Bilt is one of my favorite companies. The guy that created the company just gets it. Too many of these older executives in Fortune 500 companies are clueless. Bilt is just built differently. The primary purpose of Bilt is to earn points for paying your rent via their Bilt credit card. This is an absolutely amazing product because it’s easy to use and there’s no annual fee. For renters, paying rent is a huge portion of their expenses and not being able to earn points on that spend was really unfortunate as it was leaving a lot of points on the table. With Bilt, renters can now earn points on that spend which really helps them get closer to an amazing vacation for free. You can learn more about the Bilt credit card by reading our article here. Unfortunately, you cannot use Bilt or anything else like it to pay your mortgage. Maybe someday.
Earning points with the Bilt app (no card needed!)
But what if you are not a renter, can’t use Bilt or just don’t want to? Well like I said, this company is one of my favorites and I’m not a renter! You see, the Bilt app does not require you to have the Bilt credit card! With the app (yes, you have to download the app), you can earn the same Bilt points as everyone else that is paying rent or otherwise using the credit card. What’s so special about Bilt points? They are transferable points currency. You can transfer them to all sorts of travel partners such as Emirates Skywards, American Airlines Aadvantage, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Hawaiian Airlines, Iberia, IHG Hotels, Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles, Flyingblue Airfrance & KLM, Air Canada Aeroplan, Aerlingus Aerclub, Virgin Atlantic Flyingclub, World of Hyatt, Marriott Bonvoy and United MileagePlus. They even offer transfer bonuses sometimes. You could also use the points to book travel through their portal but booking through portals is usually not recommended.
Earning points with Lyft and Soul Cycle
There’s a number of ways to earn points. As we discussed in this article, you can link your Lyft account to a number of partners to earn points when you take a ride with lift. One of the partners, and the one I recommend you use, is Bilt. Simply link your Lyft account to Bilt and you’ll earn points for every ride. This is on top of the extra points you’ll earn with cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve. They also have a partnership with Soul Cycle where you’ll earn points there as well if you book your classes through Bilt (10x). These classes are only in certain cities so this will not really apply to most people but if you live near one and you’ve been thinking about checking out something like that, this might be the incentive you need.
Refer friends to the Bilt card
Well I did promise free points and using Lyft or Soul Cycle do cost money so those points aren’t technically free. There are three ways to earn free points. One way is to refer to people to the Bilt credit card. You don’t have to have the credit card to refer people to it. If they get one through your referral link, you’ll earn 2,500 points. For every 5 people you refer, you’ll get an extra 10,000 points. You max out at 2 million points. You can find your referral link here at https://www.biltrewards.com/invite Pretty good stuff right? Well it gets better.
Add credit cards to your Bilt Wallet
If you add three credit cards to your Bilt Wallet, you will earn 100 points for each one. If you get Visa and Mastercard gift cards with your Ink Cash card, you can use these cards even if you’ve already used them up. Just click on Wallet and you’ll see where you can do this. However, you can earn bonus points by using one of the cards in your wallet at select restaurants. Click on Bilt Dining to learn more. Unfortunately, it’s a small list of restaurants but these bonus points will stack with your ordinary rewards like 3x with CSR.
Link your accounts for free points
You can also free points by linking your Bilt account to various award programs. This one is a little hidden. Just click on Travel in the app and scroll down. These are the same travel programs listed above that you can transfer your points to. You get 100 points per program and there’s 14 so that’s an easy 1,400 points. The average person probably doesn’t have accounts with all of these programs but they’re free to sign up so you might as well join. They’re free points and it’ll take some time but if you have a few minutes to kill, do one or two when you can.
Rent Day
If I stopped here, I think you’d be impressed with such an awesome product but it gets even better. Every month they run a promo called Rent Day. As part of that, you can enter for your chance to win free rent. In addition to that, they have a monthly trivia game called Points Quest. For each question you get right, you’ll earn 50 points. If you get them all right, you’ll earn 250 points. If you do this every month, you’ll earn 3,000 points per year. You’re not exactly going to be staying at the Park Hyatt Tokyo with 3,000 points but hey, they’re free!
Two Player mode
I highly suggest doing this in two player mode. Between the two of you, you’ll earn 6,000 points a year. This in addition to the bonus points for linking your loyalty accounts and adding credit cards to your wallet. Add in the bonus points from Lyft and you’ll earn even more Bilt points. At 2 cents per point, those 6,000 points are worth $120 each year for free. That’s enough for a free night at a category 1 or 2 Hyatt. There’s not a lot of opportunities for free points, so when something like this comes around, you have to make sure that you fully take advantage of it. Hyatt also makes it easy to combine/transfer points so the two of you can easily pool points.
Even if you don’t pay rent, I’d still suggest getting this card at some point when you are above 5/24. Although there is no SUB, the Rent Day bonuses makes this card pretty good. On Rent Day, you’ll earn 6x on dining, 4x on flights, hotels and rental cars as well as 2x on everything else except rent. Maybe I’m a crazy travel hacker but if I wanted to try out a fancy restaurant, I’d wait until the first of the month to get 6x on a big tab. Getting 2x on large purchases that wouldn’t otherwise be going to a SUB is pretty good as well. I personally wouldn’t use it to book travel because I prefer CSR’s travel protection.
To apply for Bilt, please click here to use our link. You’ll be supporting our page and our efforts to teach you the basics of travel hacking. Thank you! For more information, please join our Facebook group Simple Travel Hacks.