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Today, Bilt Rewards just added two new transfer partners: United MileagePlus and Cathay Pacific Asia Miles. These new transfer partners offer 1:1 transfers for your Bilt Rewards points and bring some nice redemption opportunities to the table.
Here's how they boost the Bilt Rewards program and how they can up your travel game.
Quick Recap on Bilt Rewards
If you aren't familiar with Bilt Rewards, that's OK. Bilt recently launched as a service for paying your monthly rent without the fees typically associated with paying by credit card. Since rent is one of the biggest bills renters pay each month, why not earn rewards points from these payments? That's the concept of Bilt, and Bilt Rewards are the points you earn from things like rent payments, using Bilt's credit card, etc.
Related: How Does Bilt Stack Up for Earning Rewards by Paying Rent?
Bilt Adds United and Asia Miles as Transfer Partners
With the two newest transfer partners — United MileagePlus and Cathay Pacific Asia Miles — Bilt Rewards has grown to 11 transfer partners. (Editor Note: Since this post was published, Bilt Rewards added three more partners. See an updated list of partners below.)
Points transfer to all 14 partners at a 1:1 transfer ratio. Most of the transfers occur immediately, with “a few hours” as the longest most people wait.
- Aer Lingus AerClub (added in August 2022)
- American Airlines AAdvantage
- Air Canada Aeroplan
- Air France / KLM Flying Blue
- British Airways Executive Club (added in August 2022)
- Cathay Pacific Asia Miles (added in March 2022)
- Emirates Skywards
- HawaiianMiles
- Iberia Plus (added in August 2022)
- IHG One Rewards
- Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles
- United Mileage Plus (added in March 2022)
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
- World of Hyatt
If you want to learn more about these programs, just click on the program name above to read more about them.
What United Adds to the Mix
United MileagePlus is a member of Star Alliance — which includes airlines like Lufthansa, Avianca, SWISS, Singapore Airlines, and more. That means you can use Bilt's transfer partners here to send points to United and book award flights on these other airlines. United is the third Star Alliance partner for Bilt, joining Turkish Airlines and Air Canada on that list.
United is a program that doesn't have an official award chart, but we've compiled an unofficial award chart. There are some great sweet spots for United award redemptions. Two of my favorites include 60,000 miles for business class flights between the U.S. and Europe and partner awards between Europe and Central Asia (25,000 economy, 40,000 business class).
Then there's the Excursionist Perk. You can add a free flight when booking a round-trip or open jaw award itinerary, as long as you meet a few simple rules. The craziest part is that the “free” leg doesn't need to have anything to do with your other flights. Book a round-trip to your cousin's wedding in 3 months, add a free leg from one island in Hawaii to another that you'll use for your Christmas vacation!
Related: How to Redeem United Miles for Maximum Value
What Asia Miles Adds to the Mix
Cathay Pacific — of which Asia Miles is the loyalty program — is a member of Oneworld alliance with airlines like American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, British Airways, Qatar, Iberia, Qantas, and others. That means you can transfer your points 1:1 from Bilt to Asia Miles for bookings on these partners. This is the second Oneworld transfer parter for Bilt, joining American Airlines on that list.
Asia Miles uses a distance-based award chart and also has miles+cash booking options. Great redemption options with Asia Miles include North America to the Middle East on Royal Jordanian (40,000 miles economy, 75,000 miles business class) and North America to South Africa or Oceania for 85,000 miles in business class.
Two more great things about using Asia Miles: first, you get increased access to award flights on Cathay Pacific that aren't shared with partners; second, round-the-world tickets. Asia Miles offers a great combination of price, relaxed rules, and booking options if you are interested in round-the-world tickets. Read more about those here.
Our Take
Bilt launched with a novel idea and has consistently improved on it. Earlier this year, we reported on the Bilt app adding real-time flight award searches within the app for some of its partners. Now, Bilt added two more transfer partners in United Mileage Plus and Asia Miles. These further expand the options for using your points and frankly make your points more valuable.
If you weren't interested in paying your rent with Bilt previously, do these new partners change your view?
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Is it possible to use Bilt to pay for things other than rent? Or to set up an account to use as a transfer point? Like as a way of combining points from various programs?
Unfortunately you can only transfer points from Bilt to its transfer partners – not the other way around. But yes, you can use a Bilt credit card to make purchases and earn Bilt Rewards. We cover a bit about this in this post: https://awardwallet.com/blog/bilt-earn-rewards-paying-rent/