Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is happening now! Follow us as Greg, Nick, and Stephen compete to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines before November 23rd. Who will complete the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
The last time I made significant updates to my Curve Card review, an amazing trick dawned on me. The Curve Card, which passes along charges to any number of other credit cards you have, has a killer feature: Go Back in Time. This lets you reassign any charge placed in the past 30 days to another credit card and it resets the date of purchase to the current date. The Bilt Card also has a killer feature: double points on Rent Day (the first of each month). The two features taken together appeared to be too good to be true. It seemed to me that you could use your Curve card every day, all month, and then on the first of each month “Go Back in Time” to move all of the charges to your Bilt card so that all charges post on Rent Day. Wow! I figured that this combination of cards meant that you could earn double points (6x dining, 4x travel, 2x everywhere else) for up to 10K bonus points with all of your spend!
It turns out that there’s one fatal flaw to this plan: the Bilt card does not earn points for charges that flow through Curve. Ouch!
Over the past month I tested using Bilt within Curve a few times and I discovered something surprising: I didn’t earn points for purchases that went through Curve. At first I thought that they had somehow blocked point earnings for charges that were time-shifted with Curve’s Go Back in Time feature, but now I’ve tested it with a regular charge as well and had the same result: no Bilt points earned. I checked with our Bilt contact and confirmed that this is intentional on their part.
Just like every other card issuer, Bilt has rewards terms that allow them to withhold rewards for just about any type of charge. So, it’s entirely in their right to choose not to award points for purchases that go through Curve. The following Bilt Rewards terms disallow earning points with Curve:
Members may not earn Points by using third party wallets, cards or other products to switch the method of payment to or from their Bilt account following the completion of a purchase.
I’m not saying that I like it, just that Bilt has the right to do it. Further, I think that’s a better solution than what I had previously assumed the Bilt would do. I had previously assumed that Bilt would shut down accounts where Curve was used heavily on the first of the month. In fact, that’s why I didn’t write about this idea sooner: I thought that a spotlight on this trick would make Bilt more likely and eager to shut down accounts. Now I know that won’t happen. People who use Bilt through Curve are great for Bilt since Bilt doesn’t pay out rewards on these charges at all.
Summary: Bilt does not award points on charges that flow through the Curve card. Don’t use the two together.
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
[…] Bilt closed loophole for Curve […]
[…] as spotted by Frequent Miler — which is how I was first alerted — Bilt isn’t paying out points on purchases made […]
So you still receive points for time shifting or going back in time for other cards, say CSR? I got the Curve card but haven’t used it because it wasn’t letting me add my other CCs.
It only lets you use Mastercards and Discover cards, so the CSR (Visa) won’t work, but yes I get points on all of my other cards
I guess this started on 8/2:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/35464945-post274.html
I’ve used Bilt through Curve for months, along with my other Mastercards that I added to Curve. It’s certainly convenient to carry just one card when going out. I noticed that Bilt stopped giving out points for Curve purchases in August – it was posting fine prior. Reached out to Bilt and got the same reply – they don’t give points for Curve purchases anymore, even though I’ve never used the ‘Go back in time’ feature, nor did I know about the rent day trick either. Looks like they’re doind this for everyone, despite probably just a small number of people abusing the system using that trick.
Why the positive framing? “Bilt outsmarts?”More like “Bilt shuts down” or the more neutral “Bilt prevents use of” or “Bilt reacts to”. I don’t have a dog in the fight (no Curve, no Bilt) but I found the framing of this post both surprising and disappointing.
This is a cat and mouse game. Anyone who was using Curve to trick Bilt into giving double points for all spend knew that they were getting away with something here. And Bilt had to respond somehow. It would simply cost them too much to keep giving out double points every day. I thought that their solution was clever and a better solution than shutting people down (which is what I expected to happen). So, yes, I think “outsmarts” was a good word for the situation. That doesn’t mean that I’m happy about it. I’m just showing respect for Bilt’s latest chess move. The one thing they could have done better, I think, (and this would have been much better) is to proactively email everyone who had charges go through Curve.
You mean Bilt should have informed those who had past charges “through Curve” (not “through Bilt”). I agree, that would indeed have been in keeping with Bilt’s points-savvy customer-friendly policies in the past. I got Bilt mainly for the points on rent, but have been warming up to their creative user engagement ideas. As one of your commenters noted earlier, its the first points card “with a unique character” in a while.
(Though I do agree with @Jose’s comment that “outsmarts” almost made it sound like you were rooting for Bilt to somehow not award double points, which made me go “hmmm” and click on the post in the first place).
Thanks, fixed my comment.
Regarding the word “outsmarts” being seen as positive: Sorry it came across that way — it wasn’t intended. Just curious, if I had posted something on a different topic like “Amex’s Rewards Abuse Team outsmarts gamers” would you have seen that as my rooting for the RAT team?
Oh, it was just a nit – don’t worry about it. Of course, I know you are not rooting for RAT or other draconian enforcement against those playing by the rules (including finding legit loopholes). I don’t have a Curve, so I probably would not have read this post but you are one of the most trusted bloggers in the points world, and the “outsmarts” headline just made me curious what your take on it was.
And to be frank, I think the Curve trick would have been unsustainable for Bilt in the long run, so I too, would rather have them control abuse in some form than stop the game altogether. A more transparent policy on Curve and a fairer 1x would have been my choice. But at least they didn’t do any clawbacks or (as you noted) shutdowns.
Oh and to answer your question (if it wasn’t meant to be rhetorical), yes, to me, even for RAT it would have come across the same way. As @Jose said, compared to a strictly-factual headline like “prevents use of”, “outsmarts” suggests a positive opinion of the outsmarter vs the outsmartee. Nothing wrong with expressing an opinion, of course (that’s what we are here to read).
It must have been a Bilt ATM Greg used in Asia the way that machine spits out his Curve card lightning fast! I love that video clip.
Glad I did not waste a card slot on a Curve card. It was tempting when this loophole looked possible.
Not an ATM machine. I tried Bilt in 3 different vending machines and every one violently spit out the card.
Bilt recently stopped awarding points for Fluz, in August I believe. They are certainly closing the windows for the winter.
I don’t use Curve but I’m unwilling to continue to use Bilt. They arbitrarily decided not to award points on legitimate purchases.
This is YMMV. Have no issues with receiving bilt points for CRV* transactions. Probably a manual block.
This is stupid! I was using Curve to send all my small and dining purchases to Bilt automatically. As I result of this change I’ll probably end up using Bilt less unfortunately.
Richard knows all too well how the hobby works, so I’m not surprised.
To me, Bilt has a good thing going. It is getting at least $60k of my spend every year due to Bilt day, which gives me 2x Hyatt. The transfer partners and occasional bonus categories help as well. I just want to make sure Richard and crew keep the company going since I’d hate to build up a Bilt balance and then have the company go the way of other fintech startups. I’m hoping Wells has enough skin in the game to keep them well capitalized.
A buddy of mine shared the curve card with me last month. I thought the same as charging one card on eating out and then moving the transactions to Bilt on the first of the month. Half way through the month I had an impression to try out the transfer before the first. Three days later and an email to customer service revealed no points are awarded through purchases of the curve card. Happy to note I only lost out on 25 points compared to 100s at the first of the month.
Good on Bilt. Pigs get fat, hogs slaughtered.
My experience with Curve is terrible, since the app somehow has been locked for 30 days, now the trifecta is gone, not sure the point of having the Curve card