Normally Bilt Rewards will give you 100 free points for linking each of their transfer partners to your account. They have 11 partners, so that’s 1100 transferable Bilt points. Right now Bilt Rewards will give you 500 points for linking your American AAdvantage account to your Bilt account. This takes just a few seconds in their app. This is available through April 15. That means a total of 1500 free Bilt points are offered.

Head to the ‘flights’ tab in the Bilt Rewards app and select the American AAdvanage logo®

Enter your AAdvantage® number, first and last name, and the password for your AAdvantage account.

That’s it! Your accounts will be linked and the 500 Bilt Points should show in your Bilt Rewards account almost instantly.

You don’t have to be a Bilt Mastercard cardholder to have a Bilt account. Bilt is a loyalty program that has a co-brand credit card. You might earn Bilt points, for instance, signing a lease in a building that participates in the program, for instance. And my original conversation with Dave Canty (formerly of Starwood, JetBlue and IHG who is Head of Loyalty for Bilt) suggested they’d be building out additional earning opportunities, like a shopping portal.

That said, if you rent where you live and that rent is at all significant (it’s the biggest single expense for most), getting the Bilt Mastercard is an absolute no brainer for most. That’s because you earn points paying rent with the card. If you don’t live in a Bilt-affiliate building that’s fine, they charge your credit card and send your landlord a check. You can earn up to 50,000 points a year this way, which would cost you $1425 if you used Plastiq to accomplish the same thing. And it’s a no annual fee card.

It’s also a great starter card, which earns 3 points per dollar on dining and 2 points per dollar on travel, and they’re the only loyalty program transferring to more than one of American, United, and Delta. Their transfer partners are:

• Star Alliance: Air Canada Aeroplan, Turkish Miles & Smiles, United Airlines MileagePlus
  
• oneworld: American AAdvantage, Cathay Pacific Asia Miles (Note that Cathay Pacific Asia Miles linking won’t be available until later in the month.)
  
• SkyTeam: Air France KLM Flying Blue
  
• Non-alliance: Emirates Skywards, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, Hawaiian Airlines HawaiianMiles
  
• Hotels: Hyatt, IHG Rewards

There’s a minimum of 2000 points to transfer to a partner, so if you aren’t earning Bilt points any other way (and again, you should) you might wait to link programs other than American AAdvantage. If they run more bonuses you’ll get yourself to the 2000 point minimum.