Lazy Points of the Week
Story of the week: Bilt Rent Day
Today is the first of the month, so it’s time for your regular reminder to take advantage of Rent Day if you have a Bilt Card. As usual, today you can earn 6x on dining, 4x on travel, and 2x on all other non-rent spending, up to 1,000 bonus points. You can also play Bilt’s “Rent Free” game for a chance of winning free rent or points. Bilt also offers free Soul Cycle and Rumble Boxing fitness classes (spaces limited, sign up ASAP through the app).
Today’s main perk is a transfer bonus to Avianca LifeMiles. Avianca can have some decent redemptions, especially with a transfer bonus. Any Bilt member can transfer their Bilt points to Avianca with a 20% bonus (1000 Bilt Points —> 1200 LifeMiles), while Bilt Silver members receive a 40% bonus, Gold members receive a 50% bonus, and Platinum members receive a 100% bonus.
Especially if you have Silver status or above, today is a great day to search the LifeMiles site (or a site like PointsYeah) for a solid redemption to stretch your miles much farther than usual.
Other points and card news
Fly TAP with JetBlue points. JetBlue points (transferrable from Chase and Citi at a 1:1 ratio and Amex at a reduced 5:4 rate) can now be used to redeem flights on TAP Air to Portugal. Even from the West Coast, flights to Lisbon can be had for just 38k points and $64 in taxes and fees—an excellent rate, especially for Citi points. Availability seems fairly wide, and JetBlue’s booking engine is very to use.
Bilt’s new neighborhood cafe. If you’re in NYC, check out Bilt’s new coffee shop! The first 500 Bilt members to arrive today will get a free black coffee and a chocolate chip cookie. And all Bilt members will earn 8x points on spending at the store every day. That’s not quite as good as the Capital One Cafe’s 50% off, but might help make it worth checking out!
United’s status match. Unlike some other airlines, United status isn’t particularly easy to achieve or maintain without spending thousands of dollars with the airline. But if you have status with another airline, now may be a good time to apply for a match with United, as they are currently offering matches to several competing frequent flyer programs, including the major US carriers (Alaska, American, Delta, JetBlue, and Southwest).
Sign-up bonus of the week 💳
There’s some new offers on Marriott-branded Chase cards, with the no-fee Marriott Bonvoy Bold offering 60,000 points plus one free night (valued at up to 50k points) after spending $2,000 in the first three months. The $95-fee Boundless, meanwhile, is offering a $150 statement credit after one purchase, and 100k points after spending $3,000 in the first three months.
Marriott points are worth about 0.9¢ each, making the offer on the Bold worth about $500-900, and the offer on the Boundless worth about $1050.
The offer on the Bold matches the best-ever offer on the card, while the offer on the Boundless is probably not quite as good as previous offers of 125,000 points or 5 free nights valued at up 50k points each. For a quick injection of points that could translate to several free nights, plus some extra rewards when traveling, the Bold might be a good option, at least if some of the bigger bonuses or better cards out there don’t work for you for one reason or another.
Previously highlighted bonuses with offers still available:
•170k points on the IHG Premier
•35k + up to 30k more on the World of Hyatt card
•70k on the Hawaiian Airlines Mastercard
•75k points on the Citi Strata Premier