Today's Podcast comes to you from Gideon The Freequent Flyer who has a companion piece to this podcast on his site.
Hello and welcome to The Manifesto with Gideon the Free-quent Flyer on the Milenomics Podcast Network. I am Gideon the Free-quent Flyer and I’m joined today by the Director of Travel Rewards at Bilt Rewards, Richard Kerr. Richard, welcome to the Manifesto.
[0:30] Plugs
Social: @KerrPoints everywhere
Bilt Rewards: https://www.biltrewards.com/
[2:35] Background
- What was your path into the rewards industry? Did you start as a travel hacker, as a writer, or on the business side? What was your biggest score/favorite play, on the earnings or redemption side? What do you like most these days in terms of rewards programs?
[8:25] Bilt Rewards - overview
- 3 legged stool: partner rewards, landlords, credit card
- Loyalty programs: 1:1 transfer to American Airlines AAdvantage, Air Canada’s Aeroplan, Emirates Skywards, FlyingBlue, Turkish Miles & Smiles, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, HawaiianMiles, World of Hyatt, IHG Rewards
- Credit card: white label MasterCard issued by Evolve Bank & Trust, earns 2x on rent payments, 1x everywhere else
- Landlords: “Bilt Rewards Alliance,” 24 large residential real estate holding companies, plus option to mail check to any landlord.
[12:10] Bilt Rewards - news
- Annual cap of 50k rent points instead of monthly 4k cap
- 0-1-2-3
- $0 annual fee
- 1x on rent (up to 50k annually)
- 1x on everyday spend
- 2x on travel
- 3x on dining
- Uncapped earning on all non-rent spend
- IHG added 9/21
[18:07] Bilt Rewards - partner rewards
- My understanding was that loyalty programs had pretty exclusive relationships, i.e. Chase will bail out United by buying a billion United miles, American Express will buy a billion Delta miles, Citi and Barclay a billion American miles, then they dribble them out to customers. As a young company, how do you come in and make them an offer that even gets their attention?
- How much do you pay for points? During promotions you can buy Hyatt points for 1.8 cents, maybe a little less using a shopping portal, is that the right order of magnitude for what Bilt is paying? Do you pay more for the first member of an alliance to set a ceiling, or have alliance members bid each other down to participate?
- What do you think your highest value transfer partner is? Hyatt seems the most obvious but do you have a favorite redemption buried in the other award charts?
- AA: business travel to Europe, South America, web specials
- Emirates: JFK-Milan, 50k roundtrip in business
- Hawaiian: west coast to Hawaii / upgrade from economy to first for 25k
- Aeroplan: stopovers
- Flying Blue: 11.5k domestic Delta (21+ days out)
- Turkish: 33,800 business class to Istanbul, 7,500/15,000 to Hawaii on United
- Virgin: Delta/ANA/upgrading paid Virgin tickets
- Hyatt: great value everywhere
- IHG: Holiday Inn Express
- Do you have any favorite non-travel redemptions, anything Bilt got a killer deal on that you can pass on to members?
- Bilt Rewards App
- Champagne Sabre
[32:21] Bilt Rewards - landlords
- What was the process like of selling large landlords on accepting Bilt payments
