I reportedly exclusively back in January that this was coming and now it’s official and live: Air France–KLM’s Flying Blue credit card is the next airline card that earns rewards on rent paid through Bilt. And that’s a strong choice because of changes to the card that let spend count towards status.
At the time I suggested it was “a few months off” though I did not know launch date. Now we know!
- To do this, just add your card to your Bilt Wallet in the app or on their website and pay for rent through Bilt’s usual process with the Flying Blue card selected as the payment method.
- You can earn 3x Flying Blue points on up to $50,000 annual rent spend (1.5x thereafter) at a cost of 3%.
Chase’s United cards let you earn miles paying rent through Bilt at a fee. This follows the launch in 2024 of paying rent with Alaska Airlines cards from Bank of America – a 3% fee, but you’re earning 3 miles per dollar.
These are potentially useful for the miles but really strong if you’re looking to generate spending on the card to earn status. It’s basically
- free spend (the miles earned pay for the cost to earn them)
- and spend you probably weren’t putting on a card already, so no rewards opportunity cost.
The refreshed Air France KLM Flying Blue card from Bank of America (Alaska’s card is also BofA) is especially interesting here.
- You earn 1.5x on all spend at a minimum, and 3x on dining. You can actually do better on everyday spend if your goal is Flying Blue points, using various bank transfer programs they partner with.
- 3x not just on Air France KLM flights but also SkyTeam flights is interesting. That includes Delta. It’s not 4x (Sapphire Reserve) or 5x (Amex Platinum) but this is an $89 card.
- Basically points-earning is good enough – but it unlocks Flying Blue status.
You earn 20 elite status credits each card anniversary, 80 credits if you spend at least $15,000 on the card in a year, and an additional 60 credits after $25,000 in annual purchases. That can be most of the way to Gold. Plus, there’s a limited-time initial bonus offer: 70,000 bonus miles + 100 elite status credits after spending $3,000 within 90 days of account opening. Together that can generate a total of 260 status credits.
And putting $2,083.33 a month in rent alone on this card – with just a bit of flying for instance, with Delta, can get you real annual status. I use my Flying Blue Gold (obtained via Bilt Platinum) for priority boarding and free checked bags and free exit row seats with Delta. It’s more useful if you actually fly Air France or KLM.
Wow. BofA and Flying Blue are making big changes to that card lately. Nice of BofA to leverage its relationship with BILT and/or AF-KLM to do this. Very much like the 3x via BofA Alaska cards. I’ve been working on the Alaska 3x so far, and it’s going well. I just hope these last. I find the earning potential (breakeven on points 3% fee, 3x points) to be better with AS than FB, but to each their own. Specifically, the $50K spent towards $60K/card member year to earn the 100K Global certificate for AS is more compelling than FB.
does it work for mortgage and HOA as well?
@michael – no (not yet?)
I’m paying my HOA w/ my Alaska Summit card, I would assume the FB card should work too. I’m not holding out but it’d be great if I could add mortgage payments to the Summit, but until then, I’ll earn my Bilt points on it.
Where’s @L3 at? Or is he only interested in the 2.0 cards, not the ecosystem/partnerships. (Bud, wherever you’re at, see, look above, I’m not all ‘doom and gloom’ about BILT…)
I heard Kerr on a recent podcast say that they are hoping to add mortgages to the Atmos 3x sometime later this year.
seems easier to earn status through paying rent using the FB card than either using the Atmos card or the Bilt card. YMMV
Can the same customer earn the $50k max on Alaska, then pivot to earn the $50k max on FB all in the same calendar year?
But, be aware that the 260 won’t post in the same year. The XP status points from the SUB post in the statement closing after you make that spend. The 20 XP (annual) and the tiered 80 XP (15k spend) + 60 XP(25k spend) don’t post until your 1 year anniversary. The Atmos card spending posts its status points (2:1) about 3-4 weeks later, in whatever increments you earned rather than in tiers. So, high spend on the Atmos card could get OW status sooner, plus milestone rewards in that same year, whereas the AF/KLM card high spend is more for maintaining sky team status (unless you have a lot of cash flights credited to AF/KLM instead of Delta).
@David Hanson — I don’t see why not, if you have $100K in rent, which is not inconceivable, especially in high-cost-of-living areas.
@1990: Excellent. You’ll be praising Palladium by the end of the year!
@L3 — And then kicking myself when that annual fee comes due in early 2027… (Hmm… is it worth $495… $600… $2-3K?!) Gotta say, your ‘Frequent Constipator’ bit was original!
@Lena – I think the key is to get FB Gold status after you get the AF card but before you earn the SUB. If you get the AF card, wait a month or two, then do the statusmatch.com to FB Gold for $199 (or through Bilt Plat if you want to spend $50k with them), then do the SUB, you can get the SUB 100k plus the renewal 160k in the same 12 month FB qualification period.
This is only available if you make rent payments via the Bilt portal. Bilt does NOT allow you to pay rent via a mailed check, using a non-Bilt credit card.