On Monday, July 1st, Bilt is offering a transfer bonus of up to 100% for the Alaska Mileage Plan that day only. This is great. Yes, I know previous transfer bonuses from Bilt have been as high as 150%, but that was for programs where there are plenty of other ways to get miles. Don't get me wrong, 150% transfer bonuses for Air Canada Aeroplan, Air France/KLM Flying Blue, Emirates Skywards and Virgin Atlantic Flying Club were fantastic. But each of these programs have multiple transferable points programs that they support, so if you have transferable points, you can get those points when you need them. The 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, valid 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 qualify for the transfer bonus.

Alaska miles are extremely valuable

Alaska recently revised its rewards tables. Some great but very specific benefits have been lost, but many other practical advantages have been added:

Currently, Alaska awards are still subject to an old rule that does not allow us to include multiple Alaska partners in one award. However, Alaska has promised to change this by the end of 2024. I believe the Alaska Mileage Plan will then become one of the most useful programs around. This is especially true since Alaska allows a free stopover on one-way awards as well as free changes and cancellations.

My Platinum Bilt Strategy

I achieved Bilt Platinum status last year under the old rules. It used to be that if you earned 100,000 points in a year, you got the top-tier Platinum status. Now you have to earn 200,000 points or spend $50,000 with your Bilt Mastercard. Thanks to Bilt's occasional huge transfer bonuses, I decided it was worth keeping Platinum status, and so my plan for 2024 was to at least $4,200 per month on the card to reach the $50,000 spending limit for the year.

My specific approach to meeting my monthly spending goals is to take out $5,000 in Kiva credits on the first of every month. The reason for doing this on the first of the month is because Bilt doubles all rewards earned from spending on the first of the month (up to a maximum of 10,000 bonus points). I also use the card frequently at restaurants on the first of every month (since those spends are worth 6x more on that day). For example, I buy gift cards at a popular local restaurant on the first of the month.

With Kiva Loans, I'm approaching an equilibrium state where I borrow $5,000 per month and get (almost) $5,000 per month back from older loans. In a perfect system, I'd be accumulating less than half of my annual contributions in Kiva Loans at any given time and there would be no loan defaults. In that perfect system, using a 2% cash back card would be like getting 4% back on long-term savings. That's not great given today's interest rates. But in this case, I'm earning 2x Bilt points instead of 2% back. And if I always use 100% or more transfer bonuses and value airline miles at just a penny per mile, that's more like 8% back. Now we're talking. In reality, my committed amount is considerably less than I expected, but of course I also have some loan defaults. I *think* everything is still working in my favor, but I'm not really worried. I believe that Kiva lending is a very good thing in itself, and even if I lose money because of it, I don't care. For more details, see Why I love Kiva because it gives me rewards and does good.

With the Bilt card, you also have to use the card 5 times per billing cycle to earn rewards on spending. I usually do this every month by selecting Bilt when I make small Apple Pay purchases during the month, usually at restaurants or cafes. I do this mostly on smaller purchases because I have other cards that give me more points than Bilt (except on Rent Day). By limiting my spending to smaller purchases, the rewards I lose by not using cards with more rewards are extremely minimal. If I somehow don't manage to make 5 purchases, I just load up on a couple of $5 Amazon gift cards.

Everything on Alaska

As of this writing, my Bilt balance is just over 53,000 points. If the Alaska transfer bonus wasn't capped, I would try to earn more points on the morning of July 1st and transfer all of my points by the end of the day. However, since the bonus is capped at 50,000 points, I will simply transfer that exact amount. It's So about to put everything on Alaska.

FYI, when Bilt Platinum Elites offered a 150% transfer bonus to Air France KLM Flying Blue on January 1st of this year, I went all out. And then when they offered 150% to Air Canada Aeroplan on February 1st, I went all out, using the Bilt points I had accumulated since the Flying Blue transfer. In other words, up until now, I've been trading my Bilt points for airline miles (Flying Blue and Aeroplan) at a ratio of 1 to 2.5. Now, I'm going to trade them for Alaska at a ratio of 1 to 2. That's insanely good!

Go forward

When the Rent Day promotions in March, April, May and June came and went with no transfer bonuses, I started to worry that my platinum strategy (spending at least $4,200 a month with the Bilt card) wasn't such a good idea after all. But with this transfer bonus, I'm feeling confident about the strategy again. I can't know how often great transfer bonuses will be available, but even with just one or two great ones per year, I'm happy. We'll see!

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