Bilt’s Latest Update: What You Actually Need to Do (and Decide) 🧾💳

Bilt’s Latest Update: What You Actually Need to Do (and Decide) 🧾💳

You’ve probably seen the recent updates from Bilt. The era of effortless rent points may be winding down—though there’s still hope it’s not entirely over 🤞.

For now, if you currently have a Bilt credit card, there’s an important action item:

⏰ Choose Your Card by January 29

You must select one of the new card options in the Bilt app or at bilt.com/card.

Each card comes with different benefits and annual fees. If you’re not excited about the paid perks, the simplest move is to choose the free Bilt Blue card.

Why keep Bilt at all?

• Bilt points still transfer to American Airlines, Alaska, United, Southwest, and more ✈️

• Hotel partners include Hyatt, Marriott, and Hilton 🏨

What Happens If You Don’t Choose?

If you take no action, you’ll automatically receive the Wells Fargo Autograph card (no annual fee).

What it offers:

• ❌ Cannot be used to pay rent

• ✅ Earns 3x points on travel, dining, transit, and streaming

• ✅ Transfer points to airlines like Air France/KLM, JetBlue, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, and Iberia

Quick guidance:

• Want to stay in the Bilt ecosystem or use Bilt’s airline partners? → Choose Bilt Blue

• Prefer Wells Fargo’s airline partners or want something simpler? → Wells Fargo Autograph is fine

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If You Stick With Bilt: How Housing Rewards Will Work 🏠

After some initial confusion, Bilt clarified that you’ll have two reward options for rent or mortgage payments.

Option 1: Points on Housing

• Pay rent or mortgage with no transaction fee

• Earn up to 1.25x points on housing

• Your earn rate depends on how much non-housing spend you put on the card

Option 2: Bilt Cash + Points

• Pay rent or mortgage with no transaction fee

• Earn 4% back in Bilt Cash

• Earn points on everyday spending

• Use Bilt Cash to “buy” points on housing payments

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Important Things to Keep in Mind ⚠️

• You should continue paying rent via ACH, not floating rent on your credit card—no change there

• It’s still unclear whether Bilt Cash → points will be automatic or manual

• When prompted, always choose “no transaction fee”

• Paying a 3% processing fee is almost never worth it

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What This Looks Like in Practice (Examples)

Using an example from NerdWallet:

Example 1: $2,000 Mortgage

• Transaction fee to earn points: $60 (3%)

• If you have $60 in Bilt Cash → you earn 2,000 points

• If you only have $45 in Bilt Cash:

  • You earn points on $1,500

  • To earn the remaining 500 points, you’d need to pay $15 out of pocket

• You cannot use Bilt points to cover transaction fees

All Bilt cards earn 4% back in Bilt Cash on non-housing spend, so earning $60 in Bilt Cash would require about $1,500/month in other purchases—which is exactly the behavior Bilt is encouraging.

Example 2: $5,000 Rent or Mortgage

• Required Bilt Cash: $150

• That could mean $3,750/month in non-housing spending

• Possible? Sure—for some households. Worth it? That depends.

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One Easy Win: Rakuten + Bilt 🛍️✨

If you do any online shopping:

• Sign up for Rakuten

• Link it to your Bilt account

• Earn free Bilt points on purchases you’re already making

Right now:

• Spend $50 → get 5,000 Bilt points

• This partnership may end May 2026, so it’s worth setting up sooner rather than later

Bilt and Rakuten Team Up: More Points For You!

 

Woohoo! Great news from Bilt and Rakuten. Two big announcements: 

1. Bilt is going to make it so you can earn points and miles when you make your mortgage payment. Now that's a game changer. You can read all about how you can currently use Bilt to earn points on your rent payments. But starting in February 2026, Bilt will be offering three new credit cards. These new cards will make it so you can also earn points and miles on your mortgage payment. Since most people earn zero points on this payment now, this is huge. For most of us, it's our biggest purchase of the month. We don't know the details of the new cards yet, but we should hear in January. For existing Bilt credit card holders, Bilt says the change will be seamless. Watch for details in January. 

2. The second big announcement, Bilt is teaming up with the shopping portal, Rakuten. Instead of earning cash back with Rakuten, now you will be able to earn Bilt points specifically 1,000 points for every $10 cash back. Pretty sweet!

You will need to link your two accounts and specify Bilt as your payment preference. Cash back points will deposit quarterly into your Bilt account. The emails on both accounts must match to use this option. 

Two great announcements. If you do not have a Rakuten account yet, you can sign up here. If you use my link, when you spend $50, you will get a $50 bonus or link your Bilt account and that's 5,000 points.

 Yep, that's free money! 

Want more personal help using points and miles for almost FREE travel? Book a 1:1 consulting call, download my ebook, custom tracker or 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 coaching program. I would love to help you make priceless family memories affordable. 

*For every new client, we will donate 10% of the proceeds to one of our favorite charities. 

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 To Get Thousands of FREE Airline Miles Without Spending Extra $

I talk about shopping portals all the time because they’re one of the easiest ways to earn airline miles and hotel points on spending you’re already doing. 🛍️✈️

Today I want to show you a few real examples — plus some bonus offers that can help you stack even more points and miles.

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Rakuten is my current favorite shopping portal 💻✨

Rakuten.com has become my go-to for earning extra rewards on everyday purchases.

For example: I buy cat food from Chewy.com every few months. If I take the extra step of starting at Rakuten and then clicking through to Chewy, I’m still shopping at the exact same website — but now I earn:

• 2% cash back from Rakuten

• Plus 1x–2x points from my credit card

Chewy is listed on a bunch of shopping portals, so it’s always smart to check cashbackmonitor.com before you buy. When I checked, most portals were offering 1x points or miles at Chewy… but the Chase Freedom portal was offering 2x. 👀

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The best part: Rakuten can pay out in points 🎯

Rakuten lets you earn rewards as:

• Cash back

• American Express Membership Rewards points

• Bilt points

I linked my Rakuten account to Bilt, so every 4 months my Rakuten rewards automatically transfer into my Bilt account.

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Quick Bilt refresher (because these points are legit)

Bilt points are a newer flexible currency — similar to Chase Ultimate Rewards, Amex, Citi, and Capital One.

You can transfer Bilt points to airline and hotel partners like:

• Southwest

• Alaska

• Iberia

• Virgin

• Flying Blue (Air France/KLM)

• Hyatt

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A huge current Rakuten offer: Kraken 💰

Right now on Rakuten, the crypto platform Kraken is offering:

$150 back on a $225 deposit and purchase

If you’re earning in Bilt points, that’s essentially 15,000 Bilt points (since it transfers 1:1).

To put that into perspective:

• My last flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles cost 4,500 Alaska points

• The one before that cost 2,500 Southwest points

• And yes, I brought a companion along for free 😅

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Want to stack the deal even more? 🔥

If you open a Rakuten account using my referral link, you’ll get an extra 5,000 points after you spend $50.

So if you did the Kraken offer, you’d be looking at 20,000 Bilt points total.

And just to show how real this is: transfer those points to FlyingBlue.com and you can potentially book a one-way economy ticket on Air France from Los Angeles to Athens. Seriously.

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Not into crypto? Totally fair 😄

If crypto isn’t your thing, you can still use the referral offer and earn the bonus on a normal purchase.

I used it once to send flowers to a friend as a thank-you and earned the 5,000 points that way. You could also use it on something basic like… cat food. 🐾

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More bonus offers to earn points on everyday life ✈️🍽️🚗

United + Instacart 🛒

If you link your Instacart account with your United account and make a grocery purchase within 60 days, United will give you:

• 500 miles for free

If you’re a new Instacart customer and make 4 orders in 8 weeks, United will give you:

• 5,000 miles

I just did this and added another stack. I clicked on Rakuten.com which was offering 3x points on Instacart then placed an order with my Capital One Venture X to earn 2x points and 500 bonus United miles. Woohoo! 

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Lyft partnerships 🚙

Link your Hilton, Alaska, Bilt, or United account with Lyft and earn points every time you ride.

Prefer Uber? You can link Uber + United for extra miles too.

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Airbnb miles 🏡

• Book through Delta Airbnb to earn Delta miles

• You can also earn British Airways Avios on Airbnb stays through their earning portal

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Rental car miles 🚗

I’ve linked my Budget Rental account to my Southwest Airlines account — so every rental earns me 500 Southwest miles.

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VRBO + United 🧳

United also has a partnership with VRBO, so you can earn United miles on stays.

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Dining points through IHG + OpenTable 🍷

On the IHG website, you can access OpenTable and earn:

• 150 IHG points every time you dine out

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The takeaway

None of these require extra spending — they just require one extra click or a quick account link. And over time, these little wins can add up to real flights and hotel nights. 😎

There are even more offers like this out there, so check the websites (or social pages) for your favorite brands and see who they partner with for rewards.

Want more personal help using points and miles for almost FREE travel? Book a 1:1 consulting call, download my ebook, custom tracker or 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 coaching program. I would love to help you make priceless family memories affordable. 

*For every new client, we will donate 10% of the proceeds to one of our favorite charities.

Stack, Stack, Stack To Earn The Most Points And Miles

This is the best time of the year to earn so many extra points and miles! The secret is to stack the offers when you are doing your holiday shopping online. A few things to keep in mind, you don't have to use the credit card that matches the shopping portal. For example, you can shop in the Southwest Shopping Portal, but pay with your Capital One credit card to get 2x points. Make sense?

 I'll give you several examples that I've actually done in the past week. 

Example #1 

Southwest Shopping Portal is offering 1,000 extra points if you spend $200 in the portal. That's easy, let's stock up on pet food. 

The Southwest shopping portal is also offering 2 points per $1 spent on purchases at Chewy. Awesome. Then we pay for our purchase with Paypal and our Chase FREEDOM FLEX credit card which nets us 5x points since this card has the 5x bonus rotating categories. 

So this one pet food purchase should earn:

• 1,000 bonus Southwest points 
• 400 Southwest points 
• 1,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards 

Example #2

I was referred to Rakuten.com and bought flowers for a friend through 1-800flowers. I spent $65 on flowers, but got a FREE $50 for following the referral link plus 10% bonus cash back. Then I linked my Bilt account with my Rakuten account. Rakuten transferred more than 5,000 points into my Bilt account. You don't need a Bilt credit card, just create an account. Be sure your email is the same on both accounts. Woohoo! When I'm ready I can transfer the Bilt points to dozens of airlines or hotels like Air France, KLM, Southwest, Hyatt and more. On the first of the month, Bilt offers transfer bonuses too so I may be able to squeeze more value out of those points. 

So this flower purchase earned:

• $50 referral cash 
• 10% cash back 
• 5,500 Bilt points that I can transfer the points to dozens of airlines or hotels

Example #3

I wanted to buy a new Iphone, Capital One Shopping was offering 10% back on Apple purchases and I could pay for the phone with Paypal and my Chase FREEDOM FLEX credit card for 5x Chase Ultimate Rewards points. 

So this phone purchase earned:

• $69.90 Capital One shopping rewards which I can use to buy gift cards for stores like Home Depot, Ulta and REI.  Use this referral link and you get a FREE $40. 
• 3,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points 

To find these deals, start with cashbackmonitor.com and my new fave Rakuten.com. The $50 referral offer is still active so use my link. 

Want more personal help using points and miles for almost FREE travel? Book a 1:1 consulting call, download my ebook, custom tracker or 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 coaching program. I would love to help you make priceless family memories affordable. 

*For every new client, we will donate 10% of the proceeds to one of our favorite charities. 

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.