Bilt Rewards Adds United and Cathay Pacific as Transfer Partners

Bilt Rewards, the program that earns you points on rent, has announced the addition of 2 new transfer partners — United Airlines and Cathay Pacific Asia Miles.

These will join its other hotel and airline partners to make Bilt Rewards one of the most valuable transferable currencies around.

Let’s take a look at the details.

What Is Bilt Rewards?

Bilt Rewards is a program designed to earn you rewards when paying rent. It also offers its own co-branded credit card, Bilt Mastercard (rates & fees), that can be used to earn up to 3 points per $1 spent on certain eligible purchases.

Here’s what you could earn with the card:

• 3x points per $1 spent on dining
• 2x points per $1 spent on travel
• 1x point per $1 spent on rent (up to 100,000 points each year)
• 1x point per $1 spent on other purchases

In order to earn rewards, you must use your card for a minimum of 5 transactions during each statement period.

Hot Tip: You can still earn rewards when paying rent even if you don’t hold the card. The Bilt Rewards Alliance features more than 2 million properties — if your rental unit is eligible, simply signing up and paying rent through the app will earn you rewards. You can even pay landlords directly via the app.

Redeeming Bilt Rewards Points

Bilt Rewards is what we’d call a “unicorn” when it comes to flexible-point currencies. The program was created by veteran members of the loyalty and award travel industries, which means you’ll see strong partnerships and a generous 1:1 transfer ratio across all its partners, which include:

As of today, the United Airlines MileagePlus program joins the fray with transfers available now. Cathay Pacific Asia Miles isn’t live yet but is expected to be so in mid-April.

Is It Worth It?

The Bilt Rewards program is always going to be worth it if you’re a renter and you’re eligible to earn points. Transferring those points over to Bilt’s newest partner, United, can definitely be worth it.

United doesn’t publish an award chart and instead focuses on a dynamic pricing model that will charge you different amounts depending on demand.

Here’s an example of a nonstop flight from Frankfurt (FRA) to San Francisco (SFO) at the end of December:

$5,500 for a one-way business class flight is pretty astronomical, but you can also redeem just 80,000 United MileagePlus miles for this same flight:

In this case, you’d be redeeming your United miles for a value of 9.2 cents per point, far greater than our valuation of Bilt Rewards points at 1.5 cents apiece.

Final Thoughts

It’s great news that Bilt is adding 2 new transfer partners to its program, strengthening an already robust lineup of hotel and airline partners for Bilt members.

United MileagePlus transfers are available starting today, but remember that you’ll have to wait until mid-April to transfer any points to Cathay Pacific Asia Miles.