How paying your rent can get you to Europe

To view rates and fees of the Bilt Mastercard®, see this page

Who would have thought that something as simple as paying rent could get you a trip to Europe each and every year? Now that the Bilt Mastercard® has arrived, something as easy as paying your rent at the beginning of the month can earn you enough points to enjoy a European vacation every year.

What is the Bilt Rewards Mastercard?

While many apartments or landlords aren’t set up to collect rent on a credit card, the Bilt Rewards Mastercard will let you pay rent with your credit card and earn 1X Bilt Points on rent paid through the Bilt App with your card account up to a maximum of 100,000 points each calendar year. You’ll also earn 1X Bilt Points on purchases, 2X Bilt Points on flights, hotels, rental cars, and cruises when booked directly with airlines, hotels, and car rental agencies and 3X Bilt Points on dining. Just keep in mind you need to use your card five times per month to earn rewards.

If you make those purchases on the first day of the month, also known as Rent Day, you’ll earn double the points. That means 6X points on dining, 4X points on travel and 2X points everywhere else up to 10,000 bonus points per month. You won’t earn double points on rent made that day, but you will on everything else.

How do you pay rent with a credit card?

You can easily pay your rent and earn rewards via two methods. Depending on your property you can either pay your rent online via the app or website.

If you live at a Bilt Alliance property, you can pay your rent directly on the website or via the app. If you don’t live at an alliance property but you do pay online, you can add Bilt’s routing number to process the payment directly.

If your landlord only accepts checks, that’s no problem. You can still pay with your Bilt Mastercard and get rewards. Go to the Bilt mobile app, tap the Pay Rent tab, and select Pay by check.

You’ll fill out the information for your landlord and where the payment should be sent and you might need to provide some information like a lease to prove that it’s actually where you live. They’ll charge your card and send the check on your behalf.

How many points can I earn in a year?

Rewards from rent payments are limited to 100,000 points per year, but that’s not going to be a problem unless you pay more than $8,000 a month in rent.

If your rent is more in the normal range, say around $1,500 a month, paying your rent with your Mastercard will net you 18,000 points just from paying rent each month. If you’re living in a big city like New York City and you’re paying a higher rent like $3,000, those numbers double to 36,000 points each year.

Keep in mind that this card also offers a strong earning structure for your spend, so by simply shifting some of your spend in bonus categories, like dining or travel, you can also add thousands of points to your balance each year.

How do you transfer points to airlines?

Linking your travel accounts and your Bilt account is a seamless process. Once logged into the app, choose the travel icon on the bottom of the app. Scrolling to the bottom you’ll see the Bilt Loyalty partners.

Each of the partners transfer at a 1:1 basis, but you’ll need to transfer in 1,000 mile chunks. If you’re a base level blue member, you’ll need to transfer 2,000 points for a minimum, otherwise your minimum is 1,000 points. Click on the loyalty partner of choice, enter your frequent flier number, and you should get the confirmation that the accounts have been linked.

Most transfers happen instantly, but some could take a little bit of time.

Which Bilt partners fly to Europe?

Bilt offers over a dozen partners between airlines and hotels, and luckily the majority of them fly to Europe. With almost all the partners flying to Europe, transferring points to get you there is a breeze.

Some of the most popular partners are:

• Alaska Airlines
• Air Canada Aeroplan
• Air France/KLM Flying Blue
• British Airways
• Virgin Red

Any of these partners can get you to Europe and back, but let’s take a look at two examples with Virgin Red and Flying Blue.

How many points do I need to fly to Europe?

The number of miles you’ll need depend on the airline and the class of service you’re looking to fly in. Virgin Atlantic offers plenty of connections to and from Europe, most routing through London. Take a look at this example from New York to London on Virgin Atlantic.

Flying from New York to London on American Airlines with a connection on to Paris, with their partner British Airways, can cost as low as 10,000 miles and $153.00 in taxes and fees in economy.

Air France and KLM both participate in the Flying Blue rewards program and they’re a partner with the Bilt Mastercard. Flights can be incredibly cheap on points, with promo reward flights going for as low as 15,000 miles each way in economy.

Pro tip

Flying home from London on an award ticket comes with taxes and fees that are higher than most European cities. To maximize your savings, fly into London and return home from another city in Europe. Dia Adams, Senior Editor

Squeezing more value with Rent Day promotions

Every 1st of the month, Bilt offers amazing promotions for their cardmembers to use their points and earn even more. A few times each year, Bilt will offer boosted transfer bonuses into select partners such as Air Canada, Air France, and others.

In May of 2023 and January of 2024, Bilt offered up to a 150% transfer bonus for points moved over to Flying Blue. The amount of bonus you received depended on the level of status you hold with Bilt Rewards, but ranged between 75% and 150%.

In the above example for Air France, a 30,000 mile round-trip ticket can be had for much fewer points during a transfer promotion. 30,000 miles could be had for only:

• 17,142 points at a 75% bonus
• 15,000 points at a 100% bonus
• 13,333 points at a 125% bonus
• 12,000 points at a 150% bonus

If you don’t have an immediate need, consider keeping your Bilt Rewards in your back pocket for one of these amazing deals when they pop up.

The takeaway

The Bilt Mastercard® gives renters a chance to earn points that can be turned into amazing vacations. Points earned by paying rent can be transferred to over a dozen airlines, and utilizing the frequent Bilt Rent Day transfer bonuses, you can multiply your points even more to get bigger and better trips.

Consider using the Bilt Mastercard for dining and travel in addition to your rent payments, as they’ll earn points multipliers helping you build up your points balance even faster.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Bilt Mastercard hard to get?

Just like any credit card, your chance of being approved will be better if you’ve already got an established credit history. You’ll need good credit in order to get the card, along with an address in the US, an income, and other information that will be asked of you during the application process.

What if my landlord doesn’t take a credit card?

If your landlord doesn’t take a credit card, or charges a fee to pay with a credit card, Bilt can take that stress off your hands. Bilt can send your landlord a check in the mail and charge your credit card. If your landlord prefers an ACH payment, you can also get ACH information from Bilt and it’ll be charged to your credit card.

Is transferring points a good deal?

The answer is usually “it depends,” but generally speaking transferring your points over to an airline or hotel partner can provide an outsourced value. Make sure to not only look at the cash price of the ticket, but how much you’re paying in taxes and fees to use your miles. The taxes and fees will vary depending on the airline, destination, and the transfer partners.

Please note that card details are accurate as of the publish date, but are subject to change at any time at the discretion of the issuer. Please contact the card issuer to verify rates, fees, and benefits before applying.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com