchandise and account credit options tend to be of a low value compared to the premium offer on what the card is intended to do, such as reward travel in this case.
The redemption system for points is extremely easy to use. They definitely win points for making the process idiot-proof. This is where you need to be aware of what you are redeeming and what kind of value you are getting out of your rewards. Take a look at the following rewards translation chart. This is found at the very bottom of the redemption page and it makes a big difference in the value that you get out of the rewards.
I have a perfect example. I have a taxi transaction for $8 available for redemption. I also have a hotel stay for $148 available for redemption. You will notice that both rewards require the same number of miles for redemption. This means that if you want to get the optimal opportunity to redeem the highest value of your transactions you need to buy things that always have charges that are close, but not over one of the rewards levels. Another example from my own account is a hotel stay that cost $153. You will notice that the travel redemption for this stay falls into the 35,000 miles category.
At first I was upset that this was how things were being charged as I could rarely redeem for the highest level possible, but now I know to ensure that there are individual travel transactions that fall close to the top of the designated ranges when I want to redeem. The other way that you can avoid worrying about getting the most out of your travel rewards is to only redeem for large purchases. Once you get over $600 for a single transaction you are automatically given the highest rate of return.
Looking at my rewards to date, I have been able to achieve just over 2% of my total charged dollars. If I had been aware of how to take advantage of the system better from the beginning I think that I could have achieved almost 2.5%. I encourage you to look around, but you will not find a credit card on the market today that offers a better rewards return.
My negative experiences with Capital One have to do with a number of little things and one deal-breaker. As far as the little things go, nothing is even close to making me reconsider cards.
For example, I requested a second card for my spouse and I was told that it should arrive with mine. It did not. I called to ask for a spouse card to be issued after it did not arrive and a card was sent to our home. Unfortunately, it was not the right card. I have the Aspire card, but they sent a generic card for my wife. Once again I called to ask that the Aspire card be sent and it was explained to me that the account details were the same, but only the card artwork was different. I like the Aspire artwork. I consider the black card to have an almost aspirational quality and I would like my wife to have the same artwork. So I asked for the card to be re-issued with the same artwork as mine, as I had expected from the beginning. Today my wife still has the card with the generic artwork.
Another example is the way that Capital One handles fraud prevention. I have used credit cards every day since I turned 18 and prior to using the Capital One Aspire card I have only had one instance whereby my credit card was declined due to possible fraudulent activity. In that case, I completely understand the reasoning behind the trigger setting off the fraud warning. I had made purchases in Moncton, Toronto, Atlanta, San Jose Costa Rica, and London, England, all within 3 days. I definitely should have let VISA know that I had travel coming up in advance before that trip. Since I’ve been using the Aspire MasterCard I have had my account frozen on suspicion of fraudulent activity on four separate occasions. Only one of those occasions actually involved me traveling on a weekend trip to NYC. The other times, it simply happened because I was using the card. It’s easy enough to get the fraud alert lifted … you just call them and confirm a few recent transactions. Where I am getting annoyed is the embarrassment of having your credit card declined while you are waiting in line at a retailer. Also, the annoyance of not being able to collect the “miles” for transactions that I had to switch to a backup credit card in order to complete the transaction. As of today, I have been declined for about 2,500 “miles” because I had to use other forms of payment at cashiers when my Capital One card has been declined on fraud alert. Guess what? They don’t care if you miss out on the miles due to their randomly putting your account on fraud alert.
My third example of a “little thing” is that Capital One hasn’t moved from the dark ages to the enlightened age of the Smart Card. Every other card in my wallet has chip technology. The Aspire MasterCard is Capital One’s newest product and is in market without the Smart Card technology. It seems that I am the only guy left who needs to sign for almost every transaction. I say almost because, oddly enough, the card does include the PayPass technology. The only problem is that PayPass has not and likely will not be implemented on a widespread basis.
And now, on to the Deal-Breaker. Since November 29, 2010 there has been a glitch in the Capital One online banking site. Supposedly, this glitch is only affecting Canadian consumers. When a Canadian user tries to view their transaction details, they are affronted with this message:
I let this slide for a few days before I called, per the instructions above. The Capital One representative had no idea what I was talking about. I tried again the next day and the next representative suggested that I may need to update my browser. I should mention that I check my transactions on a regular basis. I use multiple computers, multiple operating systems, and multiple devices. I assured the person on the phone that I was certain the issue was not on my side. The response was an exasperated “Then I cannot help you today”. I have since spoken to a number of other representatives at Capital One and have been told that this is a reported issue and that they were working on a solution. They have no time frame for a fix and they have no further information. Now I’ve tracked down a
To make best use of the rewards program, my family uses this card for every transaction possible. From a $1.79 pack of gum to a $3,000 vacation package, it all goes on the card. The benefit to this is that we collect a lot of reward miles. The down side is that I now have no idea how much of my monthly budget has been spoken for in any category.
Since launch day in Canada, I have been using Mint.com to track my financial life. Mint.com is an awesome tool for tracking and managing your budget and transactions. It easily and quickly downloads and updates all of your transactions from all of your different banks and provides snapshots and trending for spend categories and budgets. You can also track all of your investments and a fluid snapshot at your net worth, all from the home page.
The issue with the Capital One online banking site is stopping me from pulling all of my transactions after Nov 29, 2010 into Mint.com so now I have no idea where I stand financially without going back and retracing my steps with my receipts and manually keying in every transaction and categorizing them myself.
Now I’ve reached the point where I need to decide if the added value of the higher reward is worth putting up with the hassles, or if I am better to consider another card. I’m taking a serious look at the Scotiabank Momentum card this week. Their promotion of offering 2% cash back for the first three statements is appealing for the short term and the average payout will approach 2% after the incentive period given most of my transactions can be considered part of their 2% every day transactions. At least with Scotiabank I can be confident that I will be able to review my transactions.
One final note that will definitely play in to my decision going forward is the travel coverage offered by Capital One. On par or better than any of the other cards on the market, they offer: Emergency Medical, Trip Cancellation, Trip Interruption, Flight Delay, Baggage Loss, Baggage Delay, Accident Insurance, Car Rental Insurance, and their MasterAssist Travel Assistance, which provides 24/7 assistance for a variety of things from lost luggage to legal assistance outside of your home province.
I guess I’ll give it until the end of the holidays before I make a decision. It also won’t hurt to have the travel coverage for my upcoming vacation.
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