Tag Archives for bilt.
Bilt Rewards has added Japan Airlines as a 1:1 points transfer partner. Bilt says that most transfers will be completed within 10 minutes.
I had been waiting on Bilt Rewards to add mortgage payments. But that was dumb. You’re going to be able to double dip, earning through Bilt and with a Mesa card.
I’m a Bilt Platinum and with a 100% transfer bonus I’d surely get 2.5 cents per point in value here and double that with a companion pass strategy – and the option value in Bilt points is higher than any other currency, the more of these 100% bonuses they offer the more reluctant I am to take advantage of any one of them.
Bilt is out with news that they’ve added Southwest Airlines as a transfer partner. Outside of hotel programs, previously only Chase Ultimate Rewards points transferred to Southwest.
Bilt’s April 1 Rent Day feature is a points transfer bonus up to 100% to British Airways, Iberia and Aer Lingus. Since Iberia business class between the U.S. and Europe starts at 34,000 Avios one-way, that means business class across the Pond from 17,000 Bilt points.
Bilt Rewards is back with its Rent Day offers for March 1. The headline here is a Hilton Honors transfer bonus: 150% for general members, and 200% for anyone with Bilt Rewards status. A 200% transfer bonus means 3 Hilton points for every 1 Bilt point transferred.
Bilt Rewards Vice President Richard Kerr wrote up an in-depth explanation of travel portals. Bilt uses Expedia for members who want to redeem their points at 1.25 cents apiece towards paid travel, whether it’s hotel or airfare or other bookings.
American Express, Chase, Citi, and others have travel portals and it’s common to use a third-party ‘white label’ service like this.
What Bilt has done is found a way to solve the distribution problem. Card companies pay airlines billions of dollars for help finding customers. Bilt spun up from scratch, created a brand and pipeline for finding customers that partners are interested in reaching. They want to earn Bilt’s points and benefits. And that is worth billions of dollars.
Bilt Rewards has opened a cafe on the ground floor of their headquarters. It offers really good coffee and pastries. But this is more of a to go place, there’s no space for lounging, and they don’t have staff to talk to you about their program or credit card. So I’m not sure what the value proposition is?
I had the chance to try BLADE helicopter transfers in New York for the first time, and it was very cool but it’s not perfect. There are two things that concern me.
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 »
