Travel Tips
Travel Tuesday: Capital One and Bilt Rewards Keep Adding Travel Transfer Partners
When I first started getting into rewards credit cards, I loved the way I could earn cashback on my purchases and then spend those funds on pretty much whatever I decided to earmark them for. Then, as my travel started to pick up, I began learning more about different credit card currencies beyond cashback and how you could transfer them to various programs to get outsized value.
This interest eventually led me to pick up the American Express Platinum card — and then I was off to the races! These days, I earn no less than five points per dollar spent that are transferable to airline and hotel programs. What’s more, it seems that these credit card issuers continue to add new options to their line-up. In fact, in just the past couple of weeks, Capital One and Bilt have both announced new partnerships. So let’s take a look at the latest.
Capital One
Earlier this year, I added the Capital One Venture card to my wallet thanks to a killer welcome offer and my need to pay an unfortunate amount of taxes. What I like about the Venture card is that, in addition to the ability to redeem miles toward any travel purchases, Capital One also has a stable of transfer partners. And while they may not always have the best transfer rates for these partners, they do have some good options — and have added three more to their list.
Recently, Japan Airlines, Qatar Airways, and I Prefer Hotels joined the Capital One transfer partner roster. As luck would have it, though, all three of these programs hold different transfer ratios. In the case of Qatar Airways, customers can transfer miles at a rate of 1:1. Meanwhile, Capital One Miles transfer to I Prefer Hotel Rewards at a rate of 1:2 (meaning 1 Capital One Mile converts to 2 I Prefer Hotel Rewards).
Finally, Japan Airlines offers the somewhat odd transfer rate 2:1.5. That means 2 Capital One Miles become 1.5 JAL Mileage Bank miles. However, through October 22nd, there’s a 30% transfer bonus for JAL. Thus, instead of earning 750 JAL miles per 1,000 Capital One Miles transferred, customers can earn 975 JAL miles. If you’re doing the math, that makes for a transfer ratio of 1:0.975.
Alas, even with the bonus, the JAL transfer rate from Capital One is still less than the 1:1 rate offered by the next currency we’re going to discuss: Bilt Rewards.
Bilt Rewards
Bilt Rewards has been on an absolute tear this year. In recent months, they’d added new transfer partners, such including Southwest Airlines and the aforementioned JAL. Plus, leaks suggest you’ll soon be able to earn Bilt Rewards via Rakuten (but you didn’t hear that from me). Elsewhere, Bilt is prepping for a major overhaul as it plans to launch “Bilt 2.0” with a new issuer, new card options, and other new benefits next year.
Ahead of that, this week, Bilt added Etihad Airways as a transfer partner. As with all but one of Bilt’s options, transfers to Etihad Guest have a 1:1 transfer rate. Of course, given Bilt’s history, members can likely look forward to a future Etihad transfer bonus for the company’s monthly Rent Day promotions.
For what it’s worth, Bilt is far from the only bank program that transfers to Etihad. Currently, American Express Membership Rewards points, Capital One Miles, and Citi Thank You Points also transfer. But, that’s actually a good thing for cardholders as they can transfer points from multiple currencies for redemption via Etihad if they want.
It seems that the points and miles game only continues to grow. Not only are there new currencies joining the market (such as Mesa Points) but existing currencies are expanding with new transfer options. This is great news for cardholders as they’ll have more options to get the best value for their hard-earned points. That’s why I’m excited to see what other points and miles developments we see in the weeks ahead.
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