Bilt Rewards can help you get to the famous London Eye– sunny weather not guaranteed! Photo by: Evan Beman

Bilt Rewards was started in June 2021 and has proven to be a viable disrupter in the points and miles world thus far. There is much to know about the program, including an intriguing credit card, but today I am focusing on the rewards program.

Rent Day Promotions:

One of the best parts of Bilt Rewards is their Rent Day set of offerings and promotions, which occurs on the first day of each month (ex. today). There are two pieces to this: one for everyone and one for those with the Bilt Mastercard. Any purchase made with the card earn double the normal amount of points on the first of each month. That can be quite valuable, but we’re not talking about the card here.

Anyone can sign up for the Bilt Rewards program and gain access to their points. These transferable points include some of the most valuable programs out there including Hyatt and American Airlines. No credit card is required! Every Rent Day, make sure to visit the Bilt App for three reasons: trivia, Rent Day Challenge, and monthly promotions. This might require an explanation as you probably have no idea why I’m encouraging you to play trivia. Trust me, this isn’t a way to promote the benefits of playing trivia! 😉 Every month, you have the opportunity to play Point Quest, with each question you correctly answer earning you points– 10 for Question 1, 20 for 2, etc. through 50 points for the 5th question. If you answer all 5 questions correctly, you receive a bonus 6th question worth 100 points. If you answer all 6 questions correctly, you will receive a 250 point bonus. At a maximum of 400 points, these are not high values but it’s free points, so why not play along?

Next up is the Rent Day Challenge. Bilt’s symbol is a brick and every month there is a challenge where you need to locate 3 Bilt bricks that are hidden. While I’ve never personally won a prize, they advertise the opportunity to win various items, such as your rent paid, an all-expenses trip, and others. Finally, we have the monthly promotion. These differ each month. Here is the list of past and present challenges:

• July 2023: Lyft credit of $10 for everyone or $20 for Bilt Mastercard members.
• June 2023: Various prizes.
  • 25, 50, 10,000, or 100,000 points
  • 5,000 or 25,000 points to be used for the “Bilt Collection,” where you can purchase art pieces and other items
  • $100 lyft credit
  • 1 month free rent
  • 1 roundtrip flight to London on Virgin Airlines Upper Class
  • 1 roundtrip flight to Dubai on Emirates Business Class
• May 2023: 100% transfer bonus to Air France-Flying Blue (1 Bilt point= 2 Flying Blue miles)
• April 2023: Hyatt Elite Status trial, either
  • mid-tier Explorist with 10 nights in 3 months OR
  • top-tier Globalist with 20 nights in 3 months
• March 2023: 50% bonus on points redeemed for Amazon (not worth it!)
• February 2023: Hawaiian Miles 100% transfer bonus (1 Bilt point= 2 Hawaiian Miles)

July 2023:

July 1st is the last day to get your Lyft credit. While writing this article, I opened the app and was able to obtain the credit in seconds. Simply select learn more & activate on the main homepage and then activate credits to get your $10 or $20 credit.

Seconds after doing this, I got a notification that the Lyft credit had arrived. Sure enough, when opening the Lyft app, going to payments, you will see Lyft Pass. As you can see below, there is a $10 credit balance that appears. Note that you have from the moment this was activated until September 29th to use the credit. I’m sure most people will take at least 1 Lyft ride between now and then!

Point.me:

While Rent Day is great, that only comes once a month. In case my landlord sees this, that’s not an invitation to charge rent more frequently! 😉 There is; however, another more frequent utilization of Bilt Rewards. Most beginners to the points and miles world have a hard time figuring out which programs to use, how to search for award availability, and how to book a flight with points and miles. Point.me is a terrific tool, even for those who are veterans.

Before I dive into the details, let me make something clear: while the real deal is normally a paid service, Bilt offers a free point.me service. This does not include all airline booking options, only those who are transfer partners of Bilt. So, don’t look for Delta SkyMiles or ANA Mileage Club Miles as they won’t appear as options. This article talks about the airline alliances and may be helpful in understanding why you may book certain flights with one set of miles while you must use different miles on another route. Here is a list of Bilt airline transfer partners (all are 1:1):

• Aer Lingus Avios (no alliance, can transfer to BA, Qatar, or Iberia Avios)
• Air Canada Aeroplan (Star Alliance)
• Air France-KLM Flying Blue (SkyTeam)
• American Airlines AAdvantage Miles (oneworld)
• British Airways Avios (oneworld)
• Cathay Pacific Asia Miles (oneworld)
• Emirates Skywards Miles (no alliance)
• Hawaiian Airlines HawaiianMiles (no alliance)
• Iberia Plus Avios (oneworld)
• Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles (Star Alliance)
• United MileagePlus Miles (Star Alliance)
• Virgin Atlantic Flying Club (SkyTeam)

Let’s use an example. Say I want to fly to London, England the last weekend of April in Business Class. As you would with any other service including Google Flights, enter the locations and date of travel and select business class or economy. This is one of the most popular routes worldwide, so there’s usually a good bit of premium cabin award space– much more than on other routes. The downside is that with both Virgin Atlantic and British Airways, which release tons of award space, taxes and fees are ~$500-$800 per person each way! 🙁

That being said, on this particular date, there are plenty of other options. Air Canada provides options for getting there, both with Brussels Airlines connecting in Brussels, Belgium (BRU) and flying Air Canada connecting in Toronto (YYZ).

After searching for the options, let’s say that I decide to select the Brussels Airlines option. When you select “Book Through…” as shown above, you see this information about the flights. Note that this shows the flight number (SN502 and 2093), the plane type (Airbus A330-300 and Airbus A320), as well as times, layover, and a confirmation of business class vs. economy.

Finally, when you select View Booking Options, even more information is displayed. If you have enough Bilt Points, you could transfer and book directly, but let’s assume that you, like me, do not have many. The below shows information about booking the flights you’ve selected. Oftentimes, there will be 2+ booking options and here you can compare the award price as well as taxes and fees. For example, booking a British Airways flight, you might see that American charges fewer miles than BA and Cathay Pacific while Cathay charges the fewest in taxes and fees.

Once you’ve consumed all this information, you would need to transfer the miles and book the award yourself. I won’t get into that here, but this is a great way to learn about what your options are and choose the best fit– especially when you are just starting out!

Summary:

Today, like every 1st of the month is Bilt Rewards’ Rent Day. Hopefully this article shows why you should check out the Bilt Rewards app even if you, like me, do not have the Bilt Mastercard. Have any questions about booking award flights or Bilt? Feel free to reach out or drop a comment below! Happy July!

Evan