Bilt Rent Day is back again, meaning Bilt Rewards Members can take advantage of some limited-time events and rewards. Like previous months, you can earn extra Bilt points through an in-app trivia game, complete a challenge for a chance to have your rent paid for the month, get a second bike for free when you book a class with SoulCycle and earn double points on non-rent purchases with your Bilt Mastercard®. All of these benefits are only active on Aug. 1, 2023.
But August brings another special offer in partnership with Virgin Atlantic, one of Bilt’s airline transfer partners. On Aug. 1 only, you’ll get a transfer bonus when transferring Bilt Points to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, the loyalty program of British airline Virgin Atlantic.
Depending on your status tier with Bilt -- which is determined by how many points you earn in a calendar year -- the transfer bonus will range from 75% to 150%. According to The Points Guy’s records, transfer bonuses to that airline from its various credit card partners usually top out at around 30%, making Bilt’s offer one of the best we’ve seen.
If you have Bilt points on hand and are looking to snag a flight soon, this is a great chance to get some extra value for your points. And if you’re not yet a Bilt cardholder, we’ll explain why you might want to pick up the card, both for its earning potential and future rent day benefits.
What’s the Bilt Mastercard?
The Bilt Mastercard is one of the only credit cards on the market that lets you earn points on rent without a transaction fee.
Typically, when you opt to pay rent with a credit card, you’ll be charged a transaction fee by your landlord or payment processor. Most landlords, however, won’t charge a fee when you pay with an ACH transaction from your bank account (also known as e-check) or a physical check. The Bilt Mastercard works by giving you a routing number and an account number that looks like one from a bank account but is instead tied to your card.
When you make a rent payment through an online payment portal, the transaction will be processed like an ACH payment instead of a credit card payment -- avoiding any fees your landlord charges for credit card payments.
The amount will be charged to your Bilt card, and you’ll earn 1X point per dollar (up to 100,000 points each calendar year). Alternatively, you can have Bilt mail a physical check to your landlord. Similar to the previous method, the balance will be charged to your card, and you’ll earn points on the transaction.
Note that you’ll need to make five non-rent transactions with your cards per statement period in order to earn any points from rent or purchases for that statement period. But that’s not hard to do, as the card also earns 3X points on dining, 2X on travel and 1X on other purchases.
On the first day of every month, or Rent Day, the Bilt Mastercard will earn double the rewards for its non-rent categories. That means on Aug. 1, your card will earn 6X points per dollar on dining, 4X points per dollar on travel and 2X points for everything else (excluding rent). However, rewards are capped at 10,000 points for Rent Day.
In addition to rewards, the card has a few other perks that make it a good no-annual-fee travel card. It has no foreign transaction fees and comes with an auto rental collision damage waiver, trip delay insurance and trip cancellation/interruption reimbursement.
What’s Bilt Rent Day?
Rent Day occurs on the first of the month. It’s happened every month since October 2022. Bilt usually offers a host of special perks and benefits to members every Rent Day. Some of these, like a trivia game to earn bonus points or a sweepstakes for free rent, repeat from month to month.
Others, like transfer bonuses or special perks or discounts offered by Bilt’s various partners, change monthly and can be redeemed only on Rent Day before they go away for good. In previous months, Bilt has offered transfer bonuses to Flying Blue, Lyft credits, complimentary Hyatt Explorist status and more.
This month, Bilt Rewards Members can take advantage of one of the best transfer rates we’ve seen to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club -- ranging from 75% to 150%, depending on your Bilt status.
Virgin Atlantic point transfers
Point transfers let you move points from your credit card -- in this case, Bilt Points -- to a hotel or airline partner, like Virgin Atlantic.
Once you transfer your points to a partner, you can then book your flight or hotel stay directly through the partner’s own loyalty program, subject to the rules and award rates set by the partner.
Transferring your points can increase how much your points are worth if you’re able to find a good deal, but it can take more work than redeeming your points for one of the fixed-rate redemption options directly through your credit card issuer.
Bilt points normally transfer at a 1:1 ratio to Bilt’s 14 airline and hotel transfer partners. On Rent Day for August, depending on your Bilt Rewards Membership tier (Blue, Silver, Gold or Platinum), you’ll get a 75% to 150% point bonus when transferring your Bilt Points to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club. Here are the exact bonus percentages, broken down by status level:
| Bilt status | Transfer bonus |
| Blue | 75% |
| Silver | 100% |
| Gold | 125% |
| Platinum | 150% |
That means at the base level, 1,000 Bilt Points would transfer to 1,750 Virgin Points with the 75% bonus, while at the highest level, 1,000 Bilt Points would become 2,500 Virgin Points with the 150% bonus.
Virgin Points are best used for airfare with Virgin Atlantic or one of its partner airlines, but you can also redeem them for cruises on Virgin Voyages or stays at Virgin Limited Edition Resorts.
To see what your points can get you, take a look at some of the deals currently advertised on Virgin Atlantic’s website.
You can book an economy flight from London to New York for just 20,000 points and £284 in taxes and fees. Taking advantage of the 75% transfer bonus you get from Bilt’s Blue status on Rent Day, you would only need 11,429 Bilt Points for this redemption -- and less if you have a higher status.
How it works
You’ll first need to join Virgin Atlantic Flying Club to auto-enroll in Virgin Red. You’ll then need to link your Bilt account with your Virgin account. You can do so via the Bilt app beneath the “travel” tab. From the same app, you can transfer your Bilt Points to your Virgin account to capitalize on this Rent Day’s transfer bonus.
It’s worth noting that for Bilt Rewards Blue members, there’s a minimum transfer amount of 2,000 points. To progress through the membership tiers, you’ll need to earn a specific amount of points: 25,000 points for Silver, 50,000 for Gold and 100,000 for Platinum.
Rent Trivia and game show opportunities
A less lucrative perk of Rent Day is the chance to participate in Point Quest -- Bilt’s trivia platform -- and RentFree, a game show where you could win free rent (up to $2,500, up to 10 members per month). Bilt fielded questions to 1,000 members prior to Rent Day. If you guess three of the most popular answers, you’ll be entered for a chance to win.
The Point Quest trivia game consists of five multiple-choice questions, growing in difficulty as you progress through them. You can win a total of 250 Bilt Points for answering all questions correctly.
The bottom line
If you have the Bilt Mastercard, this Rent Day presents ample opportunities to earn extra points and then turn those points into summer travel with Virgin Atlantic. And if you don’t have the card, now’s a great time to get it so you can take advantage of future Rent Day offers.
Because point transfers are non-reversible, we generally don’t recommend transferring credit card points to a travel partner until you’re ready to book. But the August Rent Day transfer bonus is high enough that it may be worthwhile to transfer your points even if you don’t have a specific redemption in mind, so long as you’re absolutely sure you’ll have a use for your Virgin Points in the future.
The editorial content on this page is based solely on objective, independent assessments by our writers and is not influenced by advertising or partnerships. It has not been provided or commissioned by any third party. However, we may receive compensation when you click on links to products or services offered by our partners.
