Using the Capital One Purchase Eraser

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For rewards enthusiasts, travel credit cards offer a unique opportunity to get more value out of points and miles. But redemption options are often limited, and redeeming for purchases outside of the bank’s travel portal can mean sacrificing rewards value.

Enter the Capital One Purchase Eraser – a unique tool designed to add flexibility to the Capital One® Venture® Rewards Credit Card and other Capital One cards. With the Purchase Eraser, cardholders can use miles to cover any travel purchase made on their card in the last 90 days, making it easy to hunt for the best deal on travel purchases across the web without worrying about getting less out of your miles.

Even better, there are all sorts of unique purchases that can qualify for a travel credit. Read on to learn how to take advantage of this perk.

Capital One® Venture® Rewards Credit Card
Why should you get this card? One of our most popular travel rewards cards, the Venture card comes with a high rewards rate and valuable perks for frequent travelers. Read full review	Other things to know 2 miles per dollar on all purchases 50,000 bonus miles if you spend $3,000 in first 3 months Transfer miles to more than 10 travel partners Up to $100 credit for Global Entry/TSA PreCheck No foreign transaction fees

How to use the Capital One Purchase Eraser

To take advantage of the Capital One Purchase Eraser, you’ll first have to put some travel charges on your card. Luckily, a wide variety of purchases count as travel, including Uber rides and UberEATS orders, flights, hotel stays, public transportation and much more.

Once you have some purchases you’d like to cover with miles, simply log in to your Capital One account either on your computer or phone and click into your rewards portal.

To use the Purchase Eraser, you’ll select “Cover your Travel Purchases,” as shown.

Once you choose this option, you’ll be presented with a list of all the travel purchases you’ve made in the last 90 days. You can select any of them to redeem your miles for – even if you only have enough miles to cover part of the purchase.

Then, just choose a purchase to redeem. After you choose from the list of eligible purchases, you can decide how many miles you want to apply to that purchase. Each mile is worth 1 cent, making it easy to know how many you will need to cover the cost. You can redeem as little as 1 mile toward each purchase or up to the full price. (Yes, Capital One will really issue a statement credit as low as 1 cent for a 1 mile redemption.)

After you hit redeem, statement credits usually appear in your account within two to three business days.

Why the Purchase Eraser is your best redemption option

If you have a Capital One Venture or Capital One® VentureOne® Rewards Credit Card, using the Purchase Eraser is probably your best bet for getting the most value out of your miles.

The Purchase Eraser isn’t your only option for booking travel with miles, as Capital One lets cardholders book flights, hotels and car rentals directly in the bank’s travel center. However, the purchases you can redeem miles for with the Purchase Eraser are much more varied. Plus, you can search third-party booking sites for special promotions and potentially find a better price than you can on Capital One’s site.

Capital One cardholders also have the option to redeem miles for a statement credit – but this redemption option is much less valuable. When redeemed for a statement credit, Capital One miles only have a 0.5 cent value per mile. Since so many purchases count as travel, you are better off saving your miles for a travel purchase redemption than opting for a straight statement credit and sacrificing their value.

Final thoughts

The Capital One Purchase Eraser is easy to use and adds great flexibility to Capital One credit cards. Plus, it is the easiest way to ensure you are getting great value out of your rewards.