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Here’s a random thought. You know the latest Bilt Rent Day promo offering up to 150% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic? If you qualify for that 150% bonus, then you could use that promo to turn each of your Bilt points into 3.75 Hilton points via a little points-alchemy. Is that a good idea? Probably not for most people, but it could be good for those who have much more use for hotel points than airline miles.
As a reminder, with Bilt’s Rent Day Promo for August 1st 2023, Bilt members will get a transfer bonus of up to 150% when they transfer points to Virgin Atlantic (on that day only). Each member’s transfer bonus depends upon their Bilt elite status:
- Blue members – 75% bonus
- Silver members – 100% bonus
- Gold members – 125% bonus
- Platinum members – 150% transfer bonus
If you have Bilt Platinum status, then 100,000 Bilt points transferred to Virgin Atlantic on Rent Day will result in a total of 250,000 Virgin Atlantic miles. That’s incredible. And most people should stop there.
If you don’t have much use for airline miles and you’re really into hotel points, though, you could take advantage of the fact that Virgin Atlantic allows converting miles to Hilton points at a ratio of 2 to 3. Every 10,000 Virgin Atlantic points become 15,000 Hilton points. So that means that 250,000 Virgin Atlantic miles can be converted into 375,000 Hilton points.
The above conversions, overall, result in a 1 to 3.75 conversion ratio from Bilt to Hilton:
- Bilt to Virgin transfer ratio on August 1 for Platinum members: 1 to 2.5
- Virgin Atlantic transfer ratio to Hilton: 1 to 1.5
- Overall transfer ratio of Bilt to Hilton (with the above assumptions): 1 to 3.75
This is not a recommendation. This is simply the type of nerdy thing I like to ponder 😉
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With the latest BILT changes would you say this is dead due to the limited amount of points you can get during rent day using those multipliers?
The idea would still work if they ever bring back a 150% transfer bonus, but yeah its much harder now to earn big numbers of points.
Nerds rule!
Thx for the thought experiment
I love these hypothetical. Here is another. If I did my math correctly, you could use 128k BILT points for a 5 night stay at Conrad Maldives using this alchemy.
Wow. It’s amazing to think of it that way.
Good to know! Covid still a reality for some of us( age, medical issues) and I’m not sure how I will use the miles in my Virgin Atlantic account from cancelled ANA first class flight. Hilton points would be way better than nothing.
This is timely post for me as I’m pondering this for an NYC Hilton award stay soon. I just need a few more points so I’m considering transferring just a few Bilt points to Hilton in exactly the way you laid out.
I know these posts are all hypothetical but it is really a lot of spend on a Bilt card to get to platinum. I pay $3,600 a month on rent and do a lot of restaurant spend on my Bilt card and barely got to Gold last year. I would venture that less than 1 in 30,000 Bilt card holders is platinum
Just think – if your rent went up to 8400 dollars, you would effectively be platinum.
It would be a lot for a single person but not so hard to achieve for a couple living in NYC plus some other spend.
“Overall transfer ratio of Bilt to Virgin Atlantic” – did you mean to Hilton?
Yes, good catch. Fixed.
Mahali Mzuri sounds like a more exciting redemption, but I always like the way you think!
And nerdy things to ponder is exactly the reason why FM is my favorite points-and-miles blog!