The entire point of having a credit card that earns a ton of points is to redeem them for the most valuable thing. With many people being in a tough financial situation, it makes sense that people may instead of for things that can get them through the day to day operations of life, like cash or cash equivalents. It’s not a bad deal when you’re getting a little bit of a discount on the place you were going to shop at anyway.
The News
We recently wrote about how Capital One removed the ability to redeem your points for gift cards. Well, it looks like that feature is back… with a twist. Instead of earning the usual 1 cent per point, it looks like Capital One has dropped it down to 0.8 cents per point.
Final Thoughts
On one hand, I get where Capital One is coming from. I’m sure that a ton of people tried to redeem their points for gift cards right when things started to get bad. Capital One doesn’t have unlimited money either, they need to pay these benefits. So with everyone redeeming at the same time, I’m sure this caused a problem. Still, it’s kind of a shame that people are being penalized at a time where they need it the most.
I’m curious to see if Capital One will increase this redemption back to 1 cent per point after the coronavirus settles down or if they’ll keep the 0.8. I would hope they would increase it, but you never know.
What do you think about all of this? Should Capital One have dropped the redemption rate? Let us know in the comment section below.
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