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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