Great News! Bilt Adds Southwest As A Transfer Partner

 

If you are renting, you should have a Bilt credit card! You can read all about the Bilt card here. For renters, it is a no brainer way to rack up flexible points every month. Those points can be transferred just like Chase Ultimate Reward points, Citi points, Amex points and Capital One points to dozens of airlines and hotels.

Great News! Bilt Adds Southwest As A Transfer Partner

 

And now Bilt has added Southwest Airlines as one of its transfer partners. 

The only other flexible points you can transfer to Southwest Airlines are Chase Ultimate Reward points. 

The points transfer 1:1 meaning 1 Bilt point = 1 Southwest point same as Chase Ultimate Reward points to Southwest points. 

The points do not count towards the Southwest Companion Pass. 

Let's say you spend $2,500 per month on rent. If you pay your rent through the Bilt app with your Bilt credit card, you will earn $2,500 Bilt points or 2,500 Southwest points per month. You need to make at least 5 transactions per month on your Bilt credit card to qualify.  

So after three months, you would have 7,500 Bilt points which you could transfer to Southwest and use them for flights like three one way flights from San Diego to San Francisco. Now that Southwest Travel Credits expire, you should always use points to buy flights. If you use points on Southwest and cancel a flight, the points are returned to your account. Southwest points never expire. 

Want more personal help using points and miles for almost FREE travel? Join my Travel Coaching Program and we will design your personal strategy to travel for almost FREE and guide you through the process. Right now, you can use the promo code "FREETRAVEL" to get $50 off the program. I would love to help you make priceless family memories affordable. 

How You Can Earn Points When You Pay Rent

 

If you pay rent, you might want to take a look at the Bilt card. It just arrived on the market and is making earning points and miles even easier. 

Point and miles enthusiast Debbie Griffin was a guest on our February group coaching session in the Travel Coaching Program. She explained how Bilt points are flexible similar to Capital One points and Chase Ultimate Rewards. 

The list of transfer partners includes airlines and hotels like Flying Blue, IHG and Hyatt. 

There is no annual fee on the Bilt credit card. But you must make 5 purchases per month to earn points. You can earn 1x points on rent, 2x points on travel and 3x points on dining. There are also bonus earning games on the first of the month and transfer bonuses. 

Griffin just used Bilt points to book a Hyatt hotel near the Paris Airport. And she just played the games on the first of the month to earn the points.

If you decide to apply for the Bilt credit card, please use Griffin's referral link and if you want help reaching your travel goals, join my Travel Coaching Program. 

 

Another Client Success Story: Saved $400 on Last Minute Flights

A client called to ask for help because they needed to take a last minute trip to Austin, Texas, but flights cost over $400 each way. Argh. 

Let's walk through how I found last minute flights for FREE, well, $19. 😂

• My first go-to is usually google flights just to see what's available in the space. Who flies from San Francisco to Austin, Texas. In this case, we see that Frontier, Southwest, United and Alaska. Frontier charges $151 one way, but you would have an almost 10 hour layover in Denver or change planes in Atlanta. Ugh. 

• Next, we look at the Chase Travel Portal because we have a stash of flexible points due to amazing bonus offers like the 100,000 point offer on the Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card that is ending May 15th. We can get a flight on American one way for 29,546. The actual cost of the flight is $444 so this isn't bad, but can we do better?

• Next stop, seats.aero. This tool will let you know all the points flights available. The free version will show you flights 60 days out, the paid version will search out almost one year. We see that Alaska is offering flights for just 12,500 plus $19. Bam! 

Another Client Success Story: Saved $400 on Last Minute Flights

But next question, does this client have Alaska Airlines miles? Bilt just added Alaska Airlines as a transfer partner in March 2025 and this client uses his Bilt credit card to pay his rent each month. Woohoo! None of the other flexible points transfer to Alaska Airlines. 

Once the client logs into his Alaska Airlines account, he finds that he already has 7,500 miles in his account, yes! Another reason we love our personal tracker from the Almost FREE Family Travel coaching program so you can keep track of your points and miles. No surprises. 

Another Client Success Story: Saved $400 on Last Minute Flights

The client transferred just 5,000 points from his Bilt account to Alaska Airlines and booked the flight for 12,500 and $18 taxes. Wow! 

That's how we do it here and that's why we love flexible points. 

Want more personal help using points and miles for almost FREE travel? Join my Travel Coaching Program and we will design your personal strategy to travel for almost FREE and guide you through the process. Right now, you can use the promo code "FREETRAVEL" to get $50 off the program. 

Or you can book a consulting call with us for just $100. I would love to help you make priceless family memories affordable. 

***In honor of every new paid client, we will make a donation of 10% to one of our favorite charities. 

How to easily find available award space

 

In our travel coaching program, we are actually finding that most people are very good at earning points and miles. It's the spending that is hard. 

Trying to figure out how to use the points and miles gets overwhelming. 

Trying to figure out where the best deals are and how to transfer those flex points is difficult. 

But now there are several FREE services out there that can help. Joining our travel coaching program is another way to get support and you can read about that here. 

How to easily find available award space

We are going to focus on three FREE services: Roame, Points Path and Points Yeah.  Roame and Points Yeah have a paid membership level as well where you get more information. Points Path says a paid service is coming soon. 

Points Yeah and Roame are website platforms and Points Path is an extension that works with google.com/flights. I decided to test the different platforms by entering the same search criteria on all three platforms. I entered LAX to Rome in economy for 1 person departing around October 15th. 

Once you download the Points Path extension, it automatically shows results when you search with google flights. For this search, it found the lowest mile redemption as a Lufthansa/United flight for 43,900 and $45 which it classified as a "great deal".  Many airlines are not working with Points Path yet so it feels a bit limiting. 

Roame is a search tool. I entered the LAX to Rome flight and it gave me 5 possible flight redemptions. It found an American Airlines flight for 26,500 miles and $5.60 taxes. Pretty good deal! It also found United Airlines, Jet Blue, Delta and Alaska flights for varying numbers of miles. I also like that Roame displays the transfer partners like American Express, Chase Ultimate Rewards and Marriott Bonvoy. But it is missing Bilt and Capital One. 

Points Yeah is the most interesting to me. It gave results for Flying Blue which we are finding has great deals right now. It also managed to find an American Airlines flight for just 19,000 miles and $5.60 in taxes. Wow. I actually thought this was a mistake, but Points Yeah prompted me to book the flight on the American Airlines website and there it was. 

I also like that Points Yeah includes Bilt and Capital One in its transfer list. It does not include Marriott Bonvoy though. 

How to easily find available award space

Bottom line, these three platforms can help you figure out how to spend your points and miles to get the best value. 

If you prefer personal and custom help reaching your travel goals, consider joining my travel coaching program and let's work together.  

 

How to Witness the Northern Lights Using Points and Miles

 

If seeing the Northern Lights is on your bucket list, then you have come to the right place to find out how to use points and miles to make that dream happen. 

Recently, I went to Lapland Finland north of the Artic Circle in hopes of seeing the Aurora. Fortunately, we were able to see the lights twice during our 5 days in Lapland. 

The lights dance in the sky and the colors are barely visible with the naked eye. But their vibrant greens, reds and purples show themselves in the camera. 

So if this is on your bucket list, let's talk about how to use points and miles to get there. 

How to Witness the Northern Lights Using Points and Miles

First, the Northern Lights are visible in Alaska, Canada, Iceland, Sweden, Norway and Finland. Occasionally they are visible further south, but you can't count on it. And some people have actually seen them from the airplane, but again, you can't plan for that. You will also want to be in the area for at least 4-5 nights to have a good chance for clear skies. 

You can download the Aurora app which will notify you when there is a chance to see the lights in your area. 

The lights are visible from October through March. 

For our trip, we flew Finnair from LAX to Helsinki and then caught a second Finnair flight to Ivalo Airport in Lapland. You can also fly to Rovaniemi in Lapland. Finnair joined the Avios loyalty program in March 2024. Avios is the loyalty program for British Airways, Iberia, Qatar and Aer Lingus. Right now, you can apply for the Chase British Airways, Iberia or Aer Lingus credit cards and earn the 75,000 Avios bonus offer. But we have seen it as high as 100,000 Avios. 

Finnair is also a partner with American Airlines so you can book with American Airlines miles and a transfer partner with Capital One. 

The easiest way to earn American Airlines miles is by applying for the Barclays American Aviator Mastercard. It comes with a 50,000 American mile bonus after just one purchase and the $99 annual fee. I have seen this offer as high as a 70,000 bonus.  

How to Witness the Northern Lights Using Points and Miles

Of course, you can also fly to Fairbanks, Alaska to see the lights via Alaska Airlines, American and Delta. Bilt Rewards also offers transfers to American and Alaska Airlines. 

Once you are in the area, there are hotels built to see the lights featuring igloos like this one at the Northern Lights Village in Lapland so you can stay toasty warm and watch the lights dance outside. There are also Northern Lights tours. You could book this hotel through the Chase Travel Portal. A random check of rooms available April 12-14 would cost $316 per night or 46,312 Chase Ultimate Reward points with the Sapphire Reserve. Not too bad. 

If you head to Fairbanks, Alaska, you can find all the major hotel chains there including Marriott, Hyatt, Hilton and Wyndham. If you want the igloo experience, you can try the Borealis Base Camp for a pricey $990 per person for two nights. 

Other activities in Finland while you are waiting for the lights to appear include visiting a reindeer farm, snowshoe, sauna and driving a dog sled team. 

Seeing the Northern Lights is one of those bucket list experiences that is within reach with points and miles. As with all travel, if you want it almost FREE, you need to make a plan, plan early and be strategic. If you want help with this, join my Travel Coaching Program, it's affordable and I'll support you every step of the way so you can travel for almost FREE too. 

Have Southwest Flight Credits? Stop Giving Southwest Your Money

 

I met with a client recently who asked me why Southwest Airlines charged her 23,000 points and $185 for a round trip flight from San Diego to Phoenix. She logged into her account so we could investigate and I noticed she had $1,372 in flight credits on Southwest. 

So now I was wondering "why was she giving Southwest any money at all?"

First, let's look at how she accumulated so many travel credits in the first place. 

How do you get travel credits on Southwest?

When you buy a flight with cash as opposed to points on Southwest and then cancel that flight, Southwest does not return your funds to your credit card instead it issues you a travel credit. 

If the price of your flight goes down and you change the flight to get the better fare, if you paid with cash, then you would get a travel credit for the difference.

Have Southwest Travel Credits? Stop Giving Southwest Your Money 

If you click on the "my account" tab inside your Southwest online account and scroll all the way to the bottom you will see your flight credits. If you always fly using points like I do, you will have no flight credits. 

But if you pay cash for flights and cancel, you will see this.

Most of the time, flight credits are not transferable which means they must be used by the same passenger as the original ticketed passenger. And starting May 28th 2025, travel credits will expire in 6-12 months depending on the type of fare. 

Have Southwest Flight Credits? Stop Giving Southwest Your Money 

If you have flight credits, then you should use them. Definitely stop giving Southwest your money and buying flights with cash. Even if you have points, use your travel credits first since you can use points for anyone and you can only use flight credits for the original passenger. 

To use flight credits, when you get to the payment section for your flight, scroll down and click apply flight credits. You will need your confirmation number which is a jumble of numbers and letters listed in the flight credits section of "my account." You can use several flight credits to pay for single flight.  

In the future, always use points to book Southwest flights. That's why we love flexible points like Chase Ultimate Rewards and Bilt points. You can transfer those to Southwest 1:1 if you need more Southwest points. If you book with points, you will never be stuck with those pesky flight credits. 

Want more personal help using points and miles for almost FREE travel? Join my Travel Coaching Program and we will design your personal strategy to travel for almost FREE and guide you through the process. Right now, you can use the promo code "FREETRAVEL" to get $50 off the program. I would love to help you make priceless family memories affordable.