Perhaps you have heard of this new-ish company, perhaps not. Either way, I think it’s time everybody knew about this quickly growing rewards option. With a solid list of transfer partners and the ability to earn points on rent (say what?!) I’d argue its worth you taking a few minutes to skim this article!
Overview:
BILT REWARDS
If you're not familiar with a company called BILT, after launching in 2020 they are a relatively new rewards program that is geared specifically towards renters. However, even if you're not a renter...there are plenty of perks you should pay attention to.
BILT has an impressive lineup of travel partners like Airfrance / KLM Flying Blue, Air Canada Aeroplan, AAdvantage, Emirates, iberia avios, United mileageplus , as well as IHG and Hyatt hotels just to name a few.
If you go signup for a free account at Biltrewards.com, and link your existing accounts with their travel parters, Bilt will give you 100 points per partner! Thats 1,100 points just from linking your partner accounts.
EARNING BILT REWARDS
There are several ways you can earn Bilt rewards points, both with OR without the BILT Mastercard!
For starters, anyone can sign up for a free BILT rewards account at biltrewards.com and start earning right away.
how to earn points: for non-cardholders
Pay your Rent
Head to the website and see if your address falls within the “Bilt rewards alliance”. Bilt currently has more than 2 million properties in its alliance. If your address is part of the alliance, you can pay your rent through Bilt and earn 250 points per rent payment even without a Bilt Mastercard. If your address is not part of the alliance, then you would have to open the Mastercard in order to earn points on your monthly rent.
Add Cards to your “Bilt” Wallet
Bilt will give you up to 300 points for adding payment methods to your Bilt wallet. You will get 100 points for each card added up to 3 cards!
Link your travel accounts
Bilt will give you 100 points for every travel partner that you link. Currently with the 11 partners that means you could earn 1,100 points immediately by going on and linking your existing accounts with built.
Each of these transfer partners has free loyalty programs. So go ahead and create those accounts first and then link them all with your Bilt account.
Use Lyft
You can also earn 2x points on Lyft rides when you link your Lyft and Bilt accounts. Literally, all you have to do is link your accounts and you’ll get 2x Bilt points for every $1 spent. You can also stack this if you already have a card like the Chase Sapphire Reserve which earns 10x points on Lyft rides! Link your Bilt account, then pay using your Sapphire Reserve Card, and boom! You’re earning 10x Chase points and 2x Bilt points!
BILT DINING
And if all of that wasn’t enough, you can also earn 5x points on Bilt dining restaurants when you use an eligible card in your Bilt wallet. Visa, Mastercard, and American Express cards are all considered eligible.
This means that when I eat at a Bilt Dining restaurant in Atlanta, and pay with my Chase Sapphire Reserve (which I’ve added to my Bilt wallet), I get 5x Bilt points in addition to the 3x Chase URs I get for dining on the Sapphire Reserve card from Chase. Yeah…you’re welcome!
Currently, there are Bilt dining locations in 5 major cities:
New York City, Dallas, Boston, Atlanta, & Chicago.
Refer your friends
This works even if you don’t personally have the card. You can refer friends and if they open a Bilt Mastercard using your link, you will get 2,500 points deposited to your Bilt account. And if you get 5 referrals, Bilt will give you an additional 10,000 bonus points on top of the 12,500 points you would earn from 5 referrals.
Thinking of getting a card? You can help me get my 5 referrals by using my link right here!
Participate in “RENT DAY” Promos
The first of every month is “rent day” at Bilt Rewards. While this means slightly more for cardholders, there is still plenty to take advantage of for Bilt rewards account members without a card. Often Bilt will give an extra opportunity to earn points by completing a “challenge”. More on Rent Day in the next section.
How to earn points: For BILT MASTERCARD HOLDERs
For a $0 annual fee card, The Bilt Rewards Mastercard has some pretty impressive earning categories and coverages!
While there is no sign-up bonus for the Bilt Mastercard there are plenty of ways to earn points with a Bilt Mastercard.
One interesting quirk about the card is that in order to maintain the ability to earn points, you must have at least 5 transactions per month on the card. This shouldn’t be a problem for most but it’s definitely worth noting.
Earn by Spending
Paying your monthly rent on your Bilt Mastercard earns you 1x points per dollar up to 50,000 points per year! Unless your rent is over $4,000 a month you likely won’t be hitting that limit.
There are also a handful of Bonus spending categories for cardholders including:
3x points for every $1 spent on dining
2x points for every $1 spent on travel
1x points on everything else
On “rent days” all of these categories are doubled for the day. That means 6x points on dining, 4x on travel, and 2x on every other non-rent expense.
Referrals
As mentioned before, you can refer friends who don’t already have a rewards account or rewards MasterCard and if they are approved for a Bilt Mastercard using your link, you will get 2,500 points deposited to your Bilt account. And if you get 5 referrals, Bilt will give you an additional 10,000 bonus points on top of the 12,500 points you would earn from 5 referrals.
Thinking of getting a card? You can help me get my 5 referrals by using my link right here!
Additional Cardholder Perks:
In addition to all of the points-earning capabilities, cardholders are also able to enjoy a slew of other perks including:
Trip Cancellation & interruption Protection
Trip Delay Reimbursement
Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver
No foreign transaction fees
Cellular Phone Protection
Purchase Security (Theft & Damage Protection)
Door Dash & Lyft Credits
NO ANNUAL FEE!
RENT DAY
Every 1st day of the month is “Rent Day” at Bilt. For cardholders, this means double the points earnings on any purchases made that day (except for rent)! As stated before that’s 6x points on dining, 4x points on travel, and 2x on every other non-rent expense charged to the card that day.
For non cardholders though there are still some exciting things on rent-day!
Bilt typically will have a monthly rent-day challenge or bonus.
Last month, they ran a 100% transfer bonus on points transfers to Air France/KLM Flying Blue...crazy! That means if you transferred 2,000 Bilt points, you’d get 4,000 Flying Blue points!
The month before that, the rent day promo was a Hyatt status challenge that allowed users to get 3 months of Hyatt Explorist status for free. Users then had the option to stay a number of additional nights and earn that status for the rest of the year, or even earn Globalist status (the highest World of Hyatt Elite Status).
While I personally didn’t have enough travel plans to make the status for the year, my wife and I DID use our promotional Explorist status (earned for free from the rent day promo) to get a room upgrade at the Hyatt Thompson Central Park in New York City! Literally, this was just for signing up for a free Bilt rewards account, and participating in rent day!
who should get the BILT Rewards Mastercard?
It’s important to note that this card does count towards Chase’s 5/24 rule. So for those of you that may be new to the world of credit card points, if you’re still under 5/24 I would not recommend opening this card just yet.
However, if you do pay monthly rent (not a mortgage) and you are either over 5/24, or you’re not pursuing Chase cards, or are not concerned with your 5/24 status, this could be a fantastic way to earn some additional transferable points!
If you’re thinking of applying, it would be awesome if you would use my personal referral link here. It’s the same offer for you and you’d be sending a few bonus points my way! This is not an affiliate link, just my personal BILT rewards referral link!
Thanks again and as always, shoot me an email at info@artoftravelblog.com if you have any questions at all!
Happy Travels!