Bilt is back! The last few Rent Day deals have been great for some members, but not up the alley of the miles, points, and status crowd. For July Rent Day, it’s one for us, plus the start of a new monthly aspirational deal for foodies too (and yes, the usual offers like points trivia, free rent giveaways, and double points for spending on the Bilt Mastercard are back too).
Up To 100% Transfer Bonus To Alaska Airlines
Alaska Airlines is Bilt’s newest airline partner. They even have a tie-in to let you earn 3 points per dollar pay rent with the Alaska Airlines Visa at a 3% fee.
For July 1 only they’re offering a transfer bonus from Bilt Rewards to Mileage Plan based on your Bilt status:
- Platinum: 100% bonus
- Gold: 75% bonus
- Silver: 50% bonus
- General member: 25% bonus
The bonus will be limited to the first 50,000 Bilt points that you transfer to Alaska Airlines.
Your bonus will be based on your status as of 7/1. Note that Bilt Status updates are reflected up to 96 hours after any earn action.
Alaska miles are great for oneworld premium cabin redemptions, with shorter and medium-distance awards downright reasonable using their distance-based award chart while ultra-long haul premium cabin awards get pricey. It’s great for business class travel to Europe, less good for first class to Asia, and highly useful for traveling around Europe and Asia especially with their allowable stopovers on one-way awards.
Alaska Airlines Status For Bilt Elites
Starting today through July 1, Bilt is offering a status match to Alaska Airlines:
- Bilt Platinum: MVP Gold
- Bilt Gold: MVP
Even though the status match is requested July 1, status will be valid only through December 31, 2024 (normally status requested in the second half of the year if valid through the end of the next calendar year), and requires a transfer of 10,000 Bilt points to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan (this transfer will not earn a bonus if done July 1). You can compare the benefits of Alaska status here.
While officially Alaska Airlines status matches are supposed to be only once in a lifetime, I’m told that does not apply to this match offer. So while I normally suggest waiting until you know you’re going to use it, or leveraging top airline status for even higher (MVP Gold 75K) matched status, there’s little downside in taking advantage of this one.
I’m On Both Of These Deals With Alaska
I plan to transfer 50,000 Bilt points to 100,000 Alaska Airlines miles for the 100% bonus. My Bilt Platinum status would also get me MVP Gold, and I guess I want that? I’m already an American Airlines AAdvantage Executive Platinum and in most cases would still credit there, but native status can still be helpful.
My Bilt Platinum status already got me Air France KLM Flying Blue Gold and a free BLADE helicopter transfer.
Launching Great Monthly Dining Deals
Bilt is launching their ‘Neighborhood Dining Series’ where each month they’ll have all-inclusive reservations at top restaurants, with a tasting menu and cocktail selection at a fixed price.
They’re focusing on New York City, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Boston, Philadelphia, Dallas, Austin, Houston, and Washington DC. (Yay, Austin gets included!)
For July there are 18 participating restaurants including Sushi | Bar omakase in 4 cities, with an omakase offered with Brooklyn Peltz Beckham’s “WESAKE” sake.
Sushi | Bar, already well-known in dining circles, took on a national profile last month after the New York Times tagged it an archetype of ‘bromakase’ dining.
Bilt dining series reservations are offered starting at $75 or 6,000 points per person. Personally I value the points to highly and would spend the cash – but I like that they’re offering a decent value per point on these as well.
The killer app by the way, aside from a genuine deal at Sushi Bar, is actually getting in. Here in Austin you probably aren’t going to get into Tsuke Edomae which is better (though several readers have scored reservations following my pointers), but this is a pretty great way to do a still very good sushi dining experience.
Chef Michael Che, Tsuke Edomae
Bookings open June 27:
- 12 Noon Eastern for Platinum members
- 12:10 p.m. Eastern for Gold members
- 12:20 p.m. for Silver members
- 12:30 p.m. for General members
Double Points on the First
Each Rent Day, Bilt offers double points on spending charged to their co-brand Bilt Mastercard, up to 10,000 additional points.
- 6x on dining
- 4x on travel
- 2x on other non-rent spend
Naturally, cardholders must still use their card 5 times each statement period to earn points.
I save up bills for the first of the month to charge and earn double points – because the spending also counts towards earning Bilt status, which I value for things like Alaska Airlines status, bonuses on transfers, and early access to sushi deals.
SoulCycle, Free Rent, And Points Trivia Are Back
Bilt members can book a complimentary bike at a themed SoulCycle class booked through the app starting Friday, June 28th at Noon Eastern. One participating rider will win a month’s rent up to $2,500.
They also give away rent via their Family Feud-style gameshow “Rent Free” and their guest this month is chef author Brooklyn Peltz Beckham. The top 10 scoring Bilt members win rent for the month, and the next 600 earn Bilt points. Finally, they offer trivia questions to earn Bilt points as well.
Bilt’s Got The Best Action In Miles And Points
There are new lucrative offers each month. I genuinely wonder mid-month what the coming Rent Day offers are going to be. Sometimes they interest me, sometimes they don’t, but when they do…
Well, Bilt members have gotten status with Hyatt, United and Air France (now Alaska!). They’ve run transfer bonuses up to 150% with several of their partners, which is unheard of. I’ve taken advantage of those 150% bonuses with Air France KLM and Virgin, but gave Air Canada Aeroplan a miss only because of my already big balance there (and a desire to conserve on Bilt points which I highly value).
I don’t have a reason to get excited about other loyalty programs every single month, so genuinely love this.
Wow that’s a awesome. In for the bonus! Question do I need to transfer an additional 10k points to get the status match or would the 50k transfer cover that?
how did you get Bilt platinum, if you have any advice? I’m really trying to use it for a lot of things but struggling to get to Gold if math is correct.
@UnitedEF – T&Cs say it’s separate: “The 10,000 Bilt points you transfer in order to activate status are not eligible for the Alaska Airlines Transfer Bonus offer and will not be bonused.”
The transfer bonus is actually more generous than anything I expected from Alaska – I’m definitely in for 50k and would transfer my whole balance if there wasn’t a limit.
The status match probably isn’t worth it for me – I’m Bilt Gold so 6 months of MVP probably isn’t worth doing 10k of unbonused transfer given that I’ll likely be able to pick up a bonus transferring those somewhere else down the line.
@woody – There are 2 ways to platinum, 200k points earned in a year or $50k card spend [excludes rent]
I am about to requalify Platinum based on card spend, others may do it with the dining program, Lyft, card spend, etc.
I hit their rent day hard trying to get as close to $10k spend on their card each month when I’m earning double points.
@UnitedEF – these are two separate things, 10k transfer without a bonus as part of requesting the status match, and a bonus on up to 50k Bilt points transferred to Alaska
For someone who already has AA EXP status, is there any reason to get the MVP Gold status? Trying to decide if it’s worth the the extra 10k transfer. Just depleted my BILT miles on transfers to AA, so only planning to transfer 20k to Alaska on 7/1.
Time to drain 50k before WF terminates the agreement. WSJ wouldn’t be getting deal details if the relationship was hunky dory…
Gary and OneWorld, IMO no compelling reason to get Gold if you’re AA EP.
Your AA status gets you upgrades ahead of AS Gold, which is only AS’s third highest status, behind 100K and 75k.
One exception is if you had several cheap, long AS flights booked before end of year, since AS remains distance based, and Gold has a 100% AS earn bonus. But that’s a very narrow use case.
All that said, I agree this is an pretty impressive recovery for Bilt. It will get a ton of buzz and offer some real (albeit capped) value for Bilt elites.