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If you’ve been reading the newsletter since the very beginning, you may remember one of our first-ever emails that highlighted Bilt rewards - the program that lets you earn points from paying your rent. Check out that newsletter if you want a refresher on how that works.
Well, this relatively new player in the points/miles/credit card game has just gotten even better and makes rent day feel more like Christmas (who knew that was possible, right?).
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With their new “Rent Day,” holders of the Bilt Rewards Mastercard can earn double points on all non-rent purchases on the first of every month, beginning in October.
Here are the normal earning rates for the Bilt card:
- 3 points per dollar on dining
- 2 points per dollar on travel
- 1 point per dollar on everything else
On the first of every month, however, this is what you’ll earn:
- 6 points per dollar on dining
- 4 points per dollar on travel
- 2 points per dollar on everything else (except for rent, which is still one point per dollar)
Even though it’s only for a single day out of the month, those are still incredibly high earning rates. It also allows you to be strategic about making certain purchases since you know exactly when these elevated earning rates will happen.
For example, if you know that you are going to take a trip, you could book bits and pieces of it on the first day of every month and earn 4 points per dollar from the trip.
You could then take those points and transfer them to any of Bilt’s 14 transfer partners, including Hyatt, American Airlines, United, and more.
Considering the Bilt card has a $0 annual fee, this is pretty incredible. Bilt clearly understands the points and miles game and what people like us want.
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🏨 Best Western points rebate promo
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What? Another great hotel promo? In THIS economy?? This is just crazy.
That’s right - Best Western has struck again with an even better promotion than their last one.
Until November 21st, you can get a 5,000-point rebate for every Best Western hotel night you book with points.
Here’s the fine print:
- Hotel nights must be booked for a minimum of 12,000 points per night
- Stays booked using both cash and points do not count
- You must first register for the offer
- Only valid for stays in the U.S., Canada, or the Caribbean
Even with the fine print, this is still a pretty good offer. Essentially they’re offering a 42% rebate on award stays (if you end up booking nights for around the minimum 12k points each).
Obviously, the closer you can get to exactly 12k points, the better the deal is. But after a very quick search I found plenty of properties all around the country in the 12,000-16,000 point range:
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So you shouldn’t have a difficult time finding hotels to make this deal worthwhile.
If you have any travel coming up in the next two months and happen to have some Best Western points laying around, I’d definitely take a look at their site to see if you can get free award nights with a huge discount.
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If you don’t live in Canada, you might not realize just how strict travel has been, even at this stage of the pandemic. Heavy vaccine, testing, quarantine, tracing, and arrival paperwork have been the norm for a while now.
Well, all that will change on October 1st when Canada plans to drop the remaining travel measures still in place.
Here’s what that looks like, specifically:
- No more masks on planes or trains
- No more ArriveCan app (thank goodness)
- No Pre-arrival testing
- No vaccination requirement
- No contact tracing, isolation, or quarantine
It’s felt like this change has been on the way for a while now. Most places in the world (though not all places) have already taken this leap, so it makes sense that stricter countries like Canada would follow suit.
Overall, Canada has fared better than many countries in terms of COVID-related deaths and illnesses and has robust testing and vaccination programs in place - so it seems like they are confident enough at this point to take the leap.
As a regular traveler, I welcome this new update. Mainly because of ArriveCan, AKA my mortal enemy...
If you aren’t aware, every person entering Canada (even citizens) needs to submit a form on this app called ArriveCan. It’s one of those things that I forget to do until I’m in line to board the plane and the gate agent asks to see it. So then I have to turn my cell phone data on (if I try to use airport wifi I’d probably miss the flight), fill out the long, redundant form, go to the back of the line, and board the plane after all of the overhead bin space is taken.
I know, first-world problems, right?
But still, it’s been a constant annoyance for me, and I will rejoice in the death of ArriveCan.
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Anyway, if you were deterred from visiting Canada because of any of the aforementioned restrictions, we will welcome you with open, maple syrup-covered arms… sorry, that sounded way grosser than I wanted it to…
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That’s all for today, friends. Are you a Bilt customer? Do you think you’ll become one? Which Canadian province makes the best maple syrup (there is a correct answer)? Let me know by replying to this email or reaching out on social media.
Ciao,
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