The thing no one's saying about that new CapitalOne card
This week everyone was surprised when Capital One announced that they were going to allow their points to be transferred directly into airline points programs. It's been interesting to see all of the various blogs doing their analyses without ever really bringing up the fact that no one knows if this is going to be an instant points transfer (like with Chase and Amex) or a multi-day process (like with SPG/Marriott points) . What's a bit irksome for me about the mainstream blogs' coverage is that they seem to have forgotten how normal people use their points. Given how few airlines let you put tickets on hold (Korean and Virgin Atlantic both come to mind), a slow transfer like SPG's means that you risk marooning your points if you transfer them and the award vanishes by the time your points show up. This has actually happened to me and it's stressful and irritating. UPDATE (Dec 2018): The first real-world tests of transfer times are coming in, looks like...