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In addition to earn 2x on my spending with the Bilt Palladium Card (See rates and fees), I’m also earning 4% in Bilt Cash on eligible spend.
That house currency is ‘use it or lose it’. At the end of each calendar year, any Bilt Cash balance over $100 will expire.
I’m making great use of mine (1) to earn more points [via paying my mortgage through Bilt, I earn 1 point per dollar, and via their points accelerator which gives me an additional 1 point per dollar on spending], (2) to redeem for more points [I’ve topped off transfer bonuses to get as much as 125%], and (3) for real cash discounts.
I’ve redeemed $100 for a hotel credit, that I combined with my Palladium card’s $200 hotel credit from the first half o fthe year. I booked a two-nigth hotel stay and saved $300. I redeem $10 each month for Lyft, for Grubhub, and for Walgreens.,
But fresh on the heels of adding redemptions for BLADE helicopter trips which are great to and from New York JFK and Newark airports, and adding redemptions for Equino membrs, another big addition is finally here. Car service app Blacklane is now a Bilt Rewards partner for both earning and redemption.
- Earn 1 point per dollar on rides booked through the Bilt Concierge or Bilt Travel Portal
- Pay with points (not a good use of points)
- Redeem Bilt cash for ride credit
This is a big addition because it’s a high value redemption redeemed 1:1 against a real charge. I just made a Blacklane booking – it’s convenient as a way to book, and at my home airport a car service is how you avoid the long schlepp across the street, through the parking garage, and across another street to reach the Uber pickup lot. Uber isn’t great with a young family off a multi-week trip with bags. A driver meeting you at baggage claim and helping you out to a car directly outside the terminal is much better.
It’s also a big addition because if you’re spending heavily with Bilt – the Bilt Palladium Card is a points beast and for my use blows away all other cards for earning rewards for ongoing spend, it’s my default card these days – you may wind up with a lot of Bilt Cash and this is a great option for redeeming a good bit of it.
- Platinum members can redeem once per calendar year for up to $150 (I’ve earned Platinum each year since 2022)
- Gold Members up to $100 (earning the Palladium’s initial card bonus also comes with a year of Gold, but I find status not hard to earn once actually using this card)
- Base (Blue) and Silver members up to $50.
Bookings can be made through the travel portal in the Bilt app or on the website (or through Bilt’s concierge feature. Bilt Cash can be redeemed during the booking to reduce the cost. And points are earned on any cash amount, in addition to the points earned through the card you use to pay.
Note that bookings must be made by expiration – so 2026’s Bilt Cash redemption needs to be used on a booking in 2026, but the actual ride can be in 2027. And it’s not possible to use other vouchers or discount codes in the Bilt booking flow, so this isn’t stackable with (for instance) a GHA Discovery elite member discount.
Bilt also lets you redeem points at checkout against the fare, but that’s just worth 7/10ths of a cent per point and you should redeem your points either at 1.25 cents apiece through their travel portal or better yet transferred to their partners, especially during a Rent Day transfer bonus.
Pay with a Citi Strata EliteSM Card (See rates and fees.) and you can stack the Bilt Cash credit, Bilt points-earning, with Strata Elite’s Blacklane statement credits since those are triggered by charges hitting that card. Strata Elite offers a $200 credit each year with Blacklane – $100 January – June and $100 July – December.
I expect to redeem $700 Bilt Cash per year on BLADE and $150 on Blacklane on top of redeeming for points with mortgage payments; maxing out their Points Accelerators; monthly credits with Lyft, Grubhub, and Walgreens; and at least two $100 hotel credits paired with the $200 credits on minimum 2-night hotel stays booked through Bilt’s portal that are a benefit of my Bilt Palladium Card.
All right. I’m happier. This is good. Interesting, how, like Blade, Blacklane must be booked via the BILT platform, as opposed to those services own proprietary platforms; eh, makes sense.
(Now, if they’d just uncap those Accelerators… and have BILT Cash on a rolling 12-month expiration, or remove the expiration altogether, I’d probably ditch all my other cards, but for a few category-specific ones and the regular churny-mc-churn-face stuff.)
Great timing for me, I just used the credit to book an early morning ride from my hotel to TPE in a couple weeks. $2.50 out of pocket after using the Bilt Cash.
BTW I don’t know if this will trigger the Strata Elite credit. The charge on my Bilt Card was listed as “Bilt Car Service – Lyft”. I didn’t have a Strata Elite to test it out.
@Samar — Oooh… That’s good to know So, won’t stack with Citi. Eh. Win some, lose some. Oh well. Besides, since Blacklane rides are like minimum $150 (in NYC at least), feels like not a huge benefit, but ‘better to use than lose.’
Hey, Gary, are you a “Close Friend” of BILT? (I’d think you’re probably levels up from that.) Their announcement email said: “Kate, our Sr. Director of Product Marketing for Travel, is picking a handful of Close Friends to surprise with a Journey Upgrade: a dedicated driver and car for a trip you’ve already got coming up.” I’d like to think Gary is deserving of said upgrade! (I suggested the same for Ben over at OMAAT.)
@1990 I just logged into my Bilt account and in there it says “Bilt Car Service – Blacklane” (Lyft came from the iPhone notification I received when paying). So maybe it’ll work?
@Samar — I’m rooting for you/us! Enjoy your time in Taiwan as well!
I like Blacklane. I mostly use it in Europe, especially where Uber/taxi apps are notoriously undependable (looking at you, Rome and much of Italy).
Wow! Just booked LGA-JFK, 4 pax, $11.24.
@Corky — LGA-JFK? (It really is insane that NYC doesn’t at least operate an express bus between the airports… then again, so few people have connections between them. Taxi, rideshare, or odd bus-subway-AirTrain, or, I guess, Citibike, but, while LGA does, JFK doesn’t have docking stations, and none of that is great with luggage… I digress.)