More exciting Bilt news today.
A month ago, the Rakuten terms and conditions were updated to include the option to earn Bilt Rewards points in addition to cash back or American Express Membership Rewards points. I assume most / all of you earn Membership Rewards, which makes MUCH more sense than cash, but now you’ll have the option to change that to Bilt Rewards instead. I also suspect that, given the otherwise somewhat limited way to earn Bilt Rewards points at scale and given the tremendous value of Bilt points, many of you will switch over to Bilt.
For the first six months, all Bilt member status tiers will enjoy a 1:1 conversion rate: $10 in Rakuten Cash Back equals 1,000 Bilt Points. After that, Blue will earn half as much ($10 = 500 Bilt points).
First, though, you will need to link your Rakuten account to Bilt in a different way that normal. You’ll need to link it from the Bilt app. This is almost certainly because you don’t need a Bilt credit card to link accounts, just a free Bilt Rewards account. And so you can’t add a credit card to Rakuten like you do with Amex since in this case that wouldn’t cover all Bilt members. I’m not surprised that Bilt would build a nifty linking feature in their app!
While Bilt is also offering an intro bonus of 2,500 Bilt points after spending $25 via Rakuten, you actually don’t want to do that! You would do much better using a Rakuten refer-a-friend link which currently will earn $50 or 5,000 Amex points. But the thing is that you can change an account earning either of those two over to earning Bilt points. You’ll just need to go to your Account Settings (after linking), change over to cash back (not Amex), and then from there open Settings again and switch to Bilt.
For EXISTING accounts, you first need to make 100% sure you have the email in your Rakuten account that you use on Bilt (for me this meant changing an old Ebates account email to free up the one I use for Bilt).
In the Bilt app, click the EVERYDAY REWARDS tab and look for Rakuten. Click Link accounts. If your email address matches, it is instant and automatic. My account that had said Membership Rewards was updated in a nanosecond to say earning Bilt points.
Thoughts?
Let me know below in the comments, on Twitter, or in the private MilesTalk Facebook group. And don't forget to follow me on Instagram for all sorts of tips on miles, points, credit cards, and travel.
If this post helped you, please consider sharing it!
You can find credit cards that best match your spending habits and bonus categories at Your Best Credit Cards.
New to all of this? My “introduction to miles and points” book, MilesTalk: Live Your Wildest Travel Dreams Using Miles and Points is available on Amazon and at major booksellers.
