Bilt Rewards has added its 17th and 18th transfer partners Accor Live Limitless (ALL) and TAP Air Portugal. Both programs are now live in the Bilt app; transfers are to 1:1 to TAP Air Portugal and 3:2 to ALL.
What’s Happened
- Bilt Rewards has added TAP Air Portugal and Accor Live Limitless as transfer partners, effective immediately
- Transfers to Accor are 3 Bilt points:2 Accor points
- Transfer to TAP are 1:1
Quick Thoughts
We always like to see more choice instead of less, so these are additions to Bilt’s already excellent group of transfer partners are nice to see. Both of them will be somewhat niche for most US-based travelers, however.
TAP Air Portugal is already a transfer partner of Capital One at the same 1:1 ratio. By virtue of welcome offers (and earning rates), most folks will find that want to invest in TAP will find it easier to do through C1 than through Bilt.
There are some decent uses including flexible mileage rates with excellent availability on their own flights when flying to Europe…however, the pricing is often quite a bit above what you can find when using partners to book the same award. TAP also doesn’t add fuel surcharges to Emirates redemptions, but the pricing is significantly higher than booking through Emirates directly, so it’s worth comparing the two for the same award, before committing.
Accor Live Limitless is a partner of both Capital One and Citi, but each of those banks transfers at a 2:1 ratio. That makes Bilt’s 3:2 ratio stand out as the best on offer. ALL points have a fixed value of two Eurocents each; at current exchange rates, that gives you a return of ~1.45 cents each when transferring Bilt points. Good, but not great.
Bilt is known for providing incredible one-day transfer bonuses every few months and both of these programs would go from “meh” interesting if they participate in one. My guess is that we’ll see a TAP transfer bonus sometime in the next year or so, but I’d be surprised if we get one for Accor…although, if it does happen, it would be very interesting given the fixed value of the points.
Complete List of Bilt Transfer Partners
Hotels
| Rewards Program | Best Uses | Bilt Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) |
|---|---|---|
| Accor Live Limitless | Use to pay hotel bill with value of 2 Euro cents per point. In some cases (such as hotel to airline transfer bonuses) it may make sense to convert Accor points to the following airline miles at a 1 to 1 ratio: Finnair, Iberia, Qantas, or Virgin Australia | 3 to 2 (Unknown) |
| Hilton | 5th Night Free awards. Best value is usually found with very low end or very high end Hilton hotels. Bonus: award nights are not subject to resort fees. Note that Hilton points often go on sale for half a cent each and so its rare for point transfers to Hilton to be a good value. | 1 to 1 (Unknown) |
| Hyatt | Use for Hyatt free nights, free suite nights, lounge upgrades, or suite upgrades. Hyatt points are often worth at least 2 cents each, but they’re sometimes worth far more. Bonus: award nights are not subject to resort fees. | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
| IHG | IHG dynamically prices their awards and sometimes offer very good value. IHG Premier and IHG Premier Business cards offer the fourth night free on award stays. | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
| Marriott Bonvoy | 5th Night Free awards. Opportunities to get outsized value exist but can be hard to find. | 20K to 25K (Instant) |
Airlines
| Rewards Program | Best Uses | Bilt Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) |
|---|---|---|
| Aer Lingus Avios | Fuel surcharges are sometimes lower when booking with Aer Lingus rather than British Airways, Qatar, or Iberia. It's possible to move points (Avios) between Iberia, British Airways, Aer Lingus, and Qatar. See also: Avios Sweet Spots for Award Tickets. | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
| Air Canada Aeroplan | Redeem for Star Alliance flights and/or flights with Air Canada partners (such as Etihad). No fuel surcharges; $39 CAD award booking fee; 5,000 points to add stopover on one-way award. See: Air Canada Aeroplan: Everything you need to know. | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
| Air France KLM Flying Blue | Monthly Air France Promo Awards often represent very good value. Air France miles can be used to book Sky Team awards, including Delta awards. Air France often offers very good business class award pricing between the US and Europe & Israel. | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
| Alaska MileagePlan | Alaska Airlines offers decent oneworld award pricing, excellent short-distant pricing, and uniquely allows free stop-overs one one-way awards. Additionally, Alaska allows free award changes and cancelations (although they do have a small non-refundable partner award booking fee) | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
| Avianca LifeMiles | Avianca LifeMiles can be great for Star Alliance awards. They offer reasonable award prices and no fuel surcharges on awards. They also offer shorthaul awards within the US (for flying United, for example) for as few as 7,500 miles one-way. Best of all, their mixed-cabin pricing can lead to fantastic first-class award prices. See this post for details. | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
| British Airways Avios | While flights on British Airways itself often incur outrageously high fuel surcharges, many BA partners charge low or no fuel surcharges. Excellent value can be had in redeeming BA points for short distance flights. It's possible to move points (Avios) between Iberia, British Airways, Aer Lingus, and Qatar. See also: Avios Sweet Spots for Award Tickets. | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
| Cathay Pacific Asia Miles | Cathay Pacific has a decent distance based award chart, but they no longer allow stopovers longer than 24 hours. Cathay Pacific Asia Miles can be a good option for booking American Airlines flights with a distance based award chart, especially if other OneWorld Alliance miles aren't available. For long distance flights, it is possible to reduce the cost of a premium cabin award by adding on a lower cabin segment. See this post for details. | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
| Emirates Skywards | The best use of Emirates miles has been to fly Emirates itself. Unfortunately fuel surcharges can be extremely steep. One workaround is to book select routes such as JFK to Milan or Newark to Athens. See: How to find and book Emirates first class awards. | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
| Finnair Plus+ | Finnair points are now "Avios" and points can be moved to/from other Avios programs. Finnair uses zone based award charts rather than distance based. As a result, Finnair sometimes has better (and sometimes worse) pricing than other Avios programs. | 1 to 1 via BA (Instant) |
| Iberia Avios | On their own flights, Iberia offers low award prices and a very reasonable 25 Euro cancellation fee. Partner awards can offer good value under some circumstances as well, but these are usually nonrefundable. Fuel surcharges are sometimes lower when booking with Iberia rather than British Airways, Aer Lingus, or Qatar. It's possible to move points (Avios) between Iberia, British Airways, Aer Lingus, and Qatar. See also: Avios Sweet Spots for Award Tickets. | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
| Qatar Privilege Club Avios | Qatar has reasonable award prices for flying Qatar itself. Points are now transferable 1 to 1 to British Airways (and from there to Aer Lingus or Iberia). It is now also possible to book JetBlue flights with Qatar Avios. | 1 to 1 via BA (Instant) |
| TAP Air Portugal | Surcharge-free Emirates redemptions. Increased availability on TAP flights between US and Europe. | 1 to 1 (Unknown) |
| Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles | Miles & Smiles offers a number of awesome sweet-spot awards including 7.5K one-way anywhere within the US, even to Hawaii. Many awards cannot be booked online but can be booked via phone or email. See: Turkish Miles & Smiles Complete Guide and Turkish business class sweet spots from the US. | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
| United MileagePlus | United offers free award changes and free cancelations. Like Avianca and Aeroplan, United never charges fuel surcharges for awards. Unfortunately, United charges many more miles for international first class awards. Good uses of miles include United's Excursionist Perk awards and (sometimes) dynamically priced United economy awards. | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
| Virgin Atlantic Flying Club | Virgin Atlantic offers a few excellent sweet spot awards. See: Best uses for Virgin Atlantic points (Sweet Spot Spotlight). | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
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Going forward, will Bilt lower transfer bonus rates? Going forward, will Bilt cap transfer bonuses as it did with Alaska this year? As a hobbyist, there’s now too little opportunity and too much uncertainty regarding Bilt. Readers know that I argued for Bilt long and hard when the gravy was flowing. So, when I now say that Bilt’s glory days are behind it, I’m not one of those who were naysayers all along.
Going forward, will any bank offer a transfer bonus? Will they give the rates I prefer? We can never depend on a transfer bonus. Otherwise, we would time them. I think you hold the Bilt program to a different standard. Even “reduced” transfer bonuses are often a great value compared to another bank (only 50% to Lifemiles? How stingy). What is the opportunity cost for collecting Bilt points? The program gives you points on stuff in addition to your other spending. Maybe there is an opportunity cost for card spend, but…then you do what we should do anyway and evaluate the opportunity cost. I still use Bilt for dining because I’m not carrying an Amex Gold card and, of my 3x dining cards, I prefer 3 Bilt points to 3 points in any other transfer currency. But when I get promotions for 6 TYP per dollar on dining spend up to a certain cap, I switch — the opportunity cost on the spending changes. I get your concern that there are now no easy ways to earn the points (no massive rent day spend bonuses, no welcome offer, taxes no longer earn points). This is true. But we collect the points we can and we use them when we can. No need to declare the downfall of Western Civilization over the news that they continue to expand transfer partners. I imagine they will probably lose some partners too. Hopefully we will get some notice (like when the AA contract ended). Other programs will have the same churn of partners.
@Tim Does Bilt allow transfer *from* Accor to Bilt?
No. But, Accor does transfer to a range of loyalty programs. No recommended.