(EXPIRED) Bilt’s Rent Day March Madness 2024 bracket

Bilt is out with its latest Rent Day promotion for March 2024 and it’s certainly a unique way to run a Rent Day promotion (if a bit gimmicky): They’ve set out a number of benefit options in a playoff-style “Bilt Bracket”, with members voting daily from today through February 29th to pick the March 1, 2024 Rent Day benefit. In an interesting twist, members with high level Bilt Rewards elite status may end up with both the eventual winning benefit and the runner up. This won’t be anything nearly as exciting as the transfer bonuses we saw in January and February, but depending on the winning option it could end up being marginally interesting. Along with the clearly March Madness-inspired Bilt Bracket, members will have a chance to redeem points for NCAA tournament tickets on March 1st.

The Deal

• Bilt Rewards is offering a “Bilt Bracket” promotion for the March 2024 Rent Day whereby members will view potential Rent Day benefits in a bracket format and vote on the winners from each “round” today, tomorrow, Wednesday, and Thursday of this week (2/26 through 2/29/24) to choose the eventual main Rent Day benefits for March 1, 2024.
• Bilt Blue + Bilt Silver members will get the winning offer from the bracket.
• Bilt Platinum and Bilt Gold embers will get the winning offer as well as the runner-up offer.
• Direct link to this deal

The Bilt Bracket contenders

Beginning today, Bilt Rewards members can participate in a “Bilt Bracket” whereby members will select their favorite benefits. The voting starts today with 8 head-to-head matchups for a total of 16 starting offers. Tomorrow, 8 benefits will advance to the next round — with a final four benefits left on February 28th and the championship being decided by votes on February 29th.

The starting 16 benefits options, one of which will be chosen by members as the Rent Day benefit for March 1, 2024 are:

1. 50% off the Bilt Collection: Get 50% off any purchase of a piece from the Bilt Collection catalog of art, decor, and apparel on March 1st.
2. Triple the number of Rent Free winners: Bilt will triple the number of winners that can receive free rent after playing Rent Free.
3. 15X on activities through the Bilt Travel Portal: Earn 15X points when you book activities through the Bilt Travel Portal on the Bilt app or website on March 1st (up to 15k points).
4. 15X on car rentals through the Bilt Travel Portal: Earn 15X points when you book car rentals through the Bilt Travel Portal on the Bilt app or website on March 1st (up to 15k points)
5. 15X on hotels booked through the Bilt Travel Portal: Earn 15X points when you book a hotel through the Bilt Travel Portal on the Bilt app or website on March 1st (up to 30k points)
6. 15X at Bilt Dining restaurants: Earn 15X points at Bilt Dining restaurants using any linked debit or credit card on March 1st (up to 15k points)
7. 15X on Lyft Rideshare: Earn 15X points on all Lyft rides taken on March 1st (up to 5k points)
8. 10X on all Bilt Neighborhood Rewards Spend: Earn 10X points when you book at Bilt Neighborhood Rewards partners. This includes local dining, rideshare, and fitness classes (up to 10k points)
9. Redeem points on rent and get an extra 1,000 points: Bilt will match your points when you redeem 1,000 points on your rent payment for March (Min 1k redemption)
10. Get up to an extra 20,000 points when redeeming for a down payment: Bilt will match your points when you redeem points for a down payment for a house on March 1st (up to 20,000 points, Min 1k redemption)
11. Claim a free SoulCycle class: Bilt Members will get a free SoulCycle class that can be claimed when purchasing a class on March 1st.
12. Earn 1,000 Bilt Points when you link a card to your Bilt account: Earn 1,000 points when you link any valid debit or credit card to your account in the Cards tab on March 1st (up to 2,000 total points)
13. 20X on Soulcycle classes booked through the Bilt app: Earn 20X points when you book SoulCycle classes (cap of 5 classes)
14. Triple points on correct Point Quest answers: Earn triple points when you answer correctly on Bilt’s monthly trivia, Points Quest. That’s up to 750 points.
15. Bilt Mastercard® only: 10X at gas stations: Earn 10X at the pump when you use your Bilt Mastercard® (up to 2,000 points)
16. Bilt Mastercard® only: 5X at grocery stores: Earn 5X on groceries when you use your Bilt Mastercard® at checkout (up to 2,000 points)

I’m not wildly excited about any of those Rent Day benefits and I can’t imagine going out of my way to use any of them. I guess my favored options would be 15x on activities or hotels booked through Bilt given the fact that 15x Bilt points might outpace the possible savings of booking through other means (and would almost surely do so if you’re able to then take your 15x earnings and leverage them with a big transfer bonus on the future). I wouldn’t feel the same about car rentals since I imagine that the 15x may not be enough to mitigate the price difference when booking through other channels.

I predict a low-value option like getting a 1,000-point match from Bilt when redeeming your points for rent making it farther than I would ever expect. I don’t imagine that the cardholder options like 10x gas or 5x grocery will make it to the end — and even if they did, the very low caps (at only 2,000 points) make the bonuses there pretty pedestrian (and those two options face off in Round 1!).

I find the whole thing creative, but probably a bit gimmicky and overly complex for the average member to get too highly engaged. The expectation that members are going to remember to vote multiple times over successive days seems a bit unrealistic, but at the same time I could imagine the data regarding which members engage and which benefits seem to excite them is probably valuable for Bilt.

I’m throwing down votes for 15x on hotels and 15x activities booked through the Bilt portal (though with 15x Bilt Dining matched up against activities in Round 1, I’m not even sure my pick there will make it to Round 2). The rest of the matchups aren’t terribly important to me either way.

Redeem Bilt points for NCAA Men’s Sweet 16, Elite Eight, and Final Four games

Bilt Rewards will be offering the chance to redeem points for Men’s NCAA basketball tournament tickets for the Sweet 16, Elite Eight, and Final Four rounds in Dallas, Detroit, Boston, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. Tickets are said to start at 15,000 Bilt points each (with more detail regarding the exact games and details expected in the Bilt app this morning).

Tickets will be available to claim in the Bilt app starting at 12pm Eastern time on March 1, 2024 based on a member’s Bilt Rewards elite status:

• Platinum Status Members will have first access at 12:00pm ET 
• Gold Status Members will unlock early access at 12:30pm ET 
• Silver Status Members receive access at 1:00pm ET 
• Blue Status Members will receive access at 1:30pm ET

I imagine that the most desirable tickets will go in the first round for Platinum members. I’d be surprised if we see tickets available beyond the Gold status level, but I have no idea how many packages will be available.

It’s worth noting that Capital One also had cardholder exclusive tickets to both the men’s and women’s NCAA tournaments last year (and I could imagine the Caitlin Clark effect making the women’s event a hotter ticket this year). If you have Capital One miles, it might be worth keeping an eye on their cardholder exclusives as well.

Bottom line

The March 2024 Rent Day promotion will unsurprisingly be far less interesting to rewards enthusiasts than the January and February Rent Day transfer bonuses. That said, I wouldn’t have expected yet another 75-150% transfer bonus — and for those of us who took advantage of the January or February bonuses, that isn’t necessarily bad news (I’d like a chance to build back a balance of points before they offer a big bonus again!). This Rent Day bonus is member-driven. While I think it’s a tall ask for people to vote daily for four straight days, I’d encourage folks to vote since Bilt is likely collecting data on which benefits matter most to members and which ones motivate people to vote more than others. For that reason, I’ll make it a point to throw in votes each day even though I may not take full advantage of the Rent Day bonus this time around.

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