Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
Late last year, Bilt Rewards announced that it was significantly increasing its point qualification standards for elite status, and at the same time added the ability to attain status purely through credit card spend. As part of the announcement, the company promised that elite status would also become more rewarding through a combination of elite tier benefits and incremental milestone rewards. However, they didn’t tell us exactly what those benefits would be, saying that they would be rolled out sometime in 2024.
Earlier this month, we finally found out what was on tap for milestone rewards and we were, um, underwhelmed.
Now, Bilt has announced its first elite tier benefit, a one year match to Flying Blue Gold Status (and the corresponding SkyTeam Elite Plus). The match is only for Bilt Platinum members (its highest tier) and requires a transfer of 10,000 points to Flying Blue in order to activate it.
The Deal
- Bilt Rewards is offering a one year match to Flying Blue Gold status for Bilt Platinum members who register and then transfer 10,000 Bilt points to Flying Blue.
- Flying Blue status can take up to three days after activation to be applied
- Gold status will be valid for 12 months from activation
Flying Blue Gold benefits
- SkyTeam Elite Plus status, which includes:
- SkyTeam lounge access when flying internationally (including Delta)
- Extra baggage allowance (20kg or additional bag)
- Priority check-in and boarding
- Priority Seating
- Points expiration pause
How to Register for Match
- After qualifying for Bilt Platinum, go to the “status” tab in Bilt App
- Click on the “Elite status match” section.
3. Activate match and transfer points
Quick Thoughts
This could certainly be a nice opportunity for Bilt Platinum members, especially those who fly Delta or other SkyTeam airlines. Delta SkyMiles members with Gold status and above already have SkyTeam Elite Plus, so this doesn’t really offer anything to them outside of a pause on the expiration of their Flying Blue miles (which aren’t terribly difficult to extend in the first place).
For folks that don’t already have SkyTeam status, there a couple nice-to-haves; access to SkyTeam lounges (including Delta Sky Clubs) when flying coach internationally and increased baggage allowance are probably the most appealing.
The requirement to transfer points in order activate the transfer is an interesting quirk. I imagine it’s part of how Bilt sold the deal to Flying Blue, effectively agreeing to buy 10,000 Flying Blue miles for each status match. It would be nice to see the match happen automatically without a points transfer, especially since it’s reserved for Bilt’s highest-tier Platinum members, who have to spend $50K or earn 200,000 points to qualify.
In my opinion, this falls somewhere between the nothingburger of Bilt’s Milestone Rewards and a truly exciting benefit. Some folks will certainly find use out of the SkyTeam status, but I can’t imagine anyone would really push for Platinum based on access to something like this.
I always have to remind myself that Amex, Citi, Capital One and Chase don’t have any elite status to begin with. So, even tepid benefits like this match are better than what the other issuers are offering. That said, outside of adding serious juice to the regular transfer bonuses, I’m still waiting to see something truly compelling in Bilt’s “new and improved” elite status program.
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One thing to mention is that Amex actually does (sort of) have an elite status level. Once you hit a certain spend level, you are allowed guests into the Centurion Lounge. They don’t call it an elite level, but that’s what it is, and I have been wondering if this is them dipping their toes in.
I don’t purport to understand the flying blue program, but it seems like – unlike most elite programs – they count XPs earned after you reach that level. Once you’re gold, you need 300 XPs to reach platinum. It seems like Plat is the level you really want to get. With the AF card, you can get 100 XP pretty easily… they also have soft landings…
It looks like only 60xp
60 XP (Experience Points) upon approval
20 XP every year on your account anniversary
Earn an additional 40 XP (totaling 60 XP) on your account anniversary after you spend $15,000 or more on purchases within the anniversary year
This is the bit I find interesting from Flying Blue’s XP site:
1 XP for every 2,000 Miles donated – unlimited donations on flyingblue.com only.
Donations can also be done in Miles on flyingblue.com post-purchase of your flight ticket or without having to fly, and are unlimited.
So after opening a new FB credit card you would need 240 more XP to get from Gold to Platinum status. And a Bilt Platinum member with another 150% FB transfer bonus would be able to get that with just shy of 100K Bilt points.
To extend that further – a Bilt Platinum member that now has newly minted FB Platinum would need roughly 100K additional Bilt points to have enough to book La Premiere using a 150% transfer bonus. (Or I suppose you could transfer oodles of AMEX points or another currency to Flying Blue).
My knowledge of Flying Blue XP is from 20 minutes of reading so I admit I could be missing a big limitation here. If not – Greg are you up to the challenge of earning 200K Bilt points for a La Premiere flight?
Edit – I realized shortly after it’s 2000 Miles per XP which doubles the first half of this (doh!). That brings up the total to 300K Bilt points, quite a chunk more and worth looking at other XP run options to help bring that total down.
This does not do much for us by itself, since we usually fly business class international on award tickets, but I was wondering: Can we leverage the Gold status on Flying Blue or the Sky Team Elite status to status match to any other airline’s or alliance’s elite status? Does anyone know of any good status matches that we can use from newfound Flying Blue Gold status?
Excellent strategizing.
That’s exactly what I’d be looking to this for. I haven’t yet had a chance to check statusmatcher.com, but I’m sure you’ll find data points there if it is possible to leverage this into other programs.
At this rate, I feel the best card for an AirFrance loyalist would be Bilt rather than their own first party card, the BOA FlyingBlue card. Better earn rates (when you consider transfer bonuses), better flexibility (transfers to other programs rather than just to FB), No AF, Status benefits.
Between the 1.5x earn rate, the 3x on all SkyTeam partners, and the 5000 points every year, that card Is just short of compelling. I would certainly consider it as an alternative to the Delta cards, as 3x for an $89 annual fee is not attainable with that program. Not to mention, the points are actually worth something. The only thing that really turns me away is the XP earning structure on Delta is just not compelling (and the card does not have ongoing XP spend boosts, only a single threshold). It would almost be worth using a 1.5x card if you could parlay it into usable status, but FB silver is not enough.
Why not both? 🙂
One benefit that could come is for those people who book “mistake” fairs through Air France or KLM. If they had Gold status, they would likely still have those 13- 14k business class flights to Europe! I read that they honored it for their Gold and up members.
It’s unlikely to come, but here’s hoping they have more of those “mistakes” now that I’ll have Gold status with Flying Blue soon.
That’s a great point!