61. Earn Points for Paying Your Rent and More: Everything Bilt with Dr. Suzanne Manzi

Welcome to Point Me to First Class, the only show for employed professionals, entrepreneurs, and business owners who are looking to optimize their higher-than-average expenses to travel the world. I'm your host, Devon Gimbel, and I believe that your expenses are your greatest untapped asset if  how to leverage them. Ready to dive into the world of credit card points and miles so you can travel more, travel better, and travel often? Let's get started.

Welcome back to the podcast everybody. When it comes to the world of points travel, earning transferable points is key to unlocking some of the best deals on flights and hotel stays. But which points currency ecosystem is best for you? 

Today we are going to dive into the baby of the transferable points currency family, the Bilt points ecosystem. Discuss what makes this program unique, how to maximize points earning in the Bilt ecosystem, why the Bilt card is the perfect icing on the cake addition to your credit card portfolio, and call out some of the weaknesses of this program compared to some of the more established transferable points currencies. To help me do that I am joined today by Dr. Suzanne Manzi, a quadruple board certified physician, medical practice owner, and Bilt points enthusiast. 

Devon: Welcome to the podcast, Suzanne. I am so thrilled to have you here today. Can you introduce yourself tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do, and how long you've been in the award travel hobby?

Suzanne: Hey, Devon, thank you. It's an absolute pleasure to be here on Point Me to First Class. Thank you for inviting me into this captivating conversation. Again, my name is Suzanne Manzi. I'm a physician in Houston, Texas. I am a business owner, performance pain and sports medicine. As a side gig, I recently got certified as a travel agent with my P2. 

So I've been kind of points hacking since residency, I would say, in the late 2000s. My first card was United Presidents Plus card, which I still hold grandfathered in. I used to travel the world in residency as a pass rider as my boyfriend at the time worked for Continental Airlines. So I kind of learned about traveling the first class way back then. 

I've always had this passion for travel and going to lounges and having a good time on little mini vacations for the weekend when I can get away. So it's just kind of evolved over the years. 

Most recently, I've just kind of took it to a different level, especially being a business owner knowing we're having all the spend, like how can we really maximize it? Then on the personal level, now that I have two little kids, I have to buy four tickets. That is beyond comprehensible to me. So the points have been really fascinating. I have a willing P2 who's been amazing and on board. We're having a good time with this.

Devon: I love to hear that story. I can relate to a lot of that especially  how non cheap it is to try to fly a family of four basically anywhere and really how amazing points can be in defraying that cost of travel. But one of the things that you and I really wanted to dive into together today is a specific points currency that we have not covered a lot yet on the podcast. 

Now you mentioned that you've been doing points and award travel since the late 2000s. Obviously, a lot of things have changed since then. I think one of the biggest changes that has happened, especially in the last few years is just the introduction of an entirely new transferable points currency and an incredibly innovative rewards credit card. That is what you and I are going to dive into today because I know this is one of your absolute favorite points earning cards, and it's one of the very, very rare award cards that I don't hold. 

So we're going to dive in to this points currency. Of course, I'm talking about Bilt. So why don't we kick off this conversation and have you talk a little bit about what is it that makes the Bilt points currency and specifically the Bilt credit card so special when there are multiple other transferable points currencies and literally like 100 other points earning credit cards that somebody could hold?

Suzanne: Absolutely. To me, this card is just so special. The entire podcast episode is about how much I love this card and the special nature of what it has to offer. It's so different. It's so fun, and it's amazingly user friendly. So Ankur Jain is the founder of Bill, and he's literally a startup genius. He solved a problem and created a platform that builds loyalty. 

Now Bilt generates its revenue by serving as a payment processor for rental firm partners and taking a cut of customer spending. But with this platform, Bilt teamed up with Wells Fargo for underwriting to actually have a branded credit card. So you can have and utilize the Bilt loyalty program without actually having to sign up for the card and still earn points. 

So earlier in 2024, Bilt actually doubled its valuation to $3.1 billion, and Ankur Jain added to the board, Roger Goodell, NFL commissioner, and the former Amex CEO, Ken Chenault. So people might ask why the NFL? So what screams more hometown loyalty than NFL football, right? It's deep rooted, local, social network, bringing people together in their neighborhoods, their towns, their cities. It really builds that sense of community and loyalty. 

Then when you bring in a former Amex CEO on your board, I mean, there's this brilliant synergy with the combination of neighborhood and points earning. So Bilt’s super unique. You have that loyalty program. But then you also have this ability to pay rent and now HOA fees without a processing fee using the card or the loyalty program. Number two, you can actually earn interest on your points.

Devon: Yeah, I think that this is so important to really dive into a little bit. I love that you kind of highlighted these two main aspects of kind of the Bilt ecosystem as a whole that are really unique. So number one, and I think this is the place where we will start and kind of get into some of the more details about, is that right now the Bilt credit card is the only credit card on the market in the entire points landscape that allows you to earn points for paying rent. Of course, for many folks who are renters, that is their highest if not one of their highest areas of spend. 

So the ability to be able to earn, again, and not just sort of like some random points currency that you can only redeem for stuff that you'd never want any way. But to be able to earn really valuable transferable points for this huge expense, I think really sets the Bilt card apart from literally every single other rewards credit card that is on the market. 

But you mentioned this entire second aspect as well. We'll get into that probably a little bit later in the conversation today is that unlike all of the other major transferrable points currency ecosystems, we think about Chase, American Express, Citi, Capital One, these are all very traditional, in my mind, in terms of these are banks or credit card issuers. They have whole menu of different credit cards that you can pick from. Obviously, you can mix and match them, have more than one, earn points for your areas of spend. But they all kind of function in that same predictable way. 

Bilt is the only one of these transferable points currency ecosystems that in itself also has a loyalty program and ranks of status. That is incredibly innovative and differentiating from the other points currency ecosystems. Like I said, later in the episode, we'll probably dive into a little bit more about what that actually means, what that looks like, what is the impact on the user experience when the credit card issuer itself has a loyalty program. 

But let's start with this piece, again, about the Bilt credit card and it’s ability for folks to use it to pay rent. Then you said you can also use it for HOA fees, for example. But can you break it down a little bit for those of us who are not as familiar with this, maybe we don't have the Bilt card, or people are considering getting it but are a little bit maybe weary about this idea of paying rent with a credit card. 

This is one of those expenses that you don't want anything to get messed up with, right? You don't want to have to use some sort of complicated system or be at risk of thinking that you're paying your rent with a credit card only to find out that you missed a step in the process. That could be a huge mistake. So can you tell us a little bit more about what does it actually look like to pay rent using the Bilt credit card? How user friendly is it really?

Suzanne: Absolutely. There are multiple ways that one can actually pay rent on the Bilt card. Bilt itself states you can earn Bilt points on every rent payment using any linked debit or credit card, no matter where you live from. That's pretty bold. So first of all, through the Bilt Rewards App, anyone can enroll in this program for free, whether or not they have the card. 

So once you're enrolled in the app, you can set up a Bilt rent account within that app. That account provides you with a unique routing number and account number allowing you to make rent payments through your regular payment portal. So even if your landlord only accepts checks, you can still pay through the app and Bilt will actually handle the check submission on your behalf. 

Next, if you actually hold the Bilt World Elite MasterCard, the actual credit card, you can enjoy additional benefits. If your rental units part of that Bilt Alliance, which is more than 3.5 million units managed by organizations like the Blackstone Group and Equity Residential, you can actually directly pay your rent through the Bilt Rewards app using the card and earning points. 

You can even use a different card for payment but a 3% processing fee applies in such cases. Next, if your rental property is not affiliated with Bilt but you possess the Bilt World Elite MasterCard, you can still utilize the app to pay your rent and earn points, but Bilt will facilitate the payment by sending a check to your landlord on your behalf. 

Lastly, if you neither reside in a Bilt affiliated property or do not hold the Bilt World Elite MasterCard credit card, you can pay rent through the app. But in this scenario, you can earn 250 points and a processing fee will be applicable. So it's not possible to pay rent directly with a credit card. Many landlords don't accept credit cards as payment. Those that do might charge expensive processing fees for such transactions. So this is where Bilt comes into play because you're skipping all of that.

Some people use third party payment processors like Plastiq, which can be a workaround. But, again, you're dealing with the processing fees. So not only does the Bilt credit card let you pay rent without incurring any processing fees and not only does this card has no annual fee, but on top of that you can earn rewards on your rent payments of a hundred thousand points a year. So that powerful combination, you just can't find elsewhere. The only caveat with the points earning though is the rent payments don't count towards your Bilt Elite status.

Devon: All right, so we're going to kind of touch on again later in the episode why that actually matters. But one of the things that I really want to highlight here is, again, that in terms of paying rent, and right now the terms of the Bilt program, please correct me if I'm wrong, is that you can use the Bilt credit card to pay residential rent. Correct? 

So for those of us who are business owners or who also rent physical office space for a business or some other thing, right now you cannot use the Bilt credit card to earn points for commercial rent, correct? It's just for residential rent.

Suzanne: Just for residential rent, correct. 

Devon: Right. As you mentioned, the way that it works and sort of the way that people can start thinking about what their potential points opportunity or points earning opportunity might be is that when you do pay your rent, your residential rent, using the Bilt credit card, you're going to be earning one Bilt point, essentially, for every dollar that you spend on rent. As you mentioned, that has a cap of 100,000 points earned per year. 

So you can spend up to a hundred thousand dollars in rent and be able to earn Bilt points for that. I think that this is actually a really positive change in the program. I think when the program was first introduced, the cap was actually 50,000 points, or you could earn points on up to $50,000 of rent annually. Which is obviously significant amount, especially when you really don't have any other options or points on rent. 

But for folks who live in higher cost of living areas, you can kind of blow through $50,000 worth of rent in just a few months. So the fact that now that cap is 100,000, I think just makes the program even more widely applicable, even more widely useful to people. But what is your take on that?

Suzanne: No, for sure. Because a little around $8,000 a month gets you to the $96,000 limit. So if you're have that, which that used to be Bilt’s cut off at the 50,000, most people's rents are around that much money, $4,000 and you're capped. So especially in the big cities, I think this is where the concept of the Bilt with the loyalty program. 

People are spending money on their housing. People are wanting to spend money in their neighborhood. But the missing link was the travel part because they're spending such high money on rent, how are they going to travel? Well, Ankur Jain decided this is the problem he's going to solve. Millennials, potentially that are renting in these high city areas don't have the extra cash. So this is their way of living the city life but also having that ability to take a vacation if they really wanted to. 

Devon: Yeah, and I think that's part of what makes this program so incredibly innovative. I'm thinking back to the times when I went to undergrad in the Bay Area, and I did my residency and my fellowship in Boston. These are not really known as affordable cost of living areas. During those times, the vast majority of the money that I was spending was going towards rent.

It would have been really amazing to be able to leverage those payments in order to earn at transferable points. By the time that this Bilt credit card and the Bilt program and the Bilt ecosystem was introduced, it was really trying to break into a market that already had a lot of really, really established players from some of the more traditional banks like Amex, Chase, Citi, and Capital One. 

One of the things that came up for me when this card was first introduced, I had already been a homeowner for a number of years. My initial thought about it was, this sounds amazing for renters. I can see how people who rent should be jumping all over this card. But since I don't rent, I didn't really immediately see the value proposition of getting this card. But I know you are not a renter, and yet, this is one of your favorite and most valuable credit cards. So can you talk a little bit about how is it that you think it makes sense for someone who does not rent to still benefit from the Bilt card?

Suzanne: Absolutely. So I was all over this card initially when I found out about it. number one, fee free. Okay, no foreign transaction fee, no annual fee. Then with this free price tag, the perks that come with this card and the transferable points currencies, they usually come with the big ticket type cards. But here, I can get all these different benefits for free. 

The cell phone protection benefit is one of them, which is very similar to Amex. You can pay your monthly phone bill with the Bilt MasterCard, and you get that $800 protection just like you could with Amex, but you're not subject to hundreds of dollars. 

Another big one, I have been points hacking for a long time and the primary rental car coverage, everybody talks about this with the Chase Sapphire reserve. Another card I don't have. I have been able to do this without it. So okay, well Bilt gives me that now. I don't have to pay $550 a year for the $75,000 theft and collision damage. Bilt allows 50,000 instead of the 75. But I mean, I would hope when you're renting a car, you don't wreck it up to that much damage. 

You still get that trip delay reimbursement with Bilt, trip cancellation, interruption coverage. They even have concierge services, and point.me for flight searches. Again, this is included for free. I don't have to get a point.me subscription now because it's part of my Bilt membership package. Those searches are gold when you have this type of platform to use, and it is a free thing. 

They also partner with Awayz which is the hotel search. I mean, I found out that it is limited to 50 free searches a month. But, again, you can get 50 free searches a month and not have to buy that subscription. The other thing that's truly amazing is the transfer bonuses that have been unprecedented. 75% up to 150% based on your status. We'll definitely discuss that a little bit later, but I mean that's absurd and amazing, especially when you're part of it, and you can take advantage of it. 

Then the ease of use of this card, it's really like an in your face app. The platform is just so easy to use. How many times have you been on Chase and have questions about from your audience where's the button? How do I do this? Where do I find it? It's clunky. It's confusing. Even Amex can be a little clunky to navigate when it comes to using the transfer partners. Bilt has tutorials. They have videos. They have explanations. They have games, trackers. It's easy to visualize. There's prompts. There's graphs. There's status tracking. It's just so user friendly. 

The platform is just, it's just great. As soon as you purchase something, it tells you hey look, you’ve got this many points. It just posts automatically. You don't have to wait around.

Devon: Yeah, I think these are all such excellent points. Like I was saying that when this card was first introduced, I thought oh, this is amazing for other people. I don't really see its relevance to me already having my like sort of points earning feet firmly planted in American Express and Chase Ultimate Rewards points. I was thinking does it really make sense to branch out into another points currency? Does it really make sense for me to end up sort of diluting in some way my spend across three different points currencies? 

At first, I really didn't feel that much conflict about not getting the Bilt card. I feel like really the last year, this is the card that again and again and again, I keep thinking I need to get this card. This card is getting so much better. It's offering so many, again, other opportunities that I think just other points currencies are not offering, even for folks who don't even necessarily have rent as one of their expenses. 

I think this really highlights some of the unique strengths of the Bilt points currency compared to the other transferable points currency. So obviously, we've now mentioned multiple times the ability to pay rent and earn points on that. You commented on the unprecedented transfer bonuses, and I think unprecedented is such a fantastic word to use in terms of this aspect of the Bilt program.  

Traditionally we have seen the other transferable points currencies periodically offered transfer bonuses, meaning for a set period of time. Here's one example. Maybe American Express will say for this 30 day period, if you transfer American Express points to a specific transfer partner like Virgin Airlines, you will get a 30% transfer bonus right? So you can transfer Amex points, you end up with even more than the one to one regular transfer ratio. That idea was pretty standard across the industry. We would see Capital One sometimes have transfer bonus or Chase every once awhile whatever 15% or 20% transfer bonus. 

But Bilt came in and completely rewrote the script because not only are they offering transfer bonuses, of course, to really great transfer partners, but I cannot even state like how incredible it is to have a company that is offering a 100%, a 125%. We even saw like 150% transfer bonus to some of the Bilt transfer partners. 

The highest transfer bonus I can ever remember being offered by any of the other transferable points currencies kind of up until this point was I think Amex had a 40% transfer bonus to British Airways. That was a huge deal when that happened because there are so many great uses of British Airways Avios, especially since they have partnered with Qatar Airlines. You can now transfer BA Avios over to Qatar and then book Qatar flights using those points currency. A 40% transfer bonus, that having been sort of the bar of excellence. 

For Bilt to come in and say oh, no, we're going to offer 100%, 125%. That is one of those aspects of this program that I think really makes it at least worth considering, if not highly compelling, for folks, again, who are even outside of that renter category. Because when we think about really trying to maximize the value of our points, one of the things with increasing points prices for flights, which we just see there's inflation in cash cost items. There's inflation in the world of points and miles as well.

When we start seeing different award programs kind of increasing the standard amount of points that you can expect to pay for economy flights or business class flights, to be able to then get so much more value out of your points by leveraging a transfer bonus, this is an area that I don't think any of the other points currencies can even come close to Bilt on in terms of just the amazing transfer bonuses that are offered. 

The other strength that I see in this program, again, as someone who's not in the program, kind of on the outside looking in and trying to evaluate what is the value proposition for me personally to get into this points currency. What does this points currency offer that I don't currently have access to from, and I literally have Amex, Citi, Chase, and Capital One, and Marriott. I am not points ecosystem poor. 

So, for me, one of the things that I'm evaluating is, what is going to be the compelling reason for me to get into, again, another points ecosystem? What do they offer that none of the other points currencies does? Or what do they do so much better than everybody else?

I think this is where kind of highlighting some unique transfer partners is really, really important because all of the different transferable points currencies, of course, have their menu of airline or hotel transfer partners. No one transferable points currency is perfect. No one transferable points currency is going to allow you to transfer your points to all of the potential airlines or hotels. So I think it'd be really valuable to think about points currencies in terms of kind of where the existing gaps in the airlines or the hotels that you want to have access to as a transfer partner, and could another points currency help fill in that gap?

I think this is something that Bilt has done incredibly strategically. I think if you look at all of the various transfer partner menus between the transferrable points currencies, I personally would actually argue that Bilt probably has the single strongest menu of transfer partners. 

Now, of course, part of this comes down to personal preference of how do you want to use your points, but I actually think for the vast majority of people who want to use their points to travel Bilt has the best menu of transfer partners. For a long time, one of their very, very unique transfer partners was American Airlines. They were the only one of those five major transferable points currencies where you could move points from your credit card account over to American Airlines. 

We recently have gotten news that that specific transfer partnership between Bilt and American Airlines is going to sunset. It's going to expire. I believe it's in June of this year, 2024. So that's coming up. But on the heels of that announcement, Bilt also released an announcement that now you can actually transfer Bilt points to Alaska Airlines. 

I think that this is an incredibly unique opportunity for most people because the Alaska Airlines program has some really, really great redemption opportunities. But for a long time, if you didn't happen to live kind of in the Pacific Northwest or take a lot of paid Alaska flights, it was pretty challenging to accrue a lot of Alaska miles. So the fact that now you can lean on a transferable points currency and that gives you access to Alaska as a transfer partner, I think is a really unique strength of Bilt compared to the other transferable points currencies. 

Kind of the last strength that I want to mention here before we move on, and I know we've touched on this, but I think it just kind of bears emphasizing is that it is really, really interesting that you can earn Bilt points even if you choose to not have the Bilt credit card. So clearly, you can earn a lot more Bilt points if you do have the Bilt credit card. But there are a lot of opportunities to earn these transferable Bilt points, even if you choose to not carry the credit card right now or initially. So we'll probably get into some of those points earning opportunities, again, a little bit later in the conversation. 

But the last kind of thing that I wanted to touch on regarding the Bilt credit card itself and kind of get your take on, Suzanne, is that I think one of the other areas of maybe not misconception, but I think differentiation between the Bilt credit card and some of our more traditional points earning credit cards is that the Bilt credit card technically has no signup bonus. Oftentimes in this world of accruing points, getting a nice big signup bonus or welcome bonus is a really attractive feature of a points earning credit card.

Bilt doesn't really have a signup bonus on its credit card, but it does things in a little bit of a different way. Because a lot of people who signed up for this card have reported getting what seems like an unofficial signup bonus like offer once they receive the card. I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about that and how should folks take that into consideration when deciding their exact timing around when they would want to apply for the Bilt credit card? 

Suzanne: Sure. So Bilt technically has no signup bonus, as you said, but a lot of people when they sign up for the card, they get an email saying welcome to Bilt. You now have five days to earn an extra amount of points, usually 50,000 points to be exact, within these five days. 

Now in order to earn that, it becomes a 5x. So if you spend $12,500 on your Bilt credit card in the first five days, you will earn an extra 50,000 bonus points plus the 12,500 of spend that you put on the card. So if you do this, you are literally giving yourself status that gives you higher level transfer bonuses. 

So the timing of this is, obviously, if you have a tax payment or if you have a homeowner's insurance payment or some kind of insurance high dollar payment that you can meet within these five days. I feel like that's the biggest kind of myth. But is it a signup bonus? Is it not a signup bonus? Is it actually considered a signup bonus but everybody says it's not? Most people get this email. There's been a few that haven't why I'm not sure. 

Devon: So for this card, like you said, it can be really great to take into consideration if you have a large enough anticipated upcoming spend, you want to time your application so that you can take advantage of putting that spend on this card in the highly likely event that you are going to get this unofficial sort of welcome bonus like type of offer. 

So I think that that's something that is a little bit different than the way that a lot of the other traditional points earning cards how they function, how they work, that it's great to keep into consideration. The other thing that I wanted to touch on is that the Bilt credit card does have kind of traditional bonus categories, the same way that we are familiar seeing bonus categories, again, on other rewards credit cards. 

So the Bilt credit card has a bonus category for dining where you can earn three times points or three points for every dollar you spend on dining and two times points on travel. So that's something that you can always kind of expect to get in terms of the bonus points earning from the Bilt credit card. But they, again, sort of in the spirit of innovation do something a little bit differently than everybody else in terms of Bilt rent day. 

Can you talk about a little bit about what this is? Again, for people who really want to get into this ecosystem and maximize the number of points that they can earn, how does Bilt rent a play into that strategy?

Suzanne: So rent day is my favorite day of the month, 12 times a year. Because I want to bump my balance with Bilt. It's super important to have my Bilt balanced, that's the priority. So I have my first of the month list. Every month, I take my iPhone notes out, and I look at my list. So this magical points day, 12 times a year happens, and I play the trivia games hoping to win 250 bonus points via the Bilt portal. 

I also pay all my bills on this day because I didn't until recently have another 2x card. So this was my 2x card for everything that I could maximize on. So I would pay all my scheduled bills, gym membership, concierge pediatrician, tuition, carwash memberships, insurance premiums, timeshare monthly dues, and I would always go to Rakuten on the first because I like stacking things.

On April Fool's, I wasn't the fool. LifeLock was 90% on April 1. So I bought the family plan, $640, got 2x on Bilt, 1,200 Bilt points plus 60,000 Amex points. That's a score. So, the first of the month, also, when you have, you have to post five transactions within the whole cycle of your credit card. It doesn't have to be on the first. It just has to be within that 30 days of your cycle. But on the first, everything is doubled. 

So normally, you're getting 3x dining, 2x travel ,1x on everything else, and 1x on rent always. Rent always stays at 1x. But on rent day, the first of the month, everything's doubled. So it's basically a fee free card that's 2x. So 6x dining, 4x travel, and 2x on everything else. Rent day, they have promotions.

Besides the transfer bonus, you can also get fitness classes as well on rent day where you can get a free SoulCycle or different avenues of neighborhood type fitness classes. I haven't really dove into this arena because I kept my gym membership. I don't do classes anymore. But, again, it's a way to get into the neighborhood and loyalty and entice people to be active. So the first of the month, again, I have a party 12 times a year, and I really rack up my account. It's a good time. 

Devon: Just to clarify, and I apologize if you mentioned this, but again, for people who are not as familiar with this ecosystem and are really listen to this conversation and trying to evaluate okay, is this a card? Is this a currency that makes sense for me? If so, what are some of the really easy ways for me to maximize my points earning here? 

For someone who does want to jump in to Bilt, and they're thinking okay, great. I don't have a problem trying to be really strategic about my spend and trying to sort of concentrate some of my spend on the first of the month so that I can take advantage of this, like you said, double points on everything other than rent. So two times points on basically all nine category spend. The three times dining becomes six times points on dining. The two times on travel becomes four times on travel. 

But is there a cap on the amount of money spent or the amount of bonus points you can earn under that promotion? Is that something that we need to be, again, not only strategic about kind of collating or collecting a lot of our expenses for rent day, but not putting an excessive amount of spend in terms of the amount of bonus points that you can qualify to earn? 

Suzanne: The first of the month is capped at the 10,000 extra points. So you have to do the math if you're doing 6x on dining to make that 10,000 extra points. For me, most of my spend is the 2x. When I first got the card, I was like we're going out to eat on the first of the month every time. So we did that for a while. 

But there's different strategies. But yeah, you're capped at that extra 10,000 points on the first. But there's other ways to earn points throughout the month where you're getting bonus as well. Lyft is to 2x on Bilt. If you pay with the Bilt card, it’s an extra 3x. So you can actually get 5x on Lyft rides anytime throughout the month. Then if you do three, you get a $5 credit. That's a current promotion. Promotions always change. So you have to kind of be up and aware of what's going on, on your Bilt app. 

Another way I earn points throughout the year is potential referral bonuses. I'm so enthusiastic about my Bilt. Everybody knows that. So, they're like can I have a referral? Absolutely. So the crazy thing is you can actually earn 2,025,000 Bilt points if you refer 450 people that get approved. Am I anywhere near that? No. But this doesn't have to be on the first of the month. But it's another way to really get your points up. 

The funny thing is you don't even have to have the Bilt credit card, but you can refer people because on the app, you can just download that part of the screen where you click the three dots and send your invitation code and send it to your friends. Then you actually get points. 

What's interesting. So for every referral you get, you get 2,500 points. Sometimes they have a promotion for every referral, you get 10,000 points. So I actually referred P2, and it was at 10,000. He got his Bilt card, and I got 10,000 extra points. That's where you see the value is when you can potentially transfer these for transfer bonuses on top of your other ecosystems. You can top off the pot, even if you don't even have the card. You have a few extra points for whatever transfer bonus is available, and you can really cash in.

Devon: Again, like all the major transferable points currency, Bilt has their own menu of airline and hotel transfer partners. I think once their partnership with American Airlines drops off in June, I think they're going to have about 16 airline and hotel transfer partners total. I could be off by one or two there, but I think it's around 16. I'm really curious to hear from you. What are the transfer partners that you think are the most valuable or useful when it comes to getting tons of value from Bilt points?

Just what have been some of your personal favorite uses of Bilt points? What are some examples of how you use these points to book award flights or hotel stays?

Suzanne: So yeah. I mean, I really feel like Bilt is like icing on the cake when it comes to all the other ecosystems because you can add to all of them. Like you said, it has the best transfer partners. I 100% agree with that. Across the board, it has the highest yield, I think, when it comes to transfer partners. Adding to your other currencies with it. So, like I said, it's really the icing on the cake of all the other currencies because you can really top off your points in these transfer bonus categories. 

So American Airlines is unfortunately going away in June. Now the question is do I transfer my entire bonus, my pot to them before they go? Alaska has been added. Me being in Houston, I have to really do a little more research on what's going to happen with Alaska and like how I can utilize it. For me, the biggest one I would say is Flying Blue, Air France, and KLM partnership because there's a direct flight from Amsterdam or Paris to Houston. 

With my two little kids, the age to two to 11, you get that 25% discount with it. The seats are pretty comfy. I mean I'm all for flying economy. I can just tell you when Bilt offered that transfer bonus on the first of the year, this was a big deal for me. I had 120,000 Bilt points in my account. I was just like oh, which one do I choose? Because they give you a choice. Who do I want to transfer to? So the combination kind of tripped me up. But I was like well, let me really, let me figure this out. I am totally transferring speculatively because I have platinum status, and I am getting 150% transfer bonus. 

So obviously transferring speculatively to elite is not something points enthusiasts recommend. But when it's 150%, I mean you can't turn that down. So I literally emptied my entire balance on January 1 into Flying Blue because I knew we're going to South Africa where P2 and his family are from in 2025. So I know I'll use them. 

So basically, I took that 150% transfer bonus of the 120,000 points, and I got 300,000 Flying Blue points. I mean, where else can you get this? I've already cashed some of them in. I mean, the flights on Air France that I got were at 88,000 points to return from Brussels to Houston. This is for spring break next year of 2025.

So 88,000 points for four of us economy, train ride from Brussels to Paris then Paris flying to Houston in economy. So it equates to 22,000 per person for two of us. Two kids get the 25% discount still. So my ticket was 22,000 and P2s ticket was 22,000, but each kid's ticket was 16,500 points. So instead of 88,000, it was 77,000. 

I mean Air France, it's comfy in the back. There's reclining seats. The flight’s during the day so I could care less. It's 10/11 hours, not a big deal. But in order to get those 77,000 points, I actually only had to transfer 30,800 points at the 150% to give me the 77,000 for four of us. It was an 8.9 cent redemption. I mean, I'm like yes, I did it. It wasn't double digits, but it was close.

Even after this redemption, I still have over 200,000 points in my Flying Blue account, which I can still use for South Africa at the end of the year. So super excited about that one. I could even look at Flying Blue to position LAX and go to Tahiti on a Fifth Freedom flight. I mean, those are quick eight hour flights that are easy to get and available. 

Also on January 1, this year with that transfer bonus, P2 held gold status. Because I didn't choose, I decided to dump all his points in Virgin. I was like I've got both. So now we're sitting pretty at 135,000 Virgin Atlantic points.

What's so great about Virgin Atlantic transfers? How about that companion pass that not many people know about? It's usually one of the most overlooked incredible values that you can get through Virgin when flying on Virgin metal. So  if you're already booked on a Virgin flight with points, you can actually purchase a ticket on the same flight for a companion with points at 50% and sometimes even larger discount, and that's a big deal. So you're basically doubling the amount of value that you get if you purchase this award ticket for yourself. 

Obviously, there's some rules and regulations you need to follow with that. But booking a companion seat with point is at 50% discounted rate with a 125% transfer bonus, I mean, you can't beat this. Obviously, you have to call to do this. It's not something you can do online. You call Virgin Atlantic U.S. customer service. I have the number for anybody that's interested 1-800-862-8621. 

Because you really want to book a standard companion seat because there's different companion fares. If there's some confusion, you really need to know what to tell the agent to book because sometimes the agents don't know. So I look forward to using his account for that. So, again, it's just it's a wow factor. I just can't get over the wow factor with Bilt. I'm not a renter.

Devon: I love that. I really do think, again, for people who are not renters, this program has increasingly expanded its potential value for people. It really is definitely worth looking at. When I think about the transfer partner chart of Bilt, again, I'm always, especially when you have more than one points currency, I think one of the things that is really useful to do is start thinking about okay, how can my points currencies complement one another? 

Like, how can they combine and play really well with one another? What are the sort of different and unique aspects of the transfer partners have each of my points currencies so that I actually have access to an expanded partner menu compared to any single points currency on its own.

I think, again, in terms of the very, very unique transfer partner have Bilt, the one that really stands out as the only airline for which you can access with transferable points is, post-June, going to be Alaska Airlines itself. So that is definitely unique aspect of the Bilt transferable partners. 

But I think other than that, as you mentioned, Bilt is a currency that just plays so well with other currencies. I don't think that there's really a strong argument, at least not one that I can think of, for someone only holding the Bilt credit card or only having Bilt points to the exclusion of any other points. I don't think Bilt is a strong enough program right now to justify that being your solo transferable points currency. 

So on the assumption that it's not going to be and you are going to have at least one other transferable points currency, I think one of the strengths of Bilt is that it is so easy to combine those effectively with other transferable points currencies because of kind of the variety of the transfer partners they have. 

So for people who are already in the chase points ecosystem, Bilt is the only other transferable points currency where you can move points over to Hyatt or United. I think there's really strong arguments for why people might want to do that, again, especially if they already have Chase points that also transfer to Hyatt and United.

I think that the Bilt points currency plays really, really well with Capital One. You can move points over to Turkish Airlines, which even post devaluation I think still has a really high value proposition and really, really great opportunities for award flights. I also really liked the Cathay Pacific award program. It's not one that gets as much attention as a lot of other award programs. But Cathay Pacific is a transfer partner of all of the transferable points currencies, except for Chase. So if you've got anything else along with Bilt, there's some really great opportunities there. 

You've, of course, mentioned Air France. That, I think, is such a darling of the points community. There's so many incredible things that you can do with Air France, KLM, Flying Blue miles, especially because you can transfer all five of the major transferable points currencies over there. Also another one of my favorites is Air Canada Aeroplan. I think, again, they have a lot of really interesting award redemption opportunities. You can move Amex, Chase, Capital One, and Bilt points over to Air Canada. 

So I think of Bilt definitely as a program having some very, very unique and distinguishing features that other transferrable points programs do not have. But in terms of a points currency, it just plays so well with other transferable points. I think that was a really, really smart move in terms of, again, I don't think that belt would be quite as compelling if they didn't have this opportunity to share a lot of these transfer partners with some of the other transferable points currencies. 

But one of the things I wanted to dive a little bit farther into because you've mentioned now a couple of different times, we've talked about how one of the very unique features of Bilt as a program is they have their own loyalty program for Bilt members. They have their own levels of status like we're used to seeing in hotel loyalty programs or airline loyalty programs. We don't see that from Chase or Amex or Capital One or Citi. So can you tell us a little bit more about how does this Bilt sort of loyalty program work? What are the benefits of actually trying to achieve the different status tiers within the Bilt program?

Suzanne: So the important thing to take into account for having a high Bilt points balance is to really take advantage of these transfer bonuses based on your status. So Bilt has four categories. Blue is fewer than 25,000 Bilt points. So anybody can be blue if you just get the app. So you get to silver when you get more than 25,000, up to 49,999. So when you're blue, you get those rent day transfer bonus offers, even though you don't necessarily have status or anything. But it's the blue status, but you're able to transfer points. Let's say you did a referral or you did a Lyft ride here and there. The points transfer one to one with all the transfer partners at any day.

Then once you get to silver, that 25, almost up to 50,000, you're getting priority access to rent day experiences, you can get that higher rent day transfer bonus where you're getting 100% transfer bonus instead of the 75, and then you can start earning interest on your points. Again, you get the one to one transfer bonus. Then there's a Bilt collection that you can have access to where you can redeem your points for certain things in their collection, Again, aimed at renters trying to potentially get artwork for their house or have their habitat more appealing. Then it helps Bilt credit history with rent reporting as well once you start getting into the silver status.

Gold status is 50,000 points to 99,999 points earned. Once you get into gold, you get the gold level rent day transfer bonuses, which was 125%. You also get those gold priority access to rent day experiences, available homeownership concierge that they offer. Again, more interest on points that's offered, again, the one to one transfer bonuses, the Bilt collection, and also the credit history reporting.

Then platinum is 100,000 or more points earned. So this is where you get that elite status match, Platinum priority access to rent day experiences as well. You have special Platinum Member specialists support. Platinum level rent day bonus is, I mean, 150% transfer bonus. It's just, again, unprecedented. Then all the other things, the homeownership concierge that you build on from the gold status. 

With these different status ranks come the ability to transfer the points. All of their card transfer bonuses pale in comparison. They just do. With that status, you unlock more points earning opportunities. So there's actually milestone rewards. They unlock with every 25,000 points that are earned. I haven't used these yet, and I'm ready to unlock them. I just want to use it to its fullest potential. Again, this stuff takes a little bit of research, and like you don't want to use the wrong one. You want to make sure that you're using your points to its fullest potential. 

So right now I can choose from doubling my points on Bilt dining for seven days, or I can get 2x at a grocery store for 30 days, 2x at gas stations for 30 days, 2x on sporting tickets, and 100,000 points for the Bilt collection. Now, obviously, if we're on vacation or something, I might put that double points on Bilt dining for seven days because I can maximize that. I'm really not going to look at grocery store because I get much higher value with my other cards. 

Then there's other opportunities that unlock at 75,000 points, such as 10x on three Lyft rides, or 2x on digital wallet purchases. At 100,000 points, they give you 5,000 points closer to the next status. That's pretty cool. A 225,000 points, they'll give you 7,500 points for the Bilt collection. I'm really looking forward to if I can get 250,000 points, 4x at grocery stores for 30 days, and 4x at gas stations. 

I think the grocery store, even though it equals my Amex Gold, I could max that and not have to deal with the 25,000 limit and boost my status on Bilt that's not counted towards that first day rent 10,000 bonus cap. I can buy my Gift of College gift cards to continue to pay my student loans. Because I happen to be in Houston, and I have access to a $500 Gift of College cards. So, again, it's strategizing and really unlocking what the status can give you to maximize the points.

Devon: Yeah, and I just have a clarifying question here. Because, again, I'm sort of thinking about as someone standing on the outside and looking in and thinking about okay, let's just say I wanted to hit platinum status. I want to join the Bilt program. Let's just assume, for the sake of argument, I'm also going to get the Bilt credit card. So I have that. 

If my goal is to get platinum status, you said that it takes 100,000 points earned to get to that level of status. I think most people when they hear that would think okay, so that would require me to spend $100,000 on the credit card to earn 100,000 points. But if, for instance, I was taking advantage of those rent day bonuses, right. 

So say that on rent day, dining is six times points, and I'm just going to use a very round number for my own brain to keep this easy. Let's say I spent $1,000 on dining on rent day. So I would actually earn 6,000 points for that expense. Those 6,000 points count towards the 100,000 I need for platinum, right? Even though I only spent $1,000.

Suzanne: Right So, to get platinum, you need 200,000 points.

Devon: Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you for clarifying that okay. 

Suzanne: But you only need to spend $50,000. So you there's two ways to get to platinum. You can get to 200,000 points, or you can spend 50. It's one or the other. They're not tied to each other. 

Devon: All right, so that makes a lot of sense. I just wanted to kind of pull that apart for people, again, who are thinking about these various levels of status and trying to sort of do the math in their brain of if I wanted to commit to getting status in the Bilt program, kind of what is the least expensive way to be able to do that in terms of the amount of spend required to hit the various levels? So that was helpful to think about.

One of the things that I kind of want to cover because I feel like with all of these different transferrable points currencies, I really do like to highlight what is really amazing about all of them. I think every single one of the transferable points currencies ecosystems has really unique strengths, and I think that's what's really fun to take advantage of when you're in this hobby. 

But the fact is that no transferable points ecosystem is perfect. I don't think Chase is perfect. I don't think Amex is perfect. Even though I don't yet have Bilt points, I don't think the Bilt is perfect either despite how much we've really talked up some of these really unique aspects of the Bilt program. 

So I think it'd be really valuable and useful for us to also spend just a little bit of time before we wrap up the episode today and talk about when you think of the Bilt ecosystem as a whole, what do you think right now are some of the weaknesses of this points ecosystem compared to the other transferrable points currencies? So that people can kind of take these into account when they're thinking about do they want to get into this ecosystem? Or if they are in it, how can they really sort of mitigate what some of the weaknesses of this program are?

Suzanne: It's a great question. When you're so enamored and so in love, you don't really always see the weakness. But like I said, I use Bilt as the icing on the cake kind of card. So I'm limited to 10,000 points per month on the first and kind of whatever else I can score between other days. So it's not necessarily my primary card.

If they had four to 5x or even potentially more on groceries, gas, and office supply stores then maybe I wouldn't need another credit card but they don't. So that's something they can work on. It looks like they are working on that with some of these unlocking potential status membership, rewards that you can get along the way based on how many points you have. 

Another weakness I would say is that there's no business buddy card. Like I need that business card. I need to pay my rent. I mean, I would get in line for a Bilt rent payment credit card because that is the biggest expense I have in my office. That would really be a huge game changer. 

The one thing though, Ankur Jain says there's talks about paying mortgages with Bilt. So it's not possible yet. So I would say it's a weakness because it's not there yet, but they are talking about it, which of course, that would be amazing. Currently, you have to use Plastiq if you want to pay your mortgage through a credit card, but, again, high processing fees. 

The other weakness is the fact that we already talked about it doesn't have a full signup bonus but it kind of does. So some people shy away from this card because of that. That didn't shy me away from it. I still got the 5x within those five days and maximized my points. 

Then the other thing I find is a weakness would be one of you miss one of those five transactions in your statement period. You can rack up all these points and then you don't actually get them because you didn't do the five transactions. So for me I get more than five transactions just on the first of the month with my scheduled payments. 

But my P2, I have to be like okay, we have until the eighth. You have to make one more because there's only four jujitsu payments a month. I just have him on auto pay because I don't want to think about his. Even though we might be getting 1x here and there, it doesn't matter. Like I'm just getting the five transactions for him, but I still need that fifth one. So I'm like make sure you buy coffee at the gym. It's 4x. So, again, that's a, I would say a weakness, where you can miss out on the points that you actually did earn, but you didn't because you didn't qualify the full circle. 

Devon: Yeah, I completely agree with you. I also wish that Bilt had at least one business credit card on offer. I think for those of us who do have businesses, we oftentimes really want to have that combination of a personal points earning card for personal spend and then a business credit card where we can leverage some of our business spend all within the same ecosystem. 

So right now, I do think it's an enormous weakness of the Bilt currency that there are no business credit cards whatsoever. I also think that it is a current weakness of the system, and I'm really curious to see if this ever changes and how it will change. Because I think if it does change, it will be in a very unexpected way just knowing what we know about Bilt is that right now it only has one single points earning credit card. 

You think about the Chase ecosystem, where you've got five of the Ultimate Rewards Points earning credit cards, you've got airline co-branded credit cards and hotel co-branded credit cards. Every single one of these other major points currencies. Even Citi, which also does not have business credit cards, it offers at least more than one single points earning credit card on the personal side. 

So I'm really interested to see if the sort of menu of different credit cards that Bilt offers expands beyond the current one. I would love for them to start including at least one business credit card and, like you mentioned, especially a credit card where you could actually pay commercial rent with it and earn points I think would be, again, obviously, such a singular aspect, singular benefit of that program to offer. So I think that that would be fantastic to see. 

Then just from a logistical point of view, I think one of the weaknesses of this program is sort of the converse of what one of the major strengths the program, which is that Bilt has really positioned itself as a program that its users wants to interact with and love interacting with. This is not the type of program where you just have a credit card, like you said, and it's on autopilot. Where maybe you set a couple of bills to auto pay, and you never really think about that card or you never really interact with that program.

Bilt has made it incredibly rewarding for you to interact with it, to pay attention to all of these different bonuses and promotions, to be very deliberate and intentional about concentrating your spend on rent day on the first day of the month in order to maximize your points, to play the different trivia games, right? It really, really compensates and rewards people for interacting with the program. 

To me, that's an innovation and a benefit. But it's honestly a weakness as well because you do have to be so much more deliberate and intentional about your planning with your spend in order to maximize your points. You have to remember, like you said, to use the card at least five times in each billing statement. You have to be really deliberate if you want to maximize your points earning about what day of the month do you want to pay certain bills? 

It's not like some other credit cards that just have these static bonus categories, right, where whenever you pay a bill, you're going to earn 2x points on that bill. So I think that, again, for people who enjoy sort of the gamification of the system that Bilt has created, that can be a really fun part of being in this point ecosystem. 

I think for people who are managing multiple points ecosystems or managing a decent number of credit cards, especially across business and personal spend, I think that it takes more effort to really maximize the number of points you can earn in the Bilt ecosystem compared to other ecosystems. I think it's just wise to take that into consideration because I think this is really where personal preference comes into play. 

I think there are people, again, for whom it's fun and exciting to do a lot of those promotions and the games and everything in the Bilt system. I think for other people, they may experience that as actually being kind of tedious or experience that as a drawback of the ecosystem. So I don't think it's one or the other. I think people are going to experience it in different ways. But I think it's really useful to understand some of the nuances of these different points currencies and how they function. 

Because the truth is, most people don't need all five transferable points currencies. I think it's actually much better for the vast majority of people to pick the one or two or maybe three that are the highest yield for them. I think that Bilt could be one of those programs for many people once they understand it a little bit more. 

So, Suzanne, I just want to thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for kind of taking me into the world of Bilt. This is the points ecosystem that I have the least amount of personal experience with. But, again, I find this program has made itself so compelling, especially over the last year, that I think it’s really only a matter of time until my will is broken, and I get one of these cards. But I really, really appreciate your coming on today to share all of your experience, your wisdom about this program. Thank you so much for this conversation.

Suzanne: Couldn't have been more fun. Thank you for having me.

Devon: All right, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us today. I will see you again next week for another episode of the Point Me to First Class podcast.

Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of Point Me to First Class. If you want more tips on turning your expenses into travel, visit pointmetofirstclass.com to learn more. See you next week.