Rove is a new points program that calls itself “the first universal airline mile.” Really, they’re a loyalty currency that isn’t linked to a travel brand or a bank. You earn points by booking travel or through their shopping portal, and you spend points for paid travel or transfer the points to airlines or hotel programs.
- This isn’t a new idea. There’s Air Miles in Canada, and coalition loyalty programs all over the world. When LatinPass lost their airline partners, they became GlobalPass and tried to make a go of this. Aeroplan lost its Air Canada contract and – before being reacquired by the airline – was going to try to become an unaffiliated loyalty program just like this one.
- It’s hard to do. The only one that’s really succeeded is Bilt Rewards. Their hook was that they’re rewarding rent, a category that didn’t really exist and drives huge value to members. A program like this needs to work with travel brands, but to be interesting to them they need a large customer base. But to be interesting to customers, they need to work with travel brands – and drive a lot of value. Why would someone choose to earn in this program instead of another one?
- To succeed you need to offer more value than anyone else. Otherwise you don’t get the members, which means you don’t have anything to offer to the programs, which means you don’t have anything to offer to the members. Bilt offered rewards on rent, and offered programs access to a young urban professional demographic and reached them where they lived.
Fortunately, Rove appears to be funded. They’re a Y Combinator startup. And they’re trying to offer a lot of value – for instance they market that you can get up to 2.2 cents per point booking hotels through their portal. 1 cent is standard, 1.5 cents is considered outstanding. They also report 1.2 – 1.5 cents per point on flights. Points transfer partners are as follows, though their CEO says many more are on the way:
- Star Alliance: Air India Maharaja Club, Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus, Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles
- oneworld: Finnair Plus, Qatar Airways Privilege Club, Cathay Pacific Asia Miles (going live, I’m told, in 3-4 weeks)
- SkyTeam: Air France-KLM Flying Blue, Aeromexico Rewards, Vietnam Airlines Lotusmiles
- Non-alliance: Etihad Guest, Hainan Airlines Fortune Wings Club
- Hotel: Accor Live Limitless
Their CEO passes along some updates and additions since launch:
– Shopping portal with many additional major merchants + gift cards. One current offer is over 3x on Visa and Mastercard gift cards, so you can get 3x on any online purchase under $250 (with an activation fee, but cc rewards also apply). Also has 3x on any gift card on giftcards.com.
– Pay with miles + cash on flights for direct bookings, rather than needing to save up to make your first redemption.
– Select your seats and baggage on some airlines booking direct with Rove (doesn’t apply to transfer bookings).
– New referral offer is get 500 miles after they earn 250 + 10% bonus of the miles your friend earns in their first 6 months, and they get 500 instantly for signing up. Cap of 50k miles per referral.
– Temporary hotels sign up bonus of 10k for your first stay or $500+, if you use the code VFTW at checkout (spreading codes through communities for this, using name to track source).
Launch is going super well so far, we’ve already had business class redemptions and users who’ve earned hundreds of thousands of miles just from hotel bookings.
It’s worth signing up through a referral link to start off with a points boost. It appears this offer ends June 11.
And to be clear, using the code VFTW for 10,000 bonus points on a hotel booking of $500 or more doesn’t get anything for me. I pass that along because many of you will find it useful. While I have no financial interest here, I’m very much rooting for the program because competition is a good thing. Since Rove doesn’t have a unique niche (like rent) they have to offer outsized value to convince you to use their platform. And that can only be good for travelers across the board.
This line stood out to me: “appears to be funded”… Yikes. The equivalent of ‘just trust me, bro.’
The only reason Bilt have succeeded (to date) is because Wells Fargo signed a ruinous contract with them.
I doubt WF will ever see a return on their investment, but I guess thats not Bilts problem. It may force them to be less generous however when it comes time to negotiate a new agreement.
@tom — You’re so right. Ankur made out like a bandit. I’m just grateful for the thousands of dollars in Hyatt point transfers and redemptions I was able to score off paying rent via BILT. Fun while it lasts!
@tom – Wells also owns a stake in Bilt, and remember that customer acquisition (especially of a desirable demographic) is expensive.. the losses are overstated, and they were intentional, it was part of the Wells foray into cobrand that’s no longer being emphasized. Wells wouldn’t do the Choice or Expedia deals they agreed to again, either. Change of emphasis in business strategy.
@Gary Leff — Since you brought it up, I presume by ‘customer acquisition’ you’re mostly referring to ‘sign up bonuses’ (and other marketing gimmicks). Like, with Wells/Expedia, I opened the OneKey+ card in July 2024 with the $600 bonus, but see that it’s now down to $400 (OneKeyCash). I’m not as familiar with Choice, but I see their card currently has 60K bonus public offer. (That’s not nothing, either.) Is BILT still doing its ‘unofficial SUB’ of 5x points up to 50K in the first 5 days? (Or was that targeted…) Also, there used to be a referral links, but it was only like 2,500 points if they opened it.
I fail to see how Rove (and Bilt) are any different in theory from Chase Ultimate Rewards, AMEX Membership Rewards, Capitol One, Chase, or Wells Fargo except for the fact that you can participate in the non-card parts of Rove and Bilt without opening a credit card.
All those programs have travel portals with elevated earnings, shopping sites, points-as-cash redemption for travel, and the ability to transfer points to partners.
@LarryInNYC — BILT is quite unique from the rest, namely earning points on rent (and supposedly mortgages, soon), without paying obscene +3% fees by using their Wells Fargo Mastercard.