Tag Archives for bilt.
Bilt has launched a travel portal so that – in addition to transferring points to partners like American, United, and Hyatt – Bilt Rewards members can book their preferred trip (whatever it is) and pay with points instead of cash.
Each point is valued at 1.25 cents apiece when spent this way. That beats most credit card portal values, and matches Chase with its Sapphire Preferred Card.
Bilt Rewards – even if you don’t have their credit card, which lets you earn points for paying rent – has publicly launched the option for residents of participating buildings to have their on-time rent payments reported to their credit. This is expected to generate an average credit score increase of 60 points for those who opt in.
Bilt Rewards, the first major loyalty program for people who rent their homes or apartments, is bringing on two new instant points transfer partners: United Airlines MileagePlus and Cathay Pacific’s Asia Miles. This gives Bilt transfers to two major U.S. airlines (2 of the big 3!).
It turns out that redeeming points for a mortgage down payment may have been illegal and Bilt had to get explicit regulatory approval from the Federal Housing Administration. The specific sources of funds used for mortgage down payments are heavily regulated.
They got an explicit government no at first, before approval, and then they had to get landlords to sign on, and many were skeptical (more homeowners means fewer renters). And that was just the start, because they completely revamped their earning value proposition in the three months prior to launching last fall.
The Bilt launch event was a lot of fun – and very cool to be there with Wyclef Jean, A$AP Rocky, Mayor Adams and Dr. Oz – but even cooler is that Wells Fargo has a genuine top travel card and has entered the co-brand space with some thunder.
While Bilt is a product that gives consumers something they cannot get anywhere else (free points-earning for their biggest expense) in a no annual fee top travel card to boot.
The Bilt Mastercard has no annual fee, lets you earn up to 100,000 points per year paying rent on your card without a fee, and earns double points on travel and triple points on dining. If you rent an apartment or house this card is a no-brainer, but it’s a great travel card period and arguably the best no annual fee card even if you don’t rent.
The problem has been that this new program wasn’t able to keep up with demand, so there was a wait list to join. For awhile readers of this blog had access to an invite code that allowed skipping that list. Recently though there’s been just no way to get the card.
You can now search for award availability with American Airlines AAdvantage and Air Canada Aeroplan inside Bilt’s app. No other transferable points program has this, and it’s fairly unprecedented in the industry. That says something about the Bilt project, and the demographic they’re reaching that’s valuable to airline loyalty programs.
There are two challenges credit card companies face in marketing to consumers: Getting potential customers to apply for the card and getting cardmembers to use the card.
I already knew that the new Bilt Mastercard had a unique approach to the first challenge. Receiving my Bilt card I now see they have an interesting approach to the second as well.
The Bilt Mastercard has no annual fee, lets you earn points paying rent on your card, and has bonus categories similar to a Sapphire Preferred Card as well (2x travel, 3x dining). If you rent an apartment or house you can be 50,000 points richer each year with this card, and points transfer to great airline and hotel partners.
There’s a waiting list to get the card, but they gave me a code to skip the waitlist to share on this site. I do not receive referral credit of any kind if you do.
The Points Guy gave out an award for ‘best new credit card of 2021’. I happen to think choosing the new Capital One Venture X is a reasonable pick. But how they dismiss the best competition is interesting.
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 »
