Ever since Bilt Rewards launched its loyalty program, the best value that you’ve been able to get has been to transfer your points to the loyalty programs of travel partners like Hyatt, American Airlines, Aeroplan, Flying Blue, etc., especially if you can time those redemptions with a substantial transfer bonus.
Other than those transfers or redeeming your points through the Bilt travel portal at a fixed 1.25 cents per point redemption rate, it’s been hard to get good value from the points outside of other occasional Rent Day promotions on the first of the month.
However, there is a third way to get good value from your Bilt Rewards points – redeeming them towards a home down payment.
The reason using your Bilt Rewards points towards a down payment can be appealing is because it offers a fixed 1.5 cents per point redemption rate. That means that if, say, you’ve saved up 150,000 Bilt points, those can be redeemed for $2,250 towards your down payment.
Being able to redeem transferable points at this rate for what is, in effect, cash will be very appealing for some people. You can certainly get better than 1.5 cents per point of value by transferring to travel partners, especially when there’s a transfer bonus going on and particularly if you have higher status in the Bilt Rewards program as that usually results in an even higher transfer ratio. However, 1.5 cents per point in cash is nothing to be sneezed at.
Be aware though that this redemption option won’t be easy to game. This page on the Bilt website has a link to a form (I’ve not linked directly to the form here just in case that particular link changes in the future). You have to provide proof of your home purchase, then you’ll work directly with Bilt’s VP of Housing who’ll then issue a check once your documents have been verified. Bilt has confirmed that they’ve already had many loyalty program members take advantage of this redemption option to help purchase a home.
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
I invest in the very cheap market of Toledo where you can buy a nice rental in the low $100,000s. So just for fun I’m going to assume a $35,000 down payment. The point here is that my rentals and down patients are much less expensive than most people around the country would expect to pay. And yet to get enough BILT points to cover the whole thing is almost impossible…
$35,000/.015 = 2,333,333.33 points
I wonder how long it would take me to earn 2.3 million Bilt points. Right now, I can earn ~40,000 points a year from existing mortgage payments. Let’s say I spend $30,000/year to get enough Bilt cash to qualify for all those points, then I’m looking at another 100,000 points. So 140,000/yr if I’m being aggressive. I think it would take me almost 17 years to save up for a full downpayment.
…and I doubt Bilt will be around in 17 years with the way their program is going.
Still fun to think about. I usually prefer to go with the best redemption value, when tends to be travel, but I have so many travel points and miles it might be fun to use it on something else like my real estate business.