Bilt has added a new transfer partner, and I admit this one surprises me a little bit – except they have more transfer partners than anyone else, and they want to deliver value and meet their members where they are. It’s… Spirit Airlines.
They report that low cost carriers “combine to be the 4th most booked airline” for members on their travel portal. That means Spirit plus Frontier (maybe they’ll merge this month!).
- So more bookings than Bilt’s partner Alaska Airlines, which includes Hawaiian
- And more bookings than JetBlue, with its strength in Bilt markets like New York, Boston, and South Florida.
So the mental model of a free-spending urbanite may not uniformly match everyone in the Bilt ecosystem. Nobody else has Spirit Arilines as a transfer partner. And Spirit promotes redemptions starting at 2,500 points.
You can now transfer Bilt Rewards points to 23 different partners, which outpaces Chase Ultimate Rewards, Capital One, and American Express:
- Star Alliance: Air Canada Aeroplan, Turkish Miles & Smiles, United Airlines MileagePlus, Avianca LifeMiles, TAP Air Portugal Miles&Go
- oneworld: Cathay Pacific Asia Miles, Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, Iberia Plus, British Airways Club, Japan Airlines Mileage Bank, Qatar Airways Privilege Club
- SkyTeam: Air France KLM Flying Blue, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
- Non-alliance: Emirates Skywards, Southwest Airlines, Aer Lingus Aer Club, Etihad Guest, Spirit Airlines Free Spirit
- Hotels: World Of Hyatt, IHG One Rewards, Marriott Bonvoy, Hilton Honors, Accor ALL – Accor Live Limitless
There are downsides to transferring to Spirit.
- They have no airline partners or alliance.
- Their pricing model means that points may be covering the least expensive part of the trip.
- Spirit points expire after 12 months of account inactivity. But points can be extended with earning or redemption. In practical terms this may be ‘your points don’t expire until Spirit does’.
- Point value may hover around a penny, so you can often do better booking Spirit flights through Bilt’s portal at 1.25 cents apiece.
The program does have family points pooling. And if Bilt runs a status match offer along with transfer bonus for an upcoming rent day, that could wind up as a backdoor into another airline’s status if Spirit is sold (versus just selling off pieces).
I just flew my family in Spirit’s Big Front Seat to Newark and back and it was the exact right choice for us on that trip, to be honest. Even if there was much to be frustrated with.
Bilt seems like an interesting program and I love my points. But it appears it is only for renters. I do not have a rent or mortgage payment. Is there value I am missing ?
@Leonard – their new card will start earning points on mortgages in February, details not yet released
The weirder thing to me than Spirit + Frontier beating B6 or AS is that they beat Southwest. Southwest isn’t big in Bilt markets, but it’s still 2.2x larger nationally (by domestic passengers) than NK and F9 combined!
(Alaska + Hawaiian, with or without Horizon, is a bit bigger than Spirit + Frontier, but JetBlue is significantly smaller than either.)
@Leonard – I did not engage with Bilt until they became a Rakuten transfer partner. The transfer on 11/15/25 worked smoothly. There are still two more windows to transfer Rakuten points to Bilt on 2/15/26 and 5/15/26. I’m curious to see what gets announced in February with respect to mortgage(s).
As for Spirit as a transfer partner – I’m always for more choice, but of course no reason to transfer to Spirit’s program until there’s a booking you want to make immediately. Unless you regularly are engaging with a program multiple times a year, speculative transfers to that program (even on Rent Day when you may get a nice bonus) may not be the best idea.
As Bilt perhaps surprisingly discovered, people in the air are flying economy and domestically and many are just looking for the cheapest price above all else. Extra legroom seating remains the “splurge” for most. In an age where upgrades are rare and lounge access is mostly granted by credit card, not status, the availability of extra legroom or differentiated seating is a real selling point (as well as a huge reason why airline status itself is valuable). If Spirit and Frontier (together or apart) are going to have a more meaningful loyalty program, they have to do a better job marketing and monetizing the pointy end of the plane.
Wow. I take this as confirmation that BILT is officially FUBAR after WF exits. Come at me, Ankur’s goons… please, waste your dying breaths cursing me.
@Gary Leff — It’s practically reputational malpractice to not include some explicit concern about whatever happens to BILT after WF exits (early February 2026), especially having witnessed what just happened with Mesa (and what Cardless has done to Celtic card) with the no notice, automatic shutdowns with little-to-no recourse for users. Like, we should all disclaiming more how unstable these corporate pseudo-currencies and related programs are, specifically in an economic downturn. It’s a ‘earn ’em and burn ’em’ and ‘don’t hoard points’ world.
(Some will pretend like ‘everything’s just fine,’ but, fellas, the data’s finally coming out; we’ve been in a recession for a while now, unemployment is rising, and things are looking super-bad for 2026. ‘But, but… my stocks are up!’ Yeah, enjoy that momentary ‘high’. How’s your crypto doing? Oh, back where it started for 2025? Mhm… big’ole Ponzi/money-laundering pipe-dream.)
Happy holidays!
@1990 – or there’s just room for one at the inn, not two. We didn’t need Barnes and Noble and Borders. Bilt had first mover advantage and has many more tentacles established versus Mesa, etc. Not saying Bilt is some panacea, or that Cardless is amazing, but clearly folks are still putting eggs in the Bilt basket. Does that mean Bilt exists 5-10 years from now? Maybe not, but I’m not sure it’s folding tomorrow.
I wish that I could understand Bitcoin because I’d prefer to have received a 262% return over the past 5 years versus the 82% return from the S&P 500 over the last 5 years. I don’t think markets being up is a “momentary high” – it’s just that, for most people, they are either not invested in the market or underinvested in the market, so they are not receiving the benefits of the market at all. (Also why, for most people, extra legroom is the splurge and the status benefit they desire, but I digress!). I can’t disagree with your assessment of crypto, but it sure looks like a great “borrowed ladder” approach for many to “get rich quick” – the housing market (which has provided amazing stable returns) is more and more inaccessible to many, unfortunately (hence Bilt focusing on renters to start with…).
But yes – earn and burn those points. Similarly, as the WSJ reminds us annually, drink those bottles of wine, don’t expect things are getting meaningfully better because you let them sit around for 5-10 years! The enjoyment and reward comes from the doing.
Speaking of the WSJ, their article today on how those $10k shutdown bonuses are prompting backlash was, uh, predictable (and this is the WSJ here, not the NYT or Village Voice or whatever…)
LOL Spirit – come on Gary enough with the breathless hype. “Now has 23…” – this is not a viable transfer partner.
And frankly disappointed you don’t even mention the airline is in bankruptcy protection.
Scraping the bottom of the barrel they are promoting this.
@Peter — Oh, man, I miss both Borders and Barnes and Noble; they closed the B&N in Tribeca, within the last year, and replaced it with a freaking Hobby Lobby (yuck).
As far as BILT and timing, no, clearly, not going anywhere before February 7, 2026. Do I think it’ll crumble on Day 1? No, though, that’d be wild. Like, I don’t want to be right on any of this. I want them to stick around, so that I can keep earning 1% on rent, and transferring those +70K points per year to Hyatt, mostly. Besides, even if we’re doing ‘just fine,’ a lot of us still rent in cities like NYC (because, like, what else are we gonna do, start dealing with a co-op board? Oof.)
As to crypto, no, I remain a skeptic, even as some of our peers who were early adopters have indeed made their killing. The last election cycle solidified that the scam will continue for a while; but, when the adults are back in-charge, I suspect, there will be a new era of accountability on this and many other new (and old) industries. *cough* AI *cough*
Speaking of the market, psh, way over priced. Fine, all our 401(k) are locked into that rollercoaster, with the plan sponsors and administrators controlling the levers with or without our ‘feedback.’ For the past decade-plus, it’s mostly gone well, brief hiccup in early 2020. But, we could be due for a lost decade, thanks in no small part to this administration’s disastrous policies, specifically the wealth-killing tariffs, but also the brain drain the their now-global culture war is inevitably causing.
Ironically, as I’ve aged, I’ve become more, not less, progressive. Yet, I still read WSJ daily, because I like to know what Mr. Murdoch is allowing to go out to the masses. (And they do actually have some decent reporters.) The 10-Point newsletter ain’t bad either. (The Village Voice?! LOL). 100%, gotta live, drink up, take those trips, enjoy it all.
@1990 – the McNally Jackson at the Seaport is pretty good. No comment on co-op boards! 🙂
Wall Street did not like the tariffs at first (and still does not) but has more recently taken them in stride because the merger market is “open” again after COVID caused too much uncertainty and the last administration was skeptical of mergers. So deals are happening and the market is happy. May not be good for most, of course. And AI so far has meant power infrastructure deals, chip making deals, and the prospect of firing expensive and opinionated human beings, so of course the markets love that. The market in and of itself may be a self-perpetuating bubble, but I for one am in favor of keeping this particular game of “free market” musical chairs going, because the alternatives all seem pretty awful.
Read it all, nothing wrong with being an “old softie”, don’t get too big for your britches (nothing but respect for Gary flying Spirit!), be generous when you can be, use those Resy and OpenTable credits and enjoy.
@Peter — Aww, the Seaport is nice, generally. Glad they completed the Pier 17 and Tin Building rebuilding post-Sandy; it’s come a long way. And, good call on ‘no comment,’ too (some boards would likely try to dissect all our posts).
As to the market, I tend to think of ‘who’ is the market. For the 2/3rds of the country ‘in’ the market, it’s mostly middle class retirement accounts (which they don’t even direct anyway); by total value, the top 10% owns 90% of the market; the bottom 50% owns just 1% of the market. So, like usual, the super-rich are getting richer, and this administration is clearly for them, so long as they bend the knee. I still think a responsible government is the only entity that can reasonably reign in the excesses of corporate power and individual greed. We’re overdue for a correction on many levels.
As to this particular ‘game,’ I am yet to let a bank/card/airline/hotel/dining credit go to waste. They’ve got me hooked.