Category Archives for Credit Cards.
Bilt Rewards, the program that lets you earn transferable points paying rent, turns two. And each month they offer rich promotions the first of the month for ‘Rent Day’. This month you can instant win 100,000 Bilt points or points for Virgin or Emirates business class roundtrips for two, on top of points for trivia and double points on card spend.
Many frequent flyers use Plastiq to pay bills with a credit card, they charge the card (and you earn miles) and they pay electronically or via check. Their fees have increased in recent years and are now up to 2.9%, but some find it worthwhile for paying things like mortgages and car payments that can’t otherwise be charged – especially when earning an initial bonus for a new credit card, or earning high spend bonuses and credit towards elite status.
Chase has been planning ‘the new Chase Travel’ for some time. They even promised it would launch last year. The idea is to bring together all of the disparate assets, from booking to dining to advice, in order to become a force in lifestyle that competes with the biggest players in the space. This is supposed to appeal to affluent customers who will be stickier with Chase’s banking services, and help them grab a greater share of investable assets and card spend.
They provided some data on where they are and where they’re going as part of the bank’s investor day.
They called their bank right away to cancel the card account number, and they went ahead and cancelled the flight while it was still during its 24 hour free refund period. The person who used their stolen card texted their frustration over not being able to use the tickets. Their travel, they said, was important!
A Cardless co-founder was a TPG intern 7 years ago, so the relationship isn’t surprising. Still, this strikes me for two reasons.
According to an internal company memo shared with View From The Wing this changeover takes place May 15.
Bilt Rewards May 1st ‘Rent Day’ promotions includes a 100% bonus on points transfers to Air France KLM Flying Blue. Before Bilt ran a 100% bonus to Hawaiian Airlines there had never been a double points transfer bonus to an airline where points already transferred one-to-one. And now they’ve done it again.
And they’ve coordinated with Flying Blue to make May’s discounted ‘promo awards’ especially lucrative from North America. I haven’t seen such a great set of award discounts from Flying Blue in years.
Bilt Rewards has introduced Bilt Dining where you’ll automatically earn 5 points per dollar spent at participating restaurants when you pay using any credit card that you’ve added to your Bilt Wallet in the Bilt Rewards mobile app.
You may be familiar with the dining programs of airlines and hotel programs, run through third party Rewards Network. This is a different program, being built from the ground up with restaurants that in many cases are quite good – that you’ll actually want to eat at – rather than just being financially-strapped restaurants that need Rewards Network funding.
In February I detailed the upcoming launch of a Wells Fargo Choice Privileges card. That card is now available, there is also a premium card too, and both have limited-time offers.
It’s the return of 5 Marriott nights worth up to 250,000 points in total after $5,000 spend within the first three months of account opening for the Chase Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card.
That’s the best offer we’ve seen for this card, and it’s been around a couple of times. It’s much better than normal ‘elevated’ offers of 100,000 points or 3 reward nights.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
