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I’m about to spend 285,000 Bilt Points and I’m excited by the value I’m going to get doing it. And it really shows the value of the Bilt Palladium Card (see rates and fees), as well as earning points online shopping through Rakuten which has helped me rack up plenty of points.
On Sunday, March 1, Bilt has a transfer bonus of 25% – 125% to Japan Airlines Mileage Bank. This is a super rich program. JAL has better premium cabin award space using their own points than when you try to redeem American Airlines or Alaska Airlines miles for those seats. And they offer a lot more space for a modest premium in points.
Normally, Bilt offers 1:1 transfers to Japan Airlines. You can’t transfer Amex, Chase, or Citi points to JAL. Capital One transfers to JAL, but at a lesser rate. March 1 only you can actually get up to a 125% depending on your Bilt status.
- Blue: 25% bonus
- Silver: 50% bonus
- Gold: 75% bonus
- Platinum: 100% bonus
You can also spend $135 in Bilt Cash to add another 25% bonus on top. So a base member can get a 50% bonus, a Silver can get 75%, Gold can get 100%, and Platinum can actually get a 125% bonus.
Here’s how I’m playing it.
- I’m going to transfer 285,000 Bilt Points to Japan Airlines Mileage Bank
- I have Bilt Platinum status, which qualifies for a 100% transfer bonus
- And I will redeem $135 in Bilt Cash for an additional 25% bonus
- With a 125% transfer bonus in total, 285,000 Bilt Points will become 641,250 Japan Airlines miles.
A saver business class ticket one-way to Japan runs 55,000 miles. I’m going to assume I need to spend a higher level of points to get the four business class seats I need with only modest flexibility. I find their availability at 80,000 points to be pretty good.
Four passengers in business class roundtrip runs 640,000 miles at this elevated price point. Basically I’m spending 35,625 Bilt Points each way (1) for business class between the U.S. and Japan (2) with much better availability (because I’m assuming I need to/will be willing to spend more miles than saver).
I don’t love the idea of transferring to a program whose points have hard expiration (expiration 3 years after they are earned, cannot extend) without an immediate redemption to use the points for.
However, if for some reason the Japan trip doesn’t work out, or I can get seats at the saver level [seriously – I’d be spending 25,000 Bilt Points per business class award seat to Japan!] and I have miles left, I can always redeem then for Air France business class without fuel surcharges or for reasonably-priced Emirates business class.
Depending on the number of points you transfer, spending ‘Bilt Cash’ for a bigger transfer bonus is a great deal. In my case I’ll be getting an additional 71,250 Japan Airlines miles for $135 in Bilt Cash, and I value Bilt Cash at about 40 cents on the dollar. That’s amazing return on Bilt Cash!
Some things to note about Japan Airlines Mileage Bank:
- You can book awards on JAL 360 days prior to departure, giving you a head start versus programs that only give access to inventory 330 days out.
- Not only do they have better availability with their own miles, they have mid-priced award redemptions where availability can be outstanding (e.g. U.S. – Tokyo for 80,000 in business class and you’ll often find space for the whole family versus 55,000).
- You can book Emirates business class awards for far fewer miles than Emirates charges its own members (and fewer points than Qantas charges for Emirates seats).
- They do add surcharges to awards, and like many Asian programs there are limits on redeeming miles for others (generaly, it must be family).
- For those with new JAL accounts, less than 60 days old, you officially won’t be able to redeem transferred points for up to 7 days. In practice it might only take a day or two.
- The downside to JAL transfers without specific redemption plans is that Mileage Bank miles expire 3 years after they’re earned. This is not like programs where additional activity in an account extends their validity.
This is incredible value. Right right now by leveraging housing payments I earn 3.3 Bilt Points per dollar with my Bilt Palladium Card (see rates and fees). The card comes with Gold status (75% transfer bonus for March 1) but I’m a Platinum member and can redeem Bilt Cash to turn this into a 125% transfer bonus. That means I can have earned over 7.4 Japan Airlines points per dollar spent on on my Bilt Palladium card – not in a single category of spending, but on all spending. That. Seems. Insane.
I’m finding that Bilt 2.0s rollout isn’t quite ready for prime time
1) Wells Fargo had provision for downloading transactions (e.g. Quicken). A call to Bilt Customer Support revealed that there is no provision for this, and none expected.
2) It took a 45 minute call to Bilt Customer Support to find out that the first statement from Cardsense won’t come until mid-March. Cardsense doesn’t seem to be able to handle the volumes of billings and customers affected. And hold times for both calls and chats run more than 60 minutes.
3) The promise of “ seamless” transfer from Bilt to Bilt2.0 was broken. Several transactions declined. And no one is trained enough to answer the numerous questions arising.
In short, keep tabs on your accounts. Be prepared for significant delays and errors.
Lots of regret from those that didn’t pick up the Palladium and getting the sub.