AwardWallet receives compensation from advertising partners for links on the blog. The opinions expressed here are our own and have not been reviewed, provided, or approved by any bank advertiser. Here's our complete list of Advertisers.
The best way to maximize your Bilt Points is by transferring them to one of Bilt's many transfer partners. By doing this, you can often redeem fewer points for flights or hotel stays through airline or hotel loyalty programs than using your Bilt Points to book the same trip through the Bilt travel portal.
Bilt Points transfer to 16 airline partners and five hotel partners. And when you transfer points from Bilt to an airline or hotel rewards program, they will almost always appear immediately. In this article, we'll talk about Bilt's transfer partners and which ones offer the best value.
Page Contents
Why Transfer Bilt Points to Bilt Transfer Partners
We recommend utilizing Bilt Rewards Points through transfer partners because you get the most value compared with other redemption options. Plus, you are not locked into a single airline or hotel program.
Instead, when booking your flight or hotel, you can shop around at Bilt's many partners, find the cheapest rates for your airline or hotel booking, and transfer your points to your program of choice. In addition, by transferring to an airline's mileage program, you will also be able to book airline tickets with their partners. This unlocks seemingly endless redemption options.
For instance, transferring your Bilt Points to Avianca LifeMiles allows you to redeem them for flights on several airlines, such as Air India, Lufthansa, and United Airlines. Transferring points to a different program can also save you miles. For example, awards on United domestic flights can price cheaper via LifeMiles (a Bilt transfer partner) than booking directly through United.
Bilt Rewards Transfer Partners
Without further ado, here is a table of all Bilt's transfer partners:
Bilt Points generally transfer at a 1:1 ratio in increments of 1,000 points. You must transfer a minimum of 2,000 points if you have bottom-tier Blue status. If you have a higher status level (Silver, Gold, or Platinum), the minimum transfer drops to 1,000 points.
Occasionally, Bilt will offer transfer bonuses on Rent Day (the first of every month), providing extra value on points transfers. And more often than not, these bonuses are more lucrative if you have higher tiers of Bilt status.
Related: How Does Bilt Rewards Stack Up for Earning Rewards by Paying Rent?
Best Value Bilt Transfer Partners
Air France–KLM Flying Blue
Air France and KLM's Flying Blue program offers great redemptions for business-class tickets on its own metal as well as on SkyTeam partners. It also offers Flying Blue Promo Rewards that change each month. But even with recent devaluations, you can also book business class tickets from the United States to Europe starting at just 60,000 miles.
The program has two highlights worth extolling. The first is 25,000 miles for economy flights between the U.S. and Europe. While these tickets could have been found in the past for as low as 20,000, we still feel that this is a solid deal.
The other is paying 60,000 miles in business class to Europe, which interestingly includes several points in Northern Africa.
Keep in mind that tickets for minors under the age of 12 cost 25% fewer points, making these deals even better for families traveling to Europe.
Related: Practical Airline Sweet Spots for Families
Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan
The Alaska Mileage Plan program has several strengths — and a large part of that is because of its distance-based award charts. Plus, Alaska Airlines has several unique partners beyond the Oneworld alliance, such as Condor and Starlux Airlines.
Beyond using your miles for domestic flights on both Alaska and American Airlines, you can redeem for long-haul flights across Alaska Mileage Plan sweet spots. One of the best of these is flights under 3,500 miles in distance between the U.S. and Europe. That covers flights from the East Coast (think New York and Boston) to Western Europe and the UK, for example. You'll pay 45,000 miles per person in business class on these awards.
The taxes and fees can be rough, however. When flying these routes with American Airlines, or in many cases, Aer Lingus, you can expect minimal cash copays, as seen in the example above. Flying with British Airways, however, can get expensive. Pick your partners wisely.
Avianca LifeMiles
Avianca LifeMiles can be an excellent program for booking international Star Alliance award tickets. The mileage prices on Avianca are a great value, but even better news is that Avianca does not pass on fuel surcharges on partner awards.
In addition, you can save points by mixing your travel classes, as in choosing which flights you want to fly in economy, business, and first class. This can come in handy if you have a short flight before a long flight and want to fly in economy on your short flight to save miles. You can find excellent value on both short domestic flights and long-haul business class.
World of Hyatt
Transferring credit card points to a hotel program is usually a poor idea since hotel points are generally less valuable than airline miles. However, Hyatt points offer much better redemption value than most other hotel chains. Whether you're staying at a Hyatt Place or a Park Hyatt, you can usually find great redemptions with World of Hyatt points. Check out our favorite World of Hyatt redemptions here, the highest-value low-category redemptions, and top value luxury redemptions.
Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles
Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles is a great program for booking domestic United Airlines tickets in economy and first class, as well as business-class tickets to and from Turkey. United domestic tickets are 10k miles in economy and 15k in first class — with cheaper booking, change, and cancellation fees than Avianca and Aeroplan.
Best of all, Turkish Airlines includes Hawaii in the same region as the mainland U.S. That makes Turkish Miles&Smiles one of the best ways to fly to Hawaii using points and miles.
Virgin Red
Virgin Red points are easily utilized via Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, which offers some of the cheapest mileage redemptions for flights across the Atlantic. There are some especially great deals available since Virgin moved to dynamically priced award seats.
Check out this redemption below on a Virgin Atlantic flight from Atlanta to London in economy for only 7,500 points! You can also find Upper Class availability on this route starting at 29,000 points.
It is also possible to find lower point redemptions on SkyTeam partners through Virgin Atlantic. However, despite lower mileage prices, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club often carries slightly higher fees than its partners, so we also recommend checking Air France–KLM Flying Blue to see if a slightly higher points price with lower cash fees is better for you.
Learn more about these redemptions in our post about Virgin Atlantic Flying Club sweet spots.
Mid-Tier Value Bilt Transfer Partners
Aer Lingus/British Airways/Iberia Avios
We've looped together these three airlines because they all use Avios as their mileage currency and because Bilt transfers to all three of these programs. Each program has some unique sweet spots, but the award charts are generally converging.
On Aer Lingus, you can fly from the United States to Ireland on off-peak travel days (typically weekdays during less busy months of travel) for either 13,000 or 16,250 miles, depending on how far your departing city is from Ireland. Business class flights to Ireland also cost as few as 50,000 miles.
If you transfer to British Airways, short, nonstop flights on Oneworld carriers are the way to go. While business-class flights and other Oneworld partner carriers offer solid redemptions, Alaska Airlines (listed above) offers even better redemptions for these flights, so we recommend transferring to that program if you want to fly Oneworld business class.
One sweet spot not to miss: Avios offers the cheapest business class awards to Europe. You can fly from Boston, New York, Washington, or Chicago to Madrid for just 34,000 Avios during off-peak dates — or 51,000 Avios from other U.S. cities. Economy tickets on Iberia are also quite cheap, as well.
While these prices are good, available dates can be limited. Do note that you can move your Avios freely between the programs (as well as to Finnair, Qatar Airways, and Loganair), which can be handy for pooling them together.
Related: The Best Ways To Use Avios in the Americas
Air Canada Aeroplan
Air Canada Aeroplan is a solid program for booking Star Alliance flights. However, because Bilt Points also transfer to Turkish (which is best for booking longer domestic United flights) and Avianca (which is generally better for booking most international Star Alliance flights), there is a lot of overlap here already.
Aeroplan utilizes dynamic pricing for select partners (including United), but you can find excellent deals on plenty of carriers. For example, you can fly between New York (JFK) and Frankfurt (FRA) on Singapore Airlines' fifth freedom flight for just 60,000 Aeroplan points!
Related: All of the Airlines You Can Book Using Aeroplan Points
Cathay Pacific Asia Miles
Cathay Pacific is a solid program for Oneworld redemptions. However, its program and website are hard to navigate, and its business-class redemptions for Oneworld partners are more expensive than you'll find with Alaska Airlines and Avios programs listed above. That being said, Asia Miles is a good option if you want to take multiple business class flights in an around-the-world trip or want to fly Cathay Pacific itself.
United Airlines MileagePlus
Domestic redemptions to fly on United Airlines can be cheaper via Air Canada Aeroplan (occasionally), Turkish Miles&Smiles, or Avianca LifeMiles than through United Airlines MileagePlus. However, United is more flexible; you won't pay cancellation fees and will get your miles back easily if you have to change plans. In addition, United's customer service and website are significantly better than the other Star Alliance carriers that partner with Bilt.
There are some Star Alliance flights where it is best to use United miles. Some short United flights can cost as few as 5,000 miles. In addition, United's Excursionist Perk can save tons of miles on multi-city itineraries.
Emirates Skywards
Emirates Skywards is the best option for booking business class and Emirates first class using miles. However, Skywards tacks on significant surcharges, and prices for business-class tickets are more expensive than other carriers and mileage programs. You can find decent value on Emirates' New York to Milan flight, but it typically costs 87,000 Skywards miles in business or 102,000 Skywards miles in first class.
Accor Live Limitless
Accor Live Limitless is one of Bilt's newer hotel transfer partners, and it stands out because of its favorable conversion ratio. You'll get 2,000 Accor points for every 3,000 Bilt Points transferred. But Accor points don't operate like regular hotel points you're familiar with — 2,000 Accor points will always give you 40 euros in value towards the cash rate for the hotel room you want.
Thus, if you transfer 3,000 Bilt Points to Accor, you can start to unlock real savings. After currency conversions, each Bilt Point is worth about 1.4 cents apiece when transferred to Accor, which is fair but not terribly exciting. Moreover, the biggest downside of the Accor Live Limitless program is that many of its properties are located overseas.
Southwest Rapid Rewards
Southwest Airlines was added as a Bilt transfer partner in April 2025. But you'll want to pause before initiating a transfer.
With Southwest’s recently adopted variable pricing, you can expect to get anywhere between 1.10 and 1.75 cents per point on redemptions, give or take. Before you transfer, it’s worth comparing Southwest award prices with the Bilt Travel portal to see if you can book the same flight for fewer points.
If you have a Companion Pass, though, getting buy-one-get-one tickets makes transferring Bilt Points to Rapid Rewards a worthwhile option.
Poor Value Bilt Transfer Partners
TAP Air Portugal Miles&Go
Compared to the other Star Alliance programs on this list, TAP Air Portugal Miles&Go is the weakest. This is largely because of the subpar pricing TAP applies to awards on its metal, plus those on its partner carriers.
You can book TAP awards through other programs, such as Air Canada Aeroplan, Avianca LifeMiles, and United MileagePlus, all for fewer points than via Miles&Go. You'll stretch your Bilt Points much further by leveraging other Bilt transfer partners and passing on TAP.
Hilton Honors, IHG One Rewards, and Marriott Bonvoy
Transferring Bilt Points to hotel programs other than World of Hyatt and Accor is typically a bad idea. And that's because of what hotel points are generally worth. To put this into perspective, here's what AwardWallet typically redeems Hilton, IHG, and Marriott points for:
- Hilton Honors: 0.59¢ each.
- IHG One Rewards: 0.68¢ each.
- Marriott Bonvoy: 0.94¢ each.
These values are much lower than what AwardWallet users typically redeem Bilt Points for, which hovers around 2.01¢ apiece. It's a big difference. Therefore, it is really only worth transferring to Hilton, IHG, or Marriott if you need a few thousand points for a redemption and just want to top off your account.
Related: How To Search for and Book Hyatt and IHG Awards Using Bilt Rewards
How To Earn Bilt Rewards Points
Outside of paying rent, there are several ways to earn Bilt Points. Here's a snapshot of some of the main ways:
- Booking travel through the Bilt Travel portal
- Dining at restaurants in the Bilt Dining program
- Reserving Lyft rides
- Booking fitness classes with select brands
- Shopping at pharmacies (Walgreens and Duane Reed) using a linked card in the Neighborhood Program
You can also spend on The Bilt Mastercard® (Rates & Fees) (and refer others to it). Cardholders earn 3X points on dining, 2X points on travel, 1X points on rent payments without the transaction fee (up to 100,000 points each calendar year), and 1X points on other purchases. But just keep in mind that you must use the card 5 times each statement period to earn points.
- 3x points on dining
- 2x points on travel
- 1x points on rent payments without the transaction fee (up to 100,000 points each calendar year)
- 1x points on other purchases
Bottom Line
When it comes to finding the right transfer partner for your Bilt Points, find out which partner provides the cheapest redemptions for your flights and offers the cancellation policy that fits your needs. Be sure to check the Bilt Travel portal, too.
In addition, remember that certain programs are better than others. Avianca and Turkish are best for most Star Alliance flights, and Virgin and Air France/KLM Flying Blue are typically best for SkyTeam.
Related: Why The Bilt Mastercard® Is in My Everyday Wallet
The comments on this page are not provided, reviewed, or otherwise approved by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.