Capital One "match my miles" promotion

I've just seen a great mileage deal with Capital One Venture "Match My Miles" Challenge.

Capital One is giving away a billion miles to new Venture customer during the Venture "Match My Miles" Challenge. (The promotion began February 10th and ends May 13th or when the bonus miles are gone ).

If you become a new Venture customer, they match up to 100,000 of the miles you've earned with an eligible credit card program. Here are the eligible cards:

• AirTran Airways A+ Visa
• Alaska Airlines Visa
• American Airlines Card
• Continental Airlines Card
• Delta SkyMiles American Express
• Frontier Airlines MasterCard
• Hawaiian Airlines Visa
• JetBlue American Express
• Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Visa
• Spirit Airlines Free SPIRIT MasterCard
• United Mileage Plus Visa
• US Airways Dividend Miles MasterCard
• Virgin America Visa

Before you rush to sign up, the application page states that this promotion is "Only for people with excellent credit." This is obviously going to limit the applications, but if you have excellent credit, and you fly a lot, then it's a no-brainer.

The annual fee of $59 is waived for the first year, but you have to spend $1000 in the first 90 days in order to get the promotional miles.

How it works:

Supposing you have 75,000 miles accrued on your Delta Skymiles American Express Card, (or any other eligible card) during the promotion, if you sign up for the card and are accepted, they will match your mileage and put 75,000 in your new Venture account! (Up to 100,000 miles)!

You still get all the regular rewards of 2 miles per dollar spent, plus the regular 10,000 miles sign-up bonus in your account (once you spend $1000 in the first 90 days). These reward miles cover any kind of travel expense including Hotel, Flights, Vacation Packages, Rental Cars etc. You can even redeem your miles for cash back, gift cards or merchandise.

I realize it isn't a good idea to have too many active credit cards. It is a big temptation to over-extend yourself. I had been thinking about getting this card because of its great reward program. Now this is an offer not to be passed up. (Whenever you take out a new credit card, it's a good idea to cancel old credit cards; too many active cards will lower your credit score).

During that first free year using the card, you can accumulate a lot of miles - add to that the sign up bonus of 10,000 miles (if we use our example of 75,000 matched miles that's 85,000 miles: Over the next year, you only need to charge $14,000 to have 100,000 miles at your disposal.

Of course this offer isn't attractive if you haven't accrued miles, or if you've just spent them. There are many airline cards that have all kinds of restrictions, hardly any available seats or dates, and frankly its just not worth the hassle and the cost. The Capital One Venture Card, (unlike some other airline award programs), apparently have no blackout dates and no seating restrictions, which is very refreshing.

Currently Alec Baldwin can be seen advertising the promotion so I doubt it will last long. So, if you are like me and enjoy free travel, then this is the best mileage credit card deal I have found. I hope you get yours.

Bon Voyage!