On Monday, July 1, for that day only, Bilt will be offering up to a 100% transfer bonus to Alaska Mileage Plan. That’s awesome. Yes, I know that previous Bilt transfer bonuses have been up to 150% but that has been for programs where there are plenty of other ways to get the miles. Don’t get me wrong, 150% transfer bonuses to Air Canada Aeroplan, Air France/KLM Flying Blue, Emirates Skywards, and Virgin Atlantic Flying Club were amazing. But with each of those programs, there are several transferable points programs that support them so if you have transferable points, it’s possible to get those points when you need them. Alaska Mileage Plan is different. Bilt is the only program that transfers 1 to 1 to Alaska. And so a transfer bonus of up to 100% is very exciting.
Up to 100% transfer bonus
The transfer bonus in effect on July 1 2024 depends on your Bilt elite status:
- Platinum: 100%
- Gold: 75%
- Silver: 50%
- Blue: 25%
There is a limit of 50,000 Bilt points per member that will qualify for the transfer bonus.
Alaska miles are extremely valuable
Alaska recently overhauled their award charts. In the process we lost some amazing but very specific sweet-spots, but gained many more practical great uses:
- Short flights and flights in economy from 4.5K
- Europe in business from the North/East Coast from 45K
- Middle East and Africa in business class from 55K
- Icelandair “business class” from 30K
- LATAM business class to South America from 35K
- Business class to New Zealand from 75K
- Long, quirky routes to/from Asia/South America in business
- Singapore Air to Asia from 85K
Currently Alaska awards are still hampered by an old rule where we can’t include multiple Alaska partners on one award. However, Alaska has promised to change that in late 2024. At that point I believe that Alaska Mileage Plan will become one of the most useful programs around. This is especially true since Alaska allows a free stopover on one-way awards and free changes and cancellations.
My Platinum Bilt strategy
I earned Bilt Platinum status last year under the old rules. It used to be that if you earned 100,000 points in a year you would get top-tier Platinum status. Now you need to earn 200,000 points or spend $50K on your Bilt Mastercard. Thanks to Bilt’s occasional huge transfer bonuses, I decided that it was worth it to keep Platinum status and so my plan for 2024 was to spend at least $4,200 per month on the card in order to get in the $50K spend for the year.
My specific approach to meet my monthly spend targets is to make $5,000 in Kiva loans on the first of each month. The reason for doing this on the first of the month is that Bilt doubles all rewards earned from spend on the first of the month (with a max of 10,000 bonus points). I also use the card heavily at restaurants on the first of each month (since those charges earn 6x on that day). For example, at a local favorite restaurant, I’ve been known to buy gift cards for myself on the first of the month.
With Kiva loans, I’m nearing a state of equilibrium where I loan $5K per month and get back (nearly) $5K per month from older loans. In a perfect system I’d have less than half of my annual contributions tide up in Kiva loans at any one time and zero loan defaults. In that perfect system, using a 2% cash back card would be like earning 4% back on long term savings. That’s not particularly good given today’s interest rates. But in this case, I’m earning 2x Bilt points rather than 2% back. And if I always take advantage of 100% or better transfer bonuses, and if I value airline miles at only a penny each, that’s more like 8% back. Now we’re talking. In reality, my amount tied up is considerably less than expected, but of course I also have some defaulted loans. I *think* it all still works in my favor, but I’m not really concerned. I believe that making Kiva loans is a very good thing on its own and so even if I’m losing out financially, I’m OK with that. For details, see: Why I love Kiva for earning rewards and doing good.
With the Bilt card it’s also necessary to use the card 5 times per billing cycle in order to earn rewards from spend. I generally do that each month by selecting Bilt when making small Apple Pay purchases throughout the month, usually at restaurants or coffee shops. I do that mostly with smaller purchases because I have other cards that earn more points than Bilt (except on Rent Day). By limiting my spend to smaller purchases, the rewards lost by not using more rewarding cards is extremely small. If I somehow fail to make 5 purchases, I’ll simply do a few $5 Amazon gift card reloads.
All in on Alaska
As I write this, my Bilt balance is at just over 53,000 points. If the Alaska transfer bonus was uncapped, I’d try to earn more points in the morning on July 1 and I’d transfer all of my points by the end of the day. However, since the bonus is capped at 50,000 points, I’ll simply transfer exactly that amount. It’s so close to going all-in on Alaska.
For the record, when Bilt offered Platinum Elites a 150% transfer bonus to Air France KLM Flying Blue on January 1st of this year, I went all in on that. And then when they offered 150% to Air Canada Aeroplan on Feb 1, I went all in with the Bilt points I had collected since the Flying Blue transfer. In other words, up until now, I’ve traded my Bilt points 1 to 2.5 for airline miles (Flying Blue and Aeroplan). Now I’m going to trade them 1 to 2 to Alaska. That’s crazy good!
Going Forward
When March, April, May, and June Rent Day promos came and went without transfer bonuses, I started to worry that my Platinum strategy (spending at least $4,200 per month on the Bilt card) wasn’t such a great idea after all. But with this transfer bonus, I’m feeling confident about the strategy again. I have no way of knowing how often great transfer bonuses will become available, but even with just one or two great ones per year, I’ll be happy enough. We’ll see!
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So what’s your plan for status now that rent day bonus is capped at 1k?
thanks for the reminder about Kiva here! It’s been a few years since I’ve used Kiva regularly and I had totally forgotten about it, but it’s a great way to generate Bilt points. Going too start using it today, since I recently got a Bilt card for P2
Thanks for replying, Greg. Just curious…Did anyone happen to do the 10K BILT/Alaska Airlines Status Match on July 1, 2024? Just wondering if anyone was credited any BONUS miles on the 10K?
Hey, Greg. I have BILT Gold status. If I wait until July 1, 2024 to transfer the 10K BILT points to Alaska Airlines to take advantage of the BILT/Alaska Status match, will I get the 75% (BILT Gold) transfer bonus since I’m transferring points on July 1, 2024 during the RENT DAY PROMO?
No, for the status match you need to go to a special page to do that transfer and those points will not be bonused
I never got the bilt card…as someone who lives in an AA hub (PHL) I’m finding Alaska often the best way to book (tho unsure about how to get my AA number on the booking these days)
How can we calculate whether it’s worth a 5/24 slot for this card? It’s just tough to swallow w/no SUB
You actually can’t add your AA number. New Alaska policy.
I heard it was possible through making booking as “new” person and then adding # later in the app, is this no longer possible?
Don’t know about that. Just know it was in the blogs a few months ago that they wouldn’t let you switch loyalty programs after you make a redemption.
Have AA PNR from Alaska redemption and DM AA twitter team to get it added. Easy peasy!
It’s interesting that the negative commentary about Bilt (which, for some reason, is the program lots of people love to hate) has gone from “they’re too cheap, no one will ever sign up for such a worthless program” to “they’re too generous, nothing this good can ever last”.
lol
Greg I doubt you rent, how to you MS Bilt points?
I don’t MS Bilt points, I Kiva them. See details in the post.
Is Kiva a quintessential form of MS?
If he last went all-in on Feb 1 and he now has 53k pts, then it’s mostly the 10k/mo from Kiva loans plus 6x restaurant spend. Kiva loans explains 40k so not like 13k is huge MS.
Yep 13K is very believable as zero MS in four months. With Bilt earning 3X dining $1K a month in dining for four months is… 12K points. Plus Greg mentioned front loading some local restaurant gift cards for 6X.
Ha Ha, this is why WF are losing $10m a month. Despite Bilt promising the sun, moon and stars to WF, all they have delivered are maximisers like Greg who are only using the card on these money losing (for the bank) transactions.
No way this is going to last, good move to cash out while you can.
Bilt Rewards Inc is the entity fulfilling point obligations to the cardholder, not WF. Bilt Rewards Inc. is FLUSH WITH CASH and is unlikely to not fulfill points obligations to cardholders. Reconsider your logic.
Well, if you feel that the reported $10mm per month loss is threatening anyone’s financial stability, I’d say it would be a good time to close all your Wells Fargo bank and investment accounts, as well as any non-Bilt Wells Fargo credit cards you have.
Bilt itself is in fine shape at least through 2029 (although it would probably behoove them to make peace with their bank, which they could do by tightening up their “other spend” requirements slightly for people to be eligible for points on rent).
All this does is get AS points for much less than usual
Usual spend on Bilt costs 2.625c @ 1x in lost cash
Rent Day spend on Bilt 2x = 1.325c
Add in this bonus at 100% = now you are talking AS miles for 0.6625c
Well worth a speculative transfer. AS sells miles fo 1.9c or so = this is 1/3 the cost
Bingo.
In the past, I bought hotel gift cards on Rent Day. 2X became 4X. And, with prior transfer bonuses 4X became 10X . . . without going through a travel portal to get that 10X . . . and using those gift cards directly with the hotels . . . and still earning hotel loyalty program points.
Unimaginative hobbyists don’t see the possibilities and roundly criticize Bilt. And, when presented with opportunities, they dig in their heels. Their loss. My wife and I have over 2 million EXTRA points in airline loyalty programs relative to those had we used Amex or Chase (with their earn rates and transfer bonuses) for certain purchases.
My main reason for diving into AS is cheap economy flights on Cathay Pacific economy that once consistently give me above 2.5 cpp. After the major increase in miles required from 30k to 42.5k one way it has became more expensive than Cathay itself (miles wise) which has much better availability. My family is not flexible in destination due to language barrier and visa requirements. AS has lost 80% of attravtivenss to us until we can figure out the layover stuff which never worked as advertised for our Cathay Pacific/Alaska redemptions in the past.
Would you make a speculative transfer to Alaska if you currently don’t have plans to use the miles? It feels like this bonus is tied to the new partnership and that even if there will be a bonus to Alaska in the future, it won’t be as high.
Yes, a speculative transfer is exactly what I’m doing. With huge transfer bonuses, I’m happy to gamble on programs that I find to be generally very useful as long as they don’t have draconian point expiration rules. My short list of programs that I’ll speculatively transfer to are: Avios, Alaska, Aeroplan, Flying Blue. I’d add AA to the list, but I don’t expect to ever see a transfer bonus to AA (especially since no one transfers to them 1 to 1 anymore anyway!)
In addition to the Bilt Rent Day transfer, I am planning to challenge Alaska MVP Gold 75k status with my Delta Diamond status.
Q: to requalify on Alaska by flying 20,000 base miles, can I use my new Bilt-boosted Alaska points that I transfer in, or do I have to pay with Uncle Sam USD’s?
I believe that Alaska requires cash tickets to meet their challenge
The problem is finding any use for Alaska miles. I’m sitting on a ton of miles because it has gotten incredibly difficult to get anything of value. The loss of Emirates eliminated the best use for these miles. Ever since KLM/AF was forced to cut ties with AS, the premium options to Europe have been terrible unless flying direct to hubs like Helsinki with Finnair. They’re not allowing booking on Icelandair “premium economy” because they haven’t sorted the technological issues yet. BA is a non-starter with their ridiculous fees. Asia was always the sweet spot with AS miles but now JAL rarely releases premium awards through AS, Cathay is seemingly non-existent, etc. I’d be curious how people are actually getting benefits these days from AS miles because I’m having a tough time, so either the options don’t fit with my needs or there truly isn’t good value to be had these days.
2 other AS partner award options to Europe are Aer Lingus through Dublin and Condor through Frankfurt. Neither airline will win any awards for their business class experience, but the prices are decent with AS miles.
I’ve had the opposite problem. I had a big pile of Alaska miles for many years and I never found a good use for them (I’m sure that would have been different if I was west-coast based), but in the last year or so I’ve been using them like crazy.
I just never find available awards from SFO………..
Curious what you have used them on? As a Detroit flyer myself like you Greg, I’m debating the speculative transfer (Silver on Bilt), but not sure what routes make sense. Europe? Domestic AA? Thanks for any input
They are great for south America on Latam.
I completely disagree and have made the following redemptions:
SEA-NRT, three week stopover, KIX-BKK on JAL for 62.5 miles, September 2023
AKL-NAN, one week stopover, NAN-LAX on Fiji Air for 55k miles, March 2024. Eat your heart out Nick Reyes! Also, don’t go to Fiji in March. Just don’t!
MSP-FRA on Condor for 55k miles, August 2024
LAX-LIM, two week stopover, LIM-SCL on Latam for 45k miles, December 2024.
All biz class except for LIM-SCL leg. Love the stopovers. I realize there are recent devaluations and the first two flights are higher now.
It’s probably because I’m in an AA hub, but I see random times Alaska provides better pricing for the same partners or trips than AA and wish I just had their miles lying around. One that came up recently when checking for fun on the Conrad Bora Bora availability – Alaska can book Air Tahiti Nui for 60K one way in lie-flat business out of LAX or SEA with pretty decent award availability. Same flights are 80K with AA miles. That’s pretty close to the best pricing for Tahiti from the US, booking United out of SFO with Aeroplan or Lifemiles can come in slightly cheaper but it’s much harder to find award space.
My guess is this will be the last of the great bonuses since there has been nothing for months and this was just because Alaska recently became a partner. I expect it to be quite after this.
The alaska search engine leaves something to be desired, but it’s been great for AA First Class. If you don’t use your BoA Alaska card for a while they’ll give you some bonuses. I once got a bonus of 3x miles for all spend. I managed to spend $450k on that card to get to 1.35M Alaska Miles and have been slowly burning them down.