✈️ How to go to Europe for half the normal points

Estimated read time: 4 minutes and 49 seconds

Good morning from the steamy depths of Guatemala City!

That’s right… it’s Mike.

I know I missed you… While it was weird to be on the receiving end of Daily Drop for once, I was resting easy knowing you were in such good hands.

I think we can all agree that our new friend Tiffany is pretty darn awesome, eh? Let’s give her a quick round of applause:

*thunderous applause*

Wow, thanks for that enthusiastic response.

But there’s no more time to waste. We’ve got travel hacking to do:

• ✈️ Fly to Europe for half the points

• 🤔 Lounge Lowdown: A quick tip to earn an extra 20k points

• 💳 See if you’re eligible for some sweet spending bonuses

✈️ Fly to Europe for half the points

A few days ago, I predicted that I’d be telling you about Bilt again in the near future.

As it turns out, I was totally right. I’m basically the Nostradamus of travel hacking… but with way less-stylish hats.

As part of Bilt’s upcoming Rent Day promotion in May, they’re offering a 100% transfer bonus to KLM/Air France Flying Blue.

As a reminder, Bilt’s Rent Day promotions are only valid on the first day of the month. That means that you'll only have 24 hours to take part in this transfer bonus.

And let me tell ya… it’s a VERY GOOD transfer bonus.

If you remember, Flying Blue also offers promotions on a monthly basis with their Promo Rewards. This month (April) included flights between North America and Europe for as little as 7,500 miles each way (a deal that I took advantage of myself, by the way). 👇

We still don’t know what May’s Promo Rewards will be, but there is always an option to travel on the cheap between the U.S. and Europe.

With this promo and the current Promo Rewards, you could’ve theoretically transferred just 3,750 points from Bilt to Flying Blue and booked a flight to Europe… it’s madness, especially if next month’s Promo Rewards are anywhere near as good as this month’s.

Most promo rewards are around 12,000 points to get to Europe, however. Still, that means you’d only need 6,000 Bilt points for a trans-Atlantic flight. That’s still amazing.

Now let’s address the elephant in the room via a question I know you’re going to ask (I’m Nostradamus, remember?):

Great question (and accurate comment), dear reader. Here’s your answer:

You don’t need the Bilt Card to take part in this promo, nor do you need it to earn Bilt points.

In fact, I personally don’t have the Bilt card. 

And yet, I just transferred 3,000 Bilt points to Hyatt and used them to book a room at the Hyatt in Paris for my overnight layover next month (on the very itinerary I showed you above), saving me over $200.

How did I earn these Bilt points without the Bilt card? Easy:

• Simply by signing up for a free Bilt account and linking your loyalty programs, you can earn 1,400 Bilt points (100 points for each program you link).

• By linking three credit cards to the Bilt wallet (the tab within the Bilt app that allows you to store credit card info), you’ll earn 300 more Bilt points (without actually using the wallet or spending a cent).

• Every Rent Day, you can earn 350 points by playing Point Quest, their once-monthly trivia game.

• By linking your Lyft account to Bilt, you’ll earn 2x points on all Lyft rides, no matter what credit card you use

• Anyone can use Bilt’s travel and dining programs to earn Bilt points through the portal.

• If you pay rent and your building/landlord is part of the Bilt Alliance, you can earn 250 points per month for paying your rent through Bilt (with no fees), even without the Bilt card.

I’ve only done a small handful of Lyft rides and travel portal bookings through Bilt. Those, combined with the points from linking accounts, earned me enough Bilt points for a free hotel night in Paris.

Of course, if you do have the Bilt Mastercard, you can earn WAY more Bilt points from things like travel, dining, and rent… so I still highly recommend it if you live in the U.S. and rent your home.

To take things back to the beginning, make sure you mark your calendars for May 1st, because it is the only day you’ll have to multiply your Flying Blue miles and maybe earn a few extra Bilt points.

It just goes to show you that Bilt is a program for ALL to enjoy. Start earning some points now so you can throw your hat into the ring on the next excellent Rent Day promotion.

🤔 Lounge Lowdown: A quick tip to earn an extra 20k points

Alright, kids. As you can see, we found a name for this segment: Lounge Lowdown.

And we have our very own Rachel L. from the Daily Drop Lounge to thank for coming up with the idea. As promised, I will be mailing Rachel a bag of amazing Colombian coffee that I picked up last week. I’ll be in touch with more deets.

Anyway, this week I wanted to share more of a comment (and great tip) rather than a question from the lounge.

This comment refers to the insane new welcome offer on our favorite credit card and how you can (*maybe*) get it even if you signed up for the card BEFORE this offer came out.

This is something I didn’t know was possible, but I’m seeing more and more data points of people successfully getting ***** bank to honor the new, elevated credit card offer we told you about last week.

Basically, if you signed up for the card in question (or even earned the welcome offer) a reasonably short time before this new offer came out, they might allow you to earn those extra 20k points with no extra spending requirement.

Now I want to temper your expectations here…

Not everyone has been successful with this, and there are no clear parameters for who they will consider eligible.

So here’s my advice:

If you got the lower credit card signup bonus for this card in the 30-ish days before the new epic offer launched, give them a call and ask if they’ll honor the new bonus.

If they say no, all is not lost. Just use the age-old technique of HUCA (hang up, call again).

A lot of these things come down to which customer service rep is in a good mood/knowledgeable enough to make these things happen. It can never hurt to try again and roll the dice with a new agent.

Good luck, y’all! I’m keeping my fingers crossed for ya. And if you want to be in the know when things like this happen, make sure to come hang out in the Daily Drop Lounge.

💳 See if you’re eligible for some sweet spending bonuses

I know that many of you have recently signed up for credit cards with a certain bank that rhymes with Face Bank (I know, it’s exhausting).

Anyway, you may be eligible for some SWEET spending bonuses that you aren’t aware of.

Rather than go into all the details here, I’ll send you over to One Mile at a Time, who wrote a great piece on the topic that walks you through exactly how you can find out if you’re eligible:

FYI, if you sign up for a credit card, don’t forget that Daily Drop was your first true love - using our links helps us keep the lights on. 😘

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That’s all for today, y’all. While I haven’t fully recovered yet, I’m definitely heading in the right direction. Getting sick abroad is not fun, so tell me:

Looking forward to seeing your beautiful faces (or email addresses) tomorrow. ❤️

14.6349° N, 90.5069° W