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?
Bilt Rewards points are transferable to many airline and hotel partners. Below you’ll find a complete list of Bilt transfer partners as well as quick tips for best uses.
Tips
Don’t transfer yet: Don’t transfer until high value awards are available and you are ready to book them. Transfers are one-way only.
Your Bilt miles may be more valuable as-is: If you find cheap airfare, it’s likely that it would cost you fewer Bilt Rewards points to pay for the flight through Bilt’s online booking portal, where you can get 1.25c er point in value.
Beware of transfer minimums: Most programs allow transfers in increments of 1,000 points, but Bilt offers transfers in increments of 2,000 for base-level Blue members.
How to transfer: Within the Bilt app, go to the “Travel” tab and scroll to Bilt Loyalty Partners. Select a program, link, and transfer points.
Current Transfer Bonuses
If Bilt Rewards is running any transfer bonuses, details will appear here:
Transfer Bonus Details | End Date |
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) |
Bilt Transfer Partners: 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) |
These tools need a review but this superficial glossover isn’t it. . Try to use point.me with your own mile inventory entered. It will fail on searches so much as to be useless. The software is simply a mass of bugs (and shows no signs of improving after a year or more).
Haven’t seen any mention of it yet, but I do want to confirm I successfully received 1x points for rent paying my landlord through Venmo ($3000). Points deposited within a few days. I wasn’t brave enough to test on a small transaction to see how they would police it, though.
Another question I had was whether the 5 required transactions are per statement or per calendar month. So far I’m just trying to do per calendar month, and I haven’t noticed any issues.
Think it actually is statement month. Looked it up after I got my card.
Thanks for the DP, but it’s not surprising that Venmo works. Venmo is listed as an eligible way to pay rent on their website.
Hey Nick, I’m wondering about your thoughts on transferring from Bilt before it possibly gets nerfed? Say to a high-value partner like Hyatt.
I kind of feel like Bilt is too good to last without some negative changes.