Tag Archives for bilt.
This is going to seem like a minor thing to some readers, but I’m really excited about it. Two of my favorite brands in points-earning and redemption are now better-integrated.
The Bilt Mastercard, the no annual fee card that lets you earn points paying rent at no cost (up to $100,000 per year) and earns double points on travel and triple points on dining, earns even more one day a month for “Bilt Rent Day,” but for this month it’s running a full week thanks to Black Friday.
October 1 was the inaugural Bilt Rewards ‘Rent Day’. There were some smashing deals, and they promised to be back monthly.
They’re back with some great offers including elite status with United Airlines – literally for everyone.
Bilt Rewards, the loyalty program which lets you earn points for paying rent and which offers probably the single best no annual fee rewards card in the market (the Bilt Mastercard), announced a growth round of $150 million in new funding at a $1.5 billion post-money valuation. Their round was led by Left Lane Capital and included Smash Capital, Wells Fargo, Greystar, Invitation Homes, Camber Creek, Fifth Wall, and Prosus Ventures.
These things can be somewhat challenging to date, but it appears to me that Bilt Rewards is faster from launch to unicorn status than Square, Instacart or Twitter were. And there’s two reasons this strikes me as important.
Today is the first of October and the first Bilt Rewards ‘Rent Day’. They’re giving away a lot of points, Bilt Mastercard cardmembers and also for people who don’t have the card. It’s a way of really owning a day in the marketing space – a day that resonates with a large chunk of the population.
The first of every month they’ve got promotions and offers. Today you can receive free points in the Bilt app with their Points Quest trivia feature. They have Virgin cruise discount offers and they partner with Virgin as a points transfer partner, so they’re giving you 500 free points for linking your Virgin account now. And you can earn a lot of extra points today spending with the no annual fee Bilt Mastercard.
he Bilt Mastercard, the no annual fee card that lets you earn points paying rent at no cost (up to $100,000 per year) and earns double points on travel and triple points on dining, now earns even more one day a month.
Dubbed “Bilt Rent Day,” on the first of every month Bilt is offering up to 6x points, free points, and Virgin cruise discounts.
Bilt Rewards is adding 3 new airline transfer partners, which will give them 12 airline partners and 14 transfer partners overall. In addition to being able to transfer Bilt points to American, united, Air Canada, Turkish, Hyatt and more you can now transfer points to British Airways – and coming next month will be able to also transfer to Iberia and Aer Lingus.
Richard Kerr, formerly of The Points Guy and the Award Travel 101 Facebook group who is now with Bilt Rewards, offered a couple of provocative questions in his Instagram feed.
He asks why some people value clearly less valuable currencies more than a Bilt point. He may be asking about individual program members, but I’m going to ask it of those people who are supposed to know – travel bloggers who publish valuations of different mileage currencies. Much of the work those bloggers are doing fails to hold together.
Wells Fargo claims Autograph is their “best points card ever.” I’m surprised their lawyers allowed the claim, because it’s so obviously not accurate.
Bilt Rewards, which only just launched its travel portal with Expedia last week, has another big partnership out already with Amazon.com. They’re offering points for linking accounts and for first redemption with Amazon.
Bilt has come a long way now that they not only keep adding transfer partners and redemption options but (1) have Wells Fargo backing as their card issuer, (2) have partnered with Expedia, and (3) also now with Amazon. They’ve gone from program launch to the big leagues in just one year.
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 »
