You may not be able to transfer Capital One miles to airlines and hotels right now: Here's what you need to know

One of the best parts of having transferable rewards, such as Capital One miles or Chase Ultimate Rewards points, is the flexibility these rewards provide. You can keep your rewards in a transferable currency until you need them. Doing so provides the best of both worlds: You mostly avoid the risk of an individual airline or hotel devaluing its program, but you also maintain the ability to quickly earn airline and hotel rewards.

However, this only works when you're able to transfer your rewards. Right now, at least some Capital One users cannot transfer their miles to airline or hotel partners or redeem miles for Capital One Entertainment.

Users on Reddit reported being unable to transfer Capital One miles to airline and hotel partners since Friday, Sept. 23. Indeed, when I logged in to my Capital One account this morning, I was greeted with the following screen after I clicked "View Rewards" on the homepage for my Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card:

When I click "Convert rewards" to transfer my Capital One miles to a hotel or airline partner, I see the following:

That's right: I see a "Down for Maintenance" message next to every Capital One transfer partner. I get the same message when I log in to my Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card account and attempt to transfer miles.

For some travelers, the outage of transfers from Capital One may be a mere inconvenience. For others, though, this is a major issue. For example, airline award holds may expire before you can transfer Capital One miles again. Plus, if award availability opens on a flight you've been tracking, you may not have enough rewards in your account to book without the ability to transfer Capital One miles.

Several Reddit users said they've called Capital One and learned there's no estimate on when transfers will become available again. We reached out to Capital One for comment while writing this story and got the following response from a spokesperson shortly after publishing: "We are currently making system improvements to some of our rewards platforms, and because of that they are temporarily offline."

Related: The best travel credit cards

Bottom line

Especially since the outage seemingly began last Friday, we hope that the ability to transfer Capital One miles to partners will return soon.

This outage — as well as periodic transfer bonuses from various transferable currencies — highlights why it's important to diversify your transferable rewards. For example, alongside your Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card or Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card, you might also want to have a Chase Sapphire Preferred Card to earn Chase Ultimate Rewards points or The Platinum Card® from American Express to earn Amex Membership Rewards points.