💳 Bilt gets a shiny new transfer partner

November 9, 2023

Estimated read time: 4 minutes and 26 seconds

✈️ Fixed Points vs. Transferrable Points: These are the two ways you can use your credit card points. Fixed points have a specific value, whereas transfer points fluctuate in value. Join Newbie Week in the lounge to learn the difference today!

Howdy, partners. Welcome back to Daily Drop, where we take you on an exciting adventure through the harrowing world of travel, miles, and points.

It’s like Lord of the Rings, and I’m your Gandalf. Except my beard is pathetic in comparison. But I’ll get there one day…

Anyway, let’s talk travel:

💳 Bilt adds a new transfer partner
🥂 Lounge Lowdown: What the heck is a retention offer?
🖼️ Meme

💳 Bilt adds a new transfer partner

Bilt continues to step up to the plate like a baller with new perks and, most recently, a new transfer partner…

Curious? It’s Marriott.

Yes, Marriott who sometimes sorta sucks and ruins your birthday, but also has a death grip on my loyalty. It’s a complicated relationship.

But seriously, they’re aight… and I think I’ll always love them 🙄

But this new partnership brings Bilt’s total transfer partner list up to 16—not too shabby, eh?

Here are some of the deets:

The transfer ratio will be 1:1, but Bilt will throw in 5,000 bonus points for every 20,000 points that you transfer
Points should generally transfer almost instantly, but could take up to 48 hours
You can earn an additional 100 points just by linking your Marriott account in the Bilt app

As it stands, this transfer is okay, but it has the potential to get really good if Bilt runs a lucrative transfer bonus to Marriott in the future—like they did most recently with Emirates (a 75% - 150% bonus!).

Just think… You move over 20,000 points (which becomes 25,000 thanks to Bilt’s internal bonus).

THEN, if there’s a mega transfer bonus on top of that… your Bilt points could easily be doubled, and would stretch a whole lot further as Marriott points to book a night (or more!) at a place like this 👇

I really hated math in school, but I sure love it now when I can multiply my points 😉

So yeah, it’s cool that Bilt and Marriott are linking up, but I’d personally wait for an additional transfer bonus to get the most value out of my Bilt points.

🥂 Lounge Lowdown: What the heck is a retention offer?

The other day, I saw a question pop into the Daily Drop Lounge that I thought would be worth answering.

This person is referring to the Daily Drop Podcast, where Megan and I were talking about some hefty credit card offers.

But at one point, Megan referenced something called a “retention offer.”

But what the heck is that? Allow me to explain…

You see, banks love money. The way they get money is by getting customers. That means that if a bank LOSES customers, they'll lose money. And they hate losing money. Because they love money.

That's why they’ll incentivize customers to stay by offering them, you guessed it, free points.

Let’s walk through a timeline of what this looks like:

Step 1: You open a new card and get amazing value out of it in the first year because of the excellent welcome bonus.
Step 2: But when the annual fee hits for year two, you realize that the card doesn’t provide much value without that bonus.
Step 3: So you decide you want to cancel it.
Step 4: You call the bank and explain that you’re not getting value from the card and you want to close it.

As long as you’re in good standing with the bank and you’ve been putting regular purchases on the card, there’s a chance that before letting you cancel your card, the bank will offer you something in exchange for keeping it open for another year.

This is what we call a retention offer.

A retention offer can come in all shapes and sizes, but is usually comparable to a small welcome offer.

However, I’ve had retention offers in the form of statement credits, annual fee waivers, and even increased earning rates.

Having said that, there’s no guarantee that you will get a retention offer at all, and it’s important to know that you shouldn’t close any credit card or attempt to get a retention offer until you’ve held the card for at least one full year.

Additionally, the longer you have a card open, the better the odds of getting an offer.

Retention offers are great ways to squeeze out even more value from cards that you keep open over the years. If you are considering closing a card (and even if you aren’t), it’s always worth calling up the bank to see what your options are before doing so.

🌎 Sponsored by Indus Travels

We’re back with another tasty travel itinerary that has been crafted for us by Indus Travels!

As a reminder, they’re an online tour operator who seriously loves planning the most cost-effective, flexible, and totally customizable adventures to over 80 destinations!

For real, they love to find you savings in all the right places.

So not only will you be getting a well-researched trip, you’ll also be gifted an itinerary that could save you up to 25% compared to if you had done all the hard work yourself 🤯

Indus offers a handful of travel tour styles:

Small and ultra-small group tours
Independent/solo tours
Self-drive tours
River cruises in Europe

Last time, Indus took us to Ireland, but today, we’re showcasing another one of their most popular itineraries: A Taste of Portugal👇

This particular adventure starts in Lisbon and whisks you off to other captivating coastal towns, centuries-old UNESCO World Heritage sites, hilltop castles, and foodie epicenters.

You’ll see all that Portugal has to offer in six nights, with daily breakfast, deluxe AC vehicle transport, and international flights from any U.S. or Canada airport included!

Plus, if you book before November 15th, you’ll get $400 off per person 🤯

They’ve worked hard to establish relationships within the travel industry that allow them to negotiate the best price for accommodations, activities, and more!

View all the details and other options for this lovely itinerary to Portugal (or another destination of your liking!) on their website 👇

🖼️ Meme

There’s nothing I fear more than getting stuck in a middle seat… 😭

Earlier in the newsletter, I referred to the podcast that we host. In case you haven’t tuned in yet, It’s called the Daily Drop Podcast.

Every week (and sometimes more often), Megan and I sit down to talk about travel hacking in a way that we simply don’t have space to do in this newsletter.

We think it’s a lot of fun, so check it out by clicking here, going on YouTube, or searching for us wherever you get your podcasts.