Author: David Cox

How American Airlines Turned a Simple Request into a Giant Headache

Posted on by David Cox

We’d had this trip planned for months. A sunny few days in Tenerife with a two-day stop in London at the beginning and a one-day stop in Madrid at the end.

The long-haul flights from Moline to London and Madrid to Moline were on American Airlines and booked with AA miles. We got a tremendous deal on the flights from Moline to London for 19,000 AA miles and $5.60 each, for four people. The flight home was a good but not great price, costing 34,000 AAdvantage Miles and $50 each. We also booked award flights on British Airways from London to Tenerife and Tenerife to Madrid on Iberia Airlines.

Everything looked great, and we were ready to go, but a couple of months prior, American Airlines had moved the first leg of our flight to London forward two hours which meant that the comfortable 3 hour layover in Chicago was now a nerve racking hour and seven minute layover.

Jenn and I considered moving our first leg of the flight to an earlier flight, but that would have left us with a six hour layover in Chicago and we thought “you know, let’s just trust the airline this time, as long as the weather is fine, that’s an easy enough connection.”

The Weather Was, in Fact, Not Fine

We live in the Midwest. We know better. There is no such thing as “fine” weather, especially in March. It’s 5 degrees one day, 70 degrees the next. It’s also constantly rainy, windy, and occasionally, we get the dreaded March blizzard.

About a week before our trip, our local meteorologist started talking about a storm coming up. He was predicting strong winds and maybe an inch of snow. As the week progressed, the forecast progressively got worse, and we were looking at the prospect of attempting to fly out of our local airport with sideways snow accumulating in the 5 to 8 inch range.

Moline does not have a great reputation for on-time flights, so our 1-hour layover now looked impossible. We needed options. What I was hoping for was either a longer layover or a different route that got us around the storm. I searched every way I could think of and couldn’t come up with a good alternative.

I took about a day to try to figure something out and the forecast kept getting worse, so we finally thought “what if we drove to Chicago the day before and just took the Moline to Chicago legs off of our flights?” That way, no matter what, we wouldn’t miss the flight from Chicago to London. Sounds great, but we’ll have to call American Airlines to do that.

We called and they answered the phone almost immediately. We explained the situation to the customer service representative. She responded that she could rebook us from Chicago to London, and that would cost 30,000 points.

Wait – what? I’m going to give you 4 seats back, that you can sell, or potentially use for other passengers who might be impacted by the storm, and you want me to pay an additional 11,000 AAdvantage miles per person to do it?

I barely had enough points to do it, but that also means that I would have to change our flights back since my truck would be in Chicago, and we definitely didn’t have enough AAdvantage miles to change both. I knew we could skiplag on the way home and just get off in Chicago, but it’s frowned upon, and I didn’t want to piss off American Airlines.

We talked about it and decided that, since we were willing to drive to Chicago, we should look into whether we could get flights from Chicago to London on United Airlines. Jenn checked the United app and saw that saver-level fares were available for a little over 38,000 United miles. That’s great, but I knew if there were saver-level fares available on United, then they might be available on Singapore Airlines as a partner award. I preferred to use Singapore Airlines to book, because they generally have cheaper prices on United flights to Europe and they have a lot of transfer partners.

The Singapore Airlines Nominee Problem

I checked the Singapore Airlines website and, sure enough, there were the same flights available for only 32,500 Singapore Miles instead of 38,000 United miles. Great – we then transferred 130,000 miles from American Express Membership Rewards to Singapore to book the flights. I then tried to book the flights and ran into a problem. It was Jenn’s Singapore Airlines account, and I could add Emma and Jenn, but there wasn’t any way to add me and Alex.

It was strange. Why could I only choose from a dropdown instead of just filling out the passenger information? Jenn called customer service, and they said that we needed to add “nominees” (Emma was already a nominee for Jenn’s account because they booked a trip together last summer using Singapore). Ok, fine, it’s weird they do it that way, but sure. Jenn added Alex and me to the nominees and then tried again to book it. She still couldn’t choose us. Jenn called back to customer service, and they told her that she couldn’t add nominees for flights within 72 hours – we were looking at a flight 52 hours in the future. You’ve got to be kidding me.

At this point, I was getting pretty frustrated, but we decided to book Emma and Jenn using Singapore Airlines, since we had already transferred the points, and Alex and I would have to book the same flights using United miles.

The United Mileage Pool Problem

We’ve had around 13,000 United miles in a family pool for a while now. We needed a total of 76,000 miles to book Alex and me on the same flight to London that Jenn and Emma were now on. So I transferred 63,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points to United and then added them to the family pool.

Now I just needed to book the flight. I chose the flight and then went to check out and got the error “You do not have enough miles to book this flight.” What? Why? I poked around for a while, and it said that pooled miles were not available for this flight. I’m sorry, what? No explanation as to why, just that I couldn’t use the miles for this flight, and a link to the terms and conditions so I could sift through all of the carefully written legal language for the rule that applied in this case.

I was at the end of my rope; I just needed to get this flight booked. I was frustrated because I had moved points over to the family pool, and I wasn’t sure if I could get them out of the pool to use them immediately, and I had already stranded 65,000 Amex Ultimate Reward points on Singapore Airlines since Alex and I weren’t nominees on Jenn’s account.

I did some searching and found out that I could reverse a move to a points pool within 24 hours, so I reversed the move and transferred an additional 13,000 Chase Ultimate Reward Points to United, which gave me enough points outside of the points pool to book the flight.

Frustrations with Loyalty Programs

At the end of all of this, I was frustrated, angry, and frankly disappointed in each of these loyalty programs. Every problem I experienced trying to fix a problem with the weather was created by an unnecessary rule. For most of these, I don’t even understand why the rule exists in the first place, let alone why you would put your customers (and customer service representatives) through this.

American Airlines – Dynamic Pricing Demands More Flexible Customer Service

For American Airlines, you put out a travel alert for our flight. You knew the weather was going to be bad. When we explained to the customer service representative what we were attempting to do and why, she completely understood. She talked to her supervisor to explain the situation, but still couldn’t do anything about it without having to rebook.

If you are going to have dynamic pricing, then you cannot expect people to rebook at higher prices later if there is a weather emergency. It would be one thing if we decided that we wanted to change our flights and there were no weather issues, but that wasn’t the case. You declared a travel alert, but then were too narrow in what we could do to address the weather issues. And we weren’t even trying to get on a flight that we hadn’t booked – we just didn’t want to take one of the legs of the flight. We couldn’t have made it easier on you. They still couldn’t accommodate the simplest of requests.

Singapore Airlines – The Nominee System is Terrible

For Singapore Airlines, what are you doing with this nominee system? This is utterly insane. I understand that you are probably trying to prevent people from selling your points, but if the account holder is literally flying on the same flight, then they’re not selling points, they’re just trying to get their family or friends on the same flight that they are on.

The nominee system is a complete waste of your IT staff and your customer service staff’s time. Just allow people to type in the information of the people who will be on the flight, like everyone else does. Also, if you are going to force a nominee system, then why in the world would you not allow someone to book within 72 hours? It makes no sense, and this is just an unnecessary rule that you are forcing your customer service representatives to know, explain, and enforce, while undoubtedly pissing off your customers.

United Airlines – Make Points Pooling Instantaneous

For United Airlines, can you make the points pooling useful? Making me wait 24 hours after pooling points is asinine. Like American Airlines, you use dynamic pricing, so if I move a certain number of points over to the points pool, there is no guarantee the price of that flight will be the same the next day. What if I move enough points over today and the price jumps by 5,000 points tomorrow, and then I move another 5,000 points, and then it changes the next day? You can’t have dynamic pricing and not allow me to use points immediately; that’s just going to lead to frustration, anger, and uncomfortable phone calls for your employees.

In addition, it would be nice if you could explain why I couldn’t use pooled points on a flight in the error and maybe tell me what I could do about it instead of just linking the terms and conditions. I literally didn’t know why I wasn’t able to book that flight until a week later when I had the time to really look into it.

We Saved the Trip

At the end of the day, we were able to make it work. The original flight from Moline to Chicago that we were trying to avoid got canceled, so had we not changed our plans, we would have been at the mercy of American Airlines to get us to London, at best, a day late. The issue with Singapore Airlines meant that we had 65,000 Amex Membership Rewards points stranded there, and the clock is ticking, since they now expire in 3 years.

I tried to rebook the flight from Madrid to Moline to Madrid to Chicago, but there weren’t really any available seats anywhere to make that work. We ended up having to skiplag the Chicago to Moline portion because, as we found out, there is no point in calling American Airlines customer service to let them know we won’t be using the last leg. I hated doing that, but we really had no options.

On the bright side, we landed in London about 4 hours earlier than we would have on the American Airlines flight, and every other part of the trip was the same. Having points in multiple programs allowed us to move around what we needed to and book a workable flight. As frustrating as all of this was, it was less frustrating than being stuck because of the snowstorm and missing out on a portion, or all, of our vacation. I’ve heard this many times, and it turned out to be true – always be proactive when you are traveling, and make sure that you stay out in front of any issues, especially weather problems.

Points Check February 2026

Posted on by David Cox

February in Iowa is brutal. It’s been cold and dark. Midwestern winters are primarily about survival. You just go inside and stay. Most people binge-watch TV shows under a heated blanket. We’re not big television watchers, so we’ve been spending an unhealthy amount of time in breweries, where the Quad Cities excels in both quantity and quality. Illnesses are running rampant, as Iowans have been breathing the same indoor stale air since November. At this point, we’re all just dreaming of going outside for anything.

Because of all of this, if you go anywhere to Florida, Arizona, or the Caribbean during March or April, you will run into dozens of folks from the Midwest, in our annual desperate attempt to bookend the hellscape that is Midwestern winter. Spring break isn’t an annual tradition; it is the only thing that keeps us from tying a brick to our legs and jumping into an icy lake in the winter. WE NEED THIS!

For the last three years, we’ve planned unusual Spring Breaks. Frankly, we’ve done Florida, and I just can’t do it anymore. I don’t want to share a beach with obnoxious, drunken college students. Because of that, our Spring Breaks have been a little different lately. Two years ago, we went to Costa Rica and spent time hiking in the mountains, lying on the beach, and enjoying Costa Rican culture. Last year, we spent six days hiking the Portuguese route of the Camino de Santiago. This year, we will visit the Canary Islands, specifically Tenerife Island, which is part of Spain, but off the coast of Africa. This will give us a beach vacation, but without the crowds of Florida and the Caribbean. We will also be stopping in London and Madrid as part of this trip.

Spring Break couldn’t come soon enough, because we are starting to lose our minds here, and it’s time for us to go outside and get some vitamin D.

Atmos Awards Ascent Visa Card

We said we weren’t going to do this. We were going to take it easy and sign up for fewer cards this year, but alas, Jenn signed up for the Atmos Awards Ascent Visa Signature card. This is while I’m working on a signup bonus for my Iberia Plus card, and Jenn is working on a signup bonus on her Bilt Palladium Card.

There was a valid reason for this: Jenn wants to plan a girls’ trip with her and Emma to celebrate Emma turning 21 and is considering options in the Northwest, including Seattle, San Francisco, or Portland. Atmos miles would work really well for any of those destinations, and now that she earns Bilt points, she has a way to top off the account by transferring Bilt points to Atmos. It’s always a good idea to pair a hotel or airline card with a transferable points card to have some flexibility and top off an account. Having the Bilt card makes the Atmos card more attractive.

The Atmos Awards Ascent Visa Card has a $95 annual fee and earns 3X on Alaska Airlines purchases, 2X on Gas, EV charging, transit, rideshare, cable, and streaming services, and 1X on all other purchases. If you spend $6,000 in a year, you will earn the companion fare, which allows you to book a companion flight for $99 plus taxes.

The current bonus for this card is 70,000 points when the cardholder spends $4,000 over the first 90 days. The Atmos Awards program is known for strong partner booking rates. Short-haul domestic flights on American Airlines typically cost 4,500 points, and I see many routes to Europe for 27,500 points with minimal fuel surcharges. Having a few more Atmos miles will be a good thing to have around.

UK Electronic Travel Authorization

Since 2025, the UK has required an electronic travel authorization to enter the UK from the United States. This is to enhance their border protection. Each application costs 16 British pounds and, if approved, is good for two years. On their website, they say to allow up to three business days to process the application, so you need to plan ahead.

This will be our first trip to England, and while I’m not happy about the fact that I have to pay for four authorizations costing a total of $90, we went through the process and found it to be fairly easy. We used the phone app to apply, and I think that might be the reason. Using an iPhone, it was able to scan our faces, scan our passports, and take photos of us and our passports. Scanning the passport was interesting; apparently, there is a chip in the back cover of your passport, and it was able to read it through the phone.

Anyway, this process took just a few minutes, and we were approved immediately. There is an option to apply online, and I assume that you would not be able to scan the passport or your face, and maybe when you apply that way it takes them longer to verify the information. That might be why we were approved instantaneously and they say to allow three business days. So if you do have an emergency trip to the UK, I would use the app, I think that will give you a better chance of instantaneous approval.

On to the Points Check

We spent around $2,500 on cards not earning a bonus, earning less than 5% return on that spend. That’s below where I want to be. I want to shift as much of this to the Bilt Palladium card over time, since that has solid earnings on all spend. I’m going to continue to keep utilities on the Wyndham Business Earner card since it earns 5X on utilities, and I’ll keep our phone bill and streaming services on the Ink Cash since it earns 5X on that spending. But other than that, most of this would be better spent on the Bilt Palladium Card.

Card UsedSpendPoints EarnedPoint ValuePoints Per $Return on Spend
Amex Gold$1,3332,619$52.382.03.9%
Sapphire Preferred$508772$15.831.53.1%
Ink Cash$4412,204$45.185.010.3%
Ink Unlimited$101153$3.011.53.0%
Wyndham Business Earner$84420$4.625.05.5%
Blue Business Plus$66132$2.642.04.0%
Total$2,5336,300$123.712.54.9%
This month’s spending not devoted to earning a signup bonus

Aside from the spending above, I spent a little over $1,600 on my Iberia Plus card, earning 1,600 Avios, and Jenn spent a little over $1,600 on her Bilt Palladium card, earning almost 4,600 Bilt Points. We used $200 in Bilt Cash to activate the Points Accelerator, which adds an additional 1 point per dollar spent on the next $5,000 in spend. That essentially makes the Palladium Card a 3X anywhere card.

That leaves us with a total of:

  • 327,000 Chase Ultimate Reward Points
  • 247,300 IHG Points
  • 175,800 Amex Membership Rewards Points
  • 101,200 Wyndham Points
  • 79,400 Alaska Miles
  • 33,900 American Airlines Miles
  • 19,300 Citi Thank You Points
  • 16,700 United Miles
  • 15,900 Marriott Bonvoy Points
  • 4,600 Bilt Points
  • 1,600 Avios
  • 1,500 Delta Miles
  • 300 Hyatt Points
  • $133 Cash Back

All of this, using the points valuations published by The Points Guy, is worth a total of $15,300. That’s the highest it’s been in a while, which is great, but right now I’m a little more focused on getting out of this winter hellscape and getting to a beach. I can’t wait to get to Tenerife.

Points Check January 2026

Posted on by David Cox

Ah, the start of a new year. Last year was a busy travel year for us, and we’re hoping to take it a little easier this year, but we’ll see. We have a trip to London, Tenerife, and Madrid scheduled for spring break, but nothing else so far. We’re hoping to do a little camping this summer and maybe take a short trip to Mexico in the fall. That would be a busy year for most, but last year we went to Europe three times, so it just feels a little light.

The winter in Iowa, as always, has been dreadful, with a couple of weeks in January being so bitterly cold that all anyone really did was go to work and bundle up at home. This is why spring break is always so important – it gives us something to look forward to when living in this icy hell is at its worst. Jenn has been planning our two days in London, while I’ve been planning the five days in Tenerife. The plan for Madrid is fairly simple: get off the plane from Tenerife, walk around and eat tapas, sleep at the hotel, go back to the airport, and fly home.

Iberia Plus Visa Signature

I applied for the Iberia Plus Visa Signature card and was accepted. This card has a $95 annual fee and earns 3X on purchases with Iberia, British Airways, and Aer Lingus, 2X on hotels, and 1X everywhere else. It provides a 10% discount on flights booked with Iberia, as well as a $1,000 discount voucher toward Iberia flights, issued when the cardholder spends $30,000 on the card in a year.

This card really isn’t that interesting, but it does come with a bonus of 75,000 Avios after spending $5,000 on the card in 3 months. I was looking for a way to pick up a few Avios without having to transfer points from our Amex Membership Rewards or Chase Ultimate Rewards stashes. Our son Alex wants to go to Finland and Iceland for his post-graduation trip in a year and a half, and Finnair uses Avios, so I’m planning ahead.

This is actually one of three Chase credit cards that earn Avios, with the others being the Aer Lingus Visa Signature and the British Airways Visa Signature cards. With any of these cards, you can earn the bonus every two years. If you cycle through these cards, you could potentially earn 225,000 to 300,000 bonus Avios every two years (the typical bonuses range between 75,000 and 100,000 Avios). We might decide to pick up a couple more of these cards over the next year or so in order to accumulate some points for Alex’s trip.

Finnair has a direct flight from Chicago to Helsinki that can often be booked for as few as 30,000 Avios. If we choose to be a little more creative, we could also fly to Madrid, London, or Dublin using Iberia, British Airways, or Aer Lingus, and then continue on to Helsinki. Either way, it’s nice to know that there are four European cities that have hubs used by airlines that use Avios. For us, that makes Avios a valuable airline currency that we are willing to accumulate, even if we don’t have an immediate need.

Bilt Palladium Card

Jenn applied for and was approved for the Bilt Palladium Card. Her enthusiasm for this card isn’t terribly high, and that’s because every time I try to explain what Bilt is and why I think it’s great, she just looks at me and says it’s too complicated. Frankly, she has a point, and that has been the biggest complaint about the Bilt 2.0 rollout. It’s just a lot to wrap your head around.

I’ve written a few blog posts over the past few weeks about the refreshed Bilt program and the three credit cards that they’ve issued with the new rollout. It’s a complex program, but it does allow you to earn 1X points on your mortgage or rent (through ACH, not with your credit card) as long as you charge essentially 75% of the total amount of your mortgage or rent on a Bilt Card. In the end, it’s really a gimmicky ploy to get you to use the card every month, but that’s fine with me. In addition to the 1X on the mortgage or rent, the Palladium card earns 2X on all other purchases.

The Bilt Palladium Card has a $495 annual fee and comes with a variety of travel protections, as well as two $200 hotel credits, one for the first half of the calendar year, one for the second half. It comes with a Priority Pass Select membership, which provides unlimited visits to Priority Pass lounges for the cardholder and up to two guests per visit. It also gives you $200 in Bilt Cash annually. Currently, it offers a 50,000 Bilt Point signup bonus, plus $300 in Bilt Cash and Bilt Gold Elite status for the remainder of 2026 and 2027 if you spend $4,000 in the first 3 months.

In addition to the 2X Bilt Points it earns on all spend, it also earns 4X in Bilt Cash, which is used to unlock points earned on rent or mortgage. Any Bilt Cash that is earned and not used to unlock points on rent or mortgage can be used for a variety of coupon-like benefits, as well as a point accelerator where you can exchange $200 in Bilt Cash for the ability to earn an additional 1X for the next $5,000 in spend on the card.

Between the Bilt Points, Bilt Cash, the benefits, and the status, this is a difficult program to understand, but not a difficult program to get good value from your spend. This card specifically is great for all uses, and we plan to use this for just about everything, unless we are working on a signup bonus.

On To the Point Check!

Before the two cards that we signed up for in January, we really hadn’t signed up for much recently. The fact of the matter is that there just haven’t been many offers with good signup bonuses that we were eligible for. Jenn hasn’t had anything to work on for a while, and when she’s not working on a bonus, she just uses whichever card is the saved payment method on Amazon or whatever is at the top of her wallet. This really means that we’re not optimizing our spending for points earning, and that shows up in the chart below.

This is actually one of the reasons that I’m excited to get the Bilt Palladium Card. It’s such a great card to use on virtually anything, I can just tell her to use it on everything when she’s not working on a signup bonus. Honestly, I’m really considering purging a ton of credit cards because they’re not necessary. We’ll see how that evolves over the next few months.

Card UsedSpendPoints EarnedPoint ValuePoints Per $Return on Spend
Amex Gold$1,7704,147$82.942.34.7%
Ink Cash$4412205$45.205.010.3%
IHG Premier Business$4201,261$6.313.01.5%
Wyndham Business Earner$3981,990$21.985.05.5%
Sapphire Preferred$376376$7.711.02.1%
Blue Business Plus$66132$2.642.04.0%
Total$3,86210,501$174.092.74.5%
This month’s spending not devoted to earning a signup bonus

In addition to the spending listed above, I spent a little under $1,800 on my Ink Unlimited card and received a little under 2,700 Chase Ultimate reward points on that spend. That was the last required spending needed for me to earn my 90,000-point signup bonus on that card.

Jenn also received a 10,000 Membership Rewards point bonus for adding our daughter as an authorized user on her Amex Gold card and having her complete $2,000 in spend over 6 months.

That leaves us with:

  • 323,600 Chase Ultimate Reward Points
  • 266,700 IHG Points
  • 172,400 Amex Membership Rewards Points
  • 100,700 Wyndham Points
  • 79,400 Alaska Miles
  • 33,900 American Airlines Miles
  • 19,300 Citi Thank You Points
  • 16,700 United Miles
  • 15,900 Marriott Bonvoy Points
  • 1,500 Delta Miles
  • 300 Hyatt Points
  • $133 Cash Back

When totaled together, these points and miles, according to valuations published by The Points Guy, are worth over $15,100. That is the highest total we’ve had since November of 2024. We have some ideas about what we want to do in 2027, and they seem like they could be expensive. However, it looks like we’re well on our way to banking enough points for those plans to be feasible. I always enjoy planning and booking those trips, so I can’t wait to figure out how I can spend those points.

Bilt Palladium Card – A Complicated Way to Simplify Travel Hacking

Posted on by David Cox

The Bilt Palladium Card is the premium card that Bilt has created for its program. I think this card will have mass appeal for people who want to earn benefits for their everyday spend, but don’t want to juggle multiple credit cards. It is a great one-card solution for people who wish to do some travel hacking but don’t want to spend all of their time learning about multiple credit cards and programs. That being said, the Bilt program itself is complicated.

The Palladium Card is a Premium Card

For people who are not used to premium travel cards, the $495 annual fee is a lot. However, as with all premium cards, this needs to be weighed against the benefits of the card. Here are some highlights:

  • $400 in hotel credits ($200 twice a year for 2-night hotel stays booked through Bilt Travel)
  • Priority Pass Membership
  • $200 Bilt Cash annually
  • Trip Cancellation Insurance
  • Trip Delay Insurance
  • Cell Phone Protection
  • No foreign transaction fees
  • Lost or Damaged Luggage Protection

For those of us who carry multiple travel cards, the Priority Pass membership is less important, because chances are we are getting that benefit from another card, but for someone who only wants one credit card and flies a lot, this is a great benefit. The $400 hotel credit probably will just be a discount off a stay, since it’s $200 each time for a minimum 2-night stay. I’m sure there are some $100 per night hotels in the Bilt travel portal, but not a lot.

The travel coverage and cell phone coverage are nice to have and are also pretty standard for premium travel credit cards.

Signup Bonus

The Bilt Palladium Card currently has a signup bonus of 50,000 Bilt points after $4,000 in non-mortgage or rent spending and $300 Bilt Cash. This is a very small signup bonus by premium card standards, but that’s how Bilt operates. They just don’t want to offer huge signup bonuses, and I don’t expect them to offer more later. They are also offering Gold Elite status good through the remainder of 2026 and 2027 as part of the signup bonus.

Earning Rate

One of the things I love about this card is that it earns 2X Bilt points on all purchases (except rent or mortgage). Similar to the Capital One Venture X, they made the earning on the card simple and rewarding. In addition to the 2X Bilt Points you earn on all spend, you also earn 4X Bilt Cash on all purchases.

If you pay your rent or mortgage using Venmo or ACH through the Bilt website, you will earn 1X Bilt Points on that transaction, as long as you unlock those points by spending on the Bilt Palladium Card (this is a little complicated; I’ll explain later). For people who enjoy earning points, being able to accumulate points on a mortgage or rent is amazing. That is a feature of Bilt cards that just isn’t available with Amex, Chase, Capital One, or Citibank.

Bilt Points are Special

The most exciting thing about earning 2X Bilt Points on all purchases is that the points are so incredibly valuable. Bilt has the best collection of transfer partners among the major transferable currencies, and they continue to add partners. Here is the complete list as of January 2026.

  • Aer Lingus (1:1)
  • Air Canada (1:1)
  • Atmos Rewards (Hawaiian Airlines and Alaska Airlines) (1:1)
  • Avianca Lifemiles (1:1)
  • British Airways (1:1)
  • Cathay Pacific (1:1)
  • Emirates (1:1)
  • Etihad Guest (1:1)
  • Flying Blue (KLM and Air France) (1:1)
  • Iberia (1:1)
  • Japan Airlines (1:1)
  • Southwest Airlines (1:1)
  • Spirit Airlines (1:1)
  • Tap Portugal (1:1)
  • Turkish Airlines (1:1)
  • Qatar Airways (1:1)
  • United Airlines (1:1)
  • Virgin Red
  • All Accor Limitless (3:2)
  • Hilton (1:1)
  • Hyatt (1:1)
  • IHG (1:1)
  • Marriott Bonvoy (1:1)

The highlights of this list are the fact that you can transfer to Atmos, United, and Southwest on the domestic side, and that internationally, it has some airlines like Tap Portugal and Japan Airlines that don’t have a lot of other transfer partners. On the hotel side, being able to transfer to Hyatt at a 1-to-1 ratio is fantastic, and the All Accor partnership is also great.

Bilt Cash is the Wild Card

Bilt Cash was created to solve a specific problem that Bilt had. When Bilt was created, they knew they would lose money on points earned through rent payments, but they assumed they would make it up in other charges throughout the month. They required cardholders to make five transactions on the card to unlock the points earned from rent. Often, they would make five small purchases, and it wasn’t enough for Bilt to recover the cost of those points through interchange fees.

For the new cards, they solved this issue by creating a convoluted system to unlock your Bilt points earned from rent or mortgage payments. Every Bilt card earns 4X Bilt Cash on all transactions, except for rent or mortgage payments. You can unlock the points earned from rent or mortgage by paying 3% of the total mortgage in Bilt Cash.

What this means is that, if your rent or mortgage was $1,000 per month, you would need to use $30 in Bilt Cash to unlock the 1,000 Bilt points earned from that transaction. In order to earn the $30 in Bilt Cash, you would need to spend $750 on a Bilt Card to earn the $30 in Bilt Cash.

What this means in practice is that you will need to charge 75% of your total rent or mortgage payment on other transactions, every month to earn enough Bilt Cash to unlock the points earned from your rent or mortgage payment. Charges above that 75% get banked as Bilt Cash and can be used on a variety of things, like Lyft rides, Bilt Dining experiences, hotel credits, fitness classes, and even Blade helicopter airport transfers. For most of these items, it’s more of a coupon or discount rather than a full payment.

The use of Bilt Cash that is the most interesting to me is the point accelerator option, which allows you to use $200 in Bilt Cash to increase your Bilt Points earning by 1X for the next $5,000 in spend. That would turn this 2X card into a 3X anywhere card.

The Confusing and Rewarding World of Bilt Cash

When the new Bilt credit cards launched on January 14th, 2026, there was a lot of confusion about Bilt Cash. A week later, Bilt explained what it is used for. Most of the uses are not that interesting, but the point accelerator seems to be the clear best use of Bilt Cash.

David Cox's avatar by David Cox

Gold Status and Transfer Bonuses

One of the reasons why Bilt points are so valuable is the massive transfer bonuses that occur on Rent Day. Essentially, Bilt does a promotion on the first of each month, and many of these have been wild transfer bonuses. For instance, in April 2025, Bilt offered a transfer bonus to Avios (British Airways, Aer Lingus, Iberia, etc) of up to 100%, but the bonus was based on status. Members with Blue status were eligible for a 50% bonus, Silver 60%, Gold 75% and Platinum 100%.

What that means is that if the cardholder wanted to transfer their Bilt points to Avios, and they had Gold status, then a 10,000-point transfer becomes 17,500 Avios. A member with Blue status only would have received 15,000 Avios, so having elevated status really matters.

There appears to be an option to use Bilt Cash to move up a status. Currently, I’m listed as a Blue member, and it says that I can upgrade (for Rent Day) to Silver status for $75 in Bilt Cash. If this card is offering Gold Status as a signup bonus and you can upgrade to Platinum status for a day (to increase a transfer bonus percentage), all of a sudden a much larger transfer bonus could be unlocked for a little Bilt Cash. At this point, we have no idea whether that $75 offer will be available every month and with every status, but it is worth keeping an eye on.

Benefits

The benefits of the Bilt Palladium Card aren’t the best in the business, but they are beneficial. The trip cancellation insurance and trip delay coverages could be useful if your travels don’t go the way they should. Priority Pass membership is also nice to have if you would like to enjoy a couple of hours in an airport lounge during a layover.

The hotel credits could be useful, and they are large enough to be a significant discount on a two-night stay, and the $200 annual Bilt Cash could potentially prove extremely useful. There is some speculation that you can pair $100 in Bilt Cash with $200 in hotel credits to get $300 off a two-night hotel stay booked through the Bilt Travel Portal, but we’ll have to wait to see on that.

Comparison to Venture X

Based on what we know, the Palladium Card will be a great way to earn a lot of Bilt points on spend. If you compare it to other credit cards with transferable points, the earning structure is great.

Let’s compare it to the Capital One Venture X Card, which earns two Capital One Venture Miles for every dollar spent on the card. Let’s assume your rent or mortgage is $2,000. If you were going to spend $1,500 on the Venture X, you would earn 3,000 Venture miles. You can’t earn points on the mortgage, so it’s a total of 3,000 miles.

With the Bilt Palladium Card, you would pay the $2,000 rent or mortgage through the Bilt platform using Venmo or ACH. The $1,500 in spend on the card would earn $60 in Bilt Cash, which you could use to unlock the 2,000 Bilt Points from the rent or mortgage. In addition, you would earn 3,000 Bilt Points from the non-mortgage spending on the card. That would be a total of 5,000 Bilt Points, instead of 3,000 Venture Miles on the same spend.

Because you can’t earn points on rent or mortgage with any other card, you almost need to consider it a 3.3X card until you spend more than you need to unlock points from your mortgage. That’s huge! After you’ve unlocked the points from your mortgage its 2X on everything and 4X Bilt Cash.

Bilt Cash really looks like a way to create your own coupon-like benefits, but with any excess Bilt Cash, I’m going to look at the points accelerator. Up to 5 times a year, you can turn $200 in Bilt Cash into an additional 1X on spend made with the Bilt Palladium Card. That means that instead of being a 2X anywhere card, it becomes a 3X anywhere card (for the next $5,000 in spend).

Who is the Bilt Palladium Card For?

I have been known to churn and burn credit cards for signup bonuses. It’s a great way to earn a lot of points in a hurry. Because of these signup bonuses, credit card companies have a tendency to front-load the best features of the cards. For example, my Chase Ink Unlimited card had a 90,000-point bonus on $6,000 in spend and 1.5x on all spend. This means that for the first $6,000 in spending on the card, I earned 16.5X on all spend, then 1.5x forever after that. It’s no wonder that people want to churn and burn those cards.

With the Bilt Palladium Card, yes, there is a 50,000 point bonus, so for the first $4,000, you will earn 14.5x on the first $4,000. After that, however, you earn essentially 3.3X Bilt Points on all spending until you unlock your mortgage points, then 2X Bilt Points and 4X Bilt Cash. If you use the Bilt Cash earned on the points accelerator, the earnings get even better.

In the end, I think this card will be best for someone who travels occasionally and would like to lower the cost of that travel with the most valuable points available. If someone concentrates on this one program, takes advantage of Bilt partners as well as the great earning rates, and finds good use for Bilt cash, this could be a great card.

For example, let’s say you are a homeowner, with a family of 4, and your mortgage is $2,000, and you spend $4,000 per month on other spend on the card. You would earn 10,000 Bilt Points per month as well as $100 in Bilt Cash each month (above what is necessary to unlock the points from the mortgage). If you also figure in the 50,000 Bilt Point bonus and the $300 Bilt Cash signup bonus, that would equal 170,000 Bilt Points and $1,500 Bilt Cash. Let’s say you use $1,000 in Bilt Cash to unlock the points accelerator for the maximum 25,000 additional Bilt Points. Now you would have 195,000 Bilt Points.

If you were to take advantage of a 75% transfer bonus to Avios (when it was available), all of a sudden, you would have 341,250 Avios. Let’s say that you were able to increase your status for $75 in Bilt Cash to Platinum on Rent Day, and the transfer bonus was 100% instead of 75%. Now you can have up to 390,000 Avios, which are generally valued at 1.3 cents per point, or $5,070 all together. That can certainly make a huge difference in the cost of a vacation.

Conclusion

The Bilt Palladium Card and the Bilt Program are complicated. That is clear. But in reality, you don’t have to do all of this math to make it work for you. If you know for example, that your everyday spend is at least 75% of your mortgage or rent payment, then you will earn enough Bilt Cash to unlock the points earned from rent or mortgage. The 2X Bilt Points on all spend is enough that you can use it everywhere and not think twice about it.

If you just use the card everywhere and then log into your Bilt account from time to time to see what to do with your hotel credits and excess Bilt Cash, then that’s really as involved as you need to be. Yes, the program is complicated, but you don’t need to make it hard.

Honestly, I think that the best benefit of this card is that it keeps offering value long after the signup bonus is gone, and can make travel hacking simpler by giving people one program to worry about rather than a half dozen. It’s travel hacking for people without the time or patience to travel hack.

The Bilt Obsidian Card Could be Perfect For Families

Posted on by David Cox

The Bilt Obsidian Card is a card that could be interesting for families or anyone who has a significant amount of dining or grocery spend, especially for a family with a large rent or mortgage payment. Prior to February 7th, 2026, Bilt allowed people to earn points on rent payments, but after that date, it will allow people to earn Bilt Points when you pay your mortgage.

The payments aren’t charged to the card, but rather you use the Bilt platform to make the payment with your Venmo or bank account and routing number. You earn 1 point per dollar on the transaction, as long as you make the necessary non-housing transactions on the credit card. But finding out how much will require some math.

What is the Bilt Obsidian Card?

The Bilt Obsidian Card is the middle-tier card of the three new cards created for the Bilt program. It has a $95 annual fee and earns 3X on your choice of grocery or dining, 2x on travel and 1X on all other purchases, including 1X on mortgage or rent payments paid through the Bilt platform.

The card also comes with two $50 hotel credits, one in the first half of the year and the second in the second half of the year. These credits are for two-night stays booked through the Bilt Travel Portal. Honestly, this feels almost useless, unless you prefer to use the Bilt Travel Portal, then it’s a nice $50 coupon. Most likely, I wouldn’t even use this credit.

The Bilt Obsidian Card also comes with some travel protections, including MasterRental Coverage, trip delay, and cancellation coverage. It also comes with no foreign transaction fees, purchase assurance, and extended warranties.

The Bilt Obsidian Card currently comes with a signup bonus of $200 in Bilt Cash.

Unlocking Points on Rent or Mortgage

The biggest selling point of Bilt is that they allow you to earn points when you pay for your rent or mortgage through the Bilt platform. However, it’s not as simple as that. Because the points have a cost to Bilt, they have set up a system to ensure that they can recoup the cost of those points.

As with all credit cards, they make money through interchange fees. Therefore, Bilt requires that you spend on the card to help recoup the cost of those points. With the old Bilt Credit Card, you only had to make 5 purchases throughout the month. Now, the rules are, well, a bit more complicated.

Option 1 vs Option 2

As if the new Bilt system isn’t complicated enough, they have introduced two options to unlock the points that are earned on rent or mortgage. Option 1 sets your earning rate on those housing charges based on a “simplified” chart. It looks like this:

Non-Housing Spend as Percent of Housing SpendEarning rate on rent or mortgage
0% to 25%no points earned on rent or mortgage
25% to 50%.5 points per dollar on rent or mortgage
50% to 75%.75 points per dollar on rent or mortgage
75% to 100%1 point per dollar on rent or mortgage
Over 100%1.25 point per dollar on rent or mortgage

The more you spend on non-housing expenses, the more points you earn per dollar on your housing expenses, maxing out at 1.25 points per dollar. In order to choose Option 1, you need to forgo Bilt Cash, which is a feature of Option 2.

In Option 2, you earn 4X per dollar spent on non-housing expenses in a second currency called Bilt Cash. You can use the Bilt Cash at a rate of 3% of the housing expenses to unlock the Bilt Points earned by housing expenses. For example, a $1,000 rent payment would earn 1,000 Bilt points unlocked and paid for with $30 in Bilt Cash. At 4X per dollar, that amount of Bilt Cash is earned with $750 in non-housing expenses.

With Option 2, any spend above what is necessary to unlock Bilt Points can be banked as Bilt Cash, which can be used for a variety of things. These potential uses are mostly coupon-like credits for some of Bilt’s corporate partners. They include things like Lyft rides, Bilt Dining experiences, hotel credits, fitness classes, and even Blade helicopter airport transfers.

The best use of Bilt Cash is the points accelerator, which allows you to turn $200 in Bilt Cash into an extra 1X on all spend for the next $5,000. This means that instead of 3X on grocery or dining, 2X on travel, and 1X on everything else, this card would earn 4X on dining or grocery, 3X on travel, and 2X on everything else for the remainder of the accelerator period. Essentially, it’s a way for the cardholder to turn $200 in Bilt Cash into 5,000 Bilt Points.

The Confusing and Rewarding World of Bilt Cash

When the new Bilt credit cards launched on January 14th, 2026, there was a lot of confusion about Bilt Cash. A week later, Bilt explained what it is used for. Most of the uses are not that interesting, but the point accelerator seems to be the clear best use of Bilt Cash.

David Cox's avatar by David Cox

Average Family of 4 Using Option 2

According to Google AI (take it with a grain of salt) the average family spends around $2,300 per month on mortgage plus taxes and insurance. For the sake of easy math, let’s just say $3,000 all together with taxes and insurance included. The average family of 4 also spends around $1,400 per month on groceries (also according to Google AI).

In order to unlock the 3,000 points earned from the mortgage payment, they would also have to spend a total of $2,250 on non-housing expenses on the card. If they put the entire $1,400 of groceries on it then they would need to spend an additional $850 on other expenses on the card.

That means that they would earn 3,000 Bilt points on the mortgage, 4,200 points on the groceries (3X on groceries), and 850 points on the other spend. That is a grand total of 8,050 Bilt Points earned on what is $2,250 in credit card spend. That is almost 3.6X, which is fantastic. It’s actually more than the 6,450 Amex Membership Reward points that you would earn on that spend on an Amex Gold where there is 4X on grocery spend.

Bilt Points are the Best Points

Bilt points are generally viewed as being the most valuable points of the major programs. That is primarily because they have a great list of transfer partners, with some highly coveted partners such as Atmos Rewards and World of Hyatt. The full list of partners are:

  • Aer Lingus (1:1)
  • Air Canada (1:1)
  • Atmos Rewards (Hawaiian Airlines and Alaska Airlines) (1:1)
  • Avianca Lifemiles (1:1)
  • British Airways (1:1)
  • Cathay Pacific (1:1)
  • Emirates (1:1)
  • Etihad Guest (1:1)
  • Flying Blue (KLM and Air France) (1:1)
  • Iberia (1:1)
  • Japan Airlines (1:1)
  • Southwest Airlines (1:1)
  • Spirit Airlines (1:1)
  • Tap Portugal (1:1)
  • Turkish Airlines (1:1)
  • Qatar Airways (1:1)
  • United Airlines (1:1)
  • Virgin Red
  • All Accor Limitless (3:2)
  • Hilton (1:1)
  • Hyatt (1:1)
  • IHG (1:1)
  • Marriott Bonvoy (1:1)

Rent Day Specials

Bilt Rewards has a tradition of having special deals only available on rent day. They have offered things like free fitness classes in the past, but the thing to really look out for are massive transfer bonuses.

In December 2025, for example, British Airways offered a transfer bonus of up to 100% based on your Bilt Status. The bonus was 100% for platinum members, 75% for gold members, 60% for silver members, and 50% for blue members. Your membership tier is based on how much you spend within the Bilt program. For a Silver member, this transfer bonus would mean that if you transferred 10,000 Bilt Points to British Airways, you would end up with 16,000 British Airways Avios. That’s a great way to get extra value for your Bilt points.

There is an indication that you can use Bilt Cash to unlock higher transfer bonuses; however, we have no idea how much Bilt Cash will be required to do so. But there is a chance you could make good use of your Bilt Cash to take advantage of status for these rent-day transfer bonuses.

Who is the Bilt Obsidian Card For?

I think, if there is one thing common to the three new Bilt Cards, it is that they are great for people who would like to earn points for travel but don’t want to sign up for a bunch of credit cards. There is no doubt that signup bonuses are the best way to accumulate a ton of points and miles, but there are many reasons why people might not want to sign up for a new credit card every few months. Bilt Cards appear to be designed to be more rewarding the more you use them, making them perfect for people who only want to deal with one credit card.

With the ability to earn points on rent or mortgage, as well as 3X on your choice of groceries or dining, 2X on travel, and 1X on everything else, depending on what you use your credit card for, it could be a pretty good overall earner. If you are able to accumulate enough Bilt Cash to activate the point accelerator and add 1X to all spend, it could get really lucrative.

The $95 annual fee isn’t too much of a barrier for most people, and besides the two $50 hotel credits there isn’t any coupon-like things to worry about, so it is fairly simple.

Overall, I think it’s a great card for someone who has a decent amount of grocery or dining spend each month, to take advantage of the 3X category (or 4X with the point accelerator). To me, it makes a lot of sense for a family, because of how much a family spends on groceries.

Let’s go back to the earlier example, but in addition to the $3,000 mortgage, $1,400 in grocery spend, they have an additional $2,600 in spend on the card (at 1X). In this example, they earn Bilt Cash along with their points and use the vast majority of Bilt Cash earned toward the point accelerator.

Over the course of one year, they would earn 36,000 Bilt Points on Mortgage, 50,400 Bilt points on grocery spend, 31,200 Bilt Points on other spend, and 25,000 Bilt Points on the point accelerator. That totals 142,600 Bilt points for the year. The Points Guy values Bilt points at 2.2 cents per point, meaning that amount of Bilt Points is worth a little over $3,000. That’s not bad for simply using one credit card for everything.

Conclusion

While not being as lucrative as signing up for multiple credit cards, the Bilt Obsidian Card is a great credit card for anyone who wants to earn a decent number of Bilt Points but doesn’t want to spend all of their time thinking about points and miles. Cardholders can simply put all of their spend on one card and earn the most valuable transferable currency in points and miles.

While the Bilt program itself is complicated, having to just concentrate on the one program will make it much easier for people to learn the nuances of the program and take advantage of transfer bonuses and Bilt Cash. It’s a great card for people who want to do a little travel hacking, but don’t want to spend too much time on it.

The Bilt Blue Card is Disappointing, But is Still a Good Option

Posted on by David Cox

On January 14th, 2026, Bilt released the details on the three credit cards that were replacing the original Bilt credit card. The original Bilt card was issued by Wells Fargo and it was widely reported that it was a significant money loser for them. These three new cards are issued by Cardless, and are intended to be a profitable way for the Bilt Program to issue credit cards.

The Five Banana Problem

The original Bilt credit card allowed users to earn one point per dollar when putting their rent on the credit card as long as they used their card five other times per month. The intention was that Bilt would recoup the money lost from interchange fees (which landlords don’t pay but retailers do) by generating it back through interchange fees from other purchases. The problem was that many savvy users swiped the card for five small purchases each month (such as a single banana), which didn’t generate much revenue for Bilt. Therefore, the joke was that Bilt had a five-banana problem.

With the new credit cards, Bilt believes they have solved the five-banana problem by creating a second currency called Bilt Cash that is earned each time the user swipes the card on non-rent or mortgage purchases. That Bilt Cash can be used to unlock the points earned from rent or mortgage payments. It’s strangely complicated, but the short answer is that if you spend 75% of your mortgage payment on other things, you earn enough Bilt Cash to unlock your points. In other words, to get the 1,000 points earned from a $1,000 mortgage payment, you would need to use it for $750 worth of other spending. Five banana purchases won’t work anymore.

What is the Bilt Blue Card?

The Bilt Blue Card is a no-annual-fee credit card that earns 1X on all spend and 4X Bilt Cash on all purchases (mortgage and rent payments are not made on the card itself). It also earns 1X on all rent or mortgage payments, but requires 3% of the total transaction in Bilt Cash to unlock those points. In other words, you need $30 in Bilt Cash to unlock the points from a $1,000 mortgage or rent payment, and at the 4x rate to earn those points, you would earn $30 in Bilt Cash after $750 in purchases.

Technically, the 1X earned on housing spend is not on the credit card, since that is not allowed. The housing payments must be done by ACH or Venmo using the Bilt website. The old card allowed you to charge the rent to the card itself, and this change appears to be an effort to reduce costs and make the Bilt card profitable.

Yes – I get it – this is complicated, but the point is that you can earn valuable Bilt Points on your rent or mortgage as long as you are actively using that credit card for a significant amount of your monthly spend. This is unique because you cannot do this to earn Chase Ultimate Reward Points, Citi Thank You Points, Amex Membership Reward Points, or Capital One Venture Miles.

Transfer Partners

What is also unique about the Bilt Blue Card is that it is a no-annual fee that allows you to earn points that can be transferred to airline and hotel programs. Transfer programs are what really make Bilt Points valuable, and while Citi, Chase, Amex, and Capital One have transfer partners as well, most require a credit card with an annual fee to unlock the ability to transfer.

In addition, Bilt points are the most valuable of any of the major transferable currencies. That is because they have a ton of transfer partners, and some of the most coveted. On the airline side, Atmos rewards is a highly valued currency for its ability to book partner awards for not a lot of points. On the hotel side, you can transfer to Hyatt, whose points are extremely valuable. The complete list of transfer partners, as of January 2026 are:

  • Aer Lingus (1:1)
  • Air Canada (1:1)
  • Atmos Rewards (Hawaiian Airlines and Alaska Airlines) (1:1)
  • Avianca Lifemiles (1:1)
  • British Airways (1:1)
  • Cathay Pacific (1:1)
  • Emirates (1:1)
  • Etihad Guest (1:1)
  • Flying Blue (KLM and Air France) (1:1)
  • Iberia (1:1)
  • Japan Airlines (1:1)
  • Southwest Airlines (1:1)
  • Spirit Airlines (1:1)
  • Tap Portugal (1:1)
  • Turkish Airlines (1:1)
  • Qatar Airways (1:1)
  • United Airlines (1:1)
  • Virgin Red
  • All Accor Limitless (3:2)
  • Hilton (1:1)
  • Hyatt (1:1)
  • IHG (1:1)
  • Marriott Bonvoy (1:1)

Why are People Disappointed?

The old Bilt Card was a fantastic card, especially for young renters. For example, let’s say that you are a 25-year-old who is out of college and lives in a major city, but you’re not earning a big salary yet. In this example, let’s say that you are spending $2,500 per month on a small apartment and it’s a large chunk of your salary. With the old card, you would earn 2,500 Bilt points for simply putting your rent on the card and then swiping it 5 times throughout the month.

Now, to unlock the 2,500 Bilt points, you would need to spend $1,875 in other spending on the card. Even if you are putting your car insurance, cell phone, all utilities, your groceries, and all of your shopping and entertainment on the card, you might not reach that amount. So, for the person who spends a large portion of their income on rent, they’re not going to earn all of the points that they would have with the old card. In addition, the old card earned 3X on dining and 2X on travel, while the Blue Card is 1X on everything.

There is also the pesky problem with how Bilt changed the way that it allows you to pay rent. With the old card, you could actually use the card to pay your rent. This meant that you could essentially float your rent for 30 to 45 days by waiting until the credit card bill is due. With the new program, that is gone, and you have to pay by ACH, which saves Bilt money in interchange fees. In practice, this means that there are a whole bunch of people who are going to have to pay two rent payments in March as the last rent payment on the Bilt Card comes due, and they have to pay their rent with ACH simultaneously.

These changes are painful for people who had the old Bilt Card. I would argue, however, that if you forget about the old card for a second, the Bilt Blue Card is probably still the best option for this person.

Comparison to Venture Card

I think one of the best travel cards for someone in this situation is the Capital One Venture Card. That is because it earns 2x on all purchases and has only a $95 annual fee. It also has great transfer partners, although not as great as Bilt Points transfer partners. Let’s talk about the same person in the above example.

Let’s say that their personal spending can’t quite reach the $1,875 that they would need to unlock all of the points from rent. Instead, they average $1,500 per month other spending on their credit card. Since no points are earned on rent with Capital One, they would earn 2x on the $1,500 spent. That would total 3,000 Venture Miles.

On the Bilt Card, the $1,500 in spend would unlock (and I’ll spare you the math on this) 2,000 (out of the total of 2,500 points possible), plus 1,500 points from the spend. That is 3,500 Bilt Points earned. If you ignore the housing spend for this comparison (since Bilt is the only card that allows it), until you unlock all of the Bilt Points from the housing spend, you earn 2.33X on all spend.

That’s 500 more points, and I would prefer Bilt Points over Venture Miles, because the transfer partners are better. In addition, the Bilt Blue card is a no-annual-fee card, while the Venture Card costs $95 per year. In the end, it’s actually better than the Venture Card, even though it’s 1X vs 2X if you don’t spend past the threshold where you’ve unlocked all of the points from rent.

What about Bilt Cash?

Bilt Cash was created to force people who wanted to earn points on rent or mortgage to spend on the Bilt credit cards. It solves the five bananas problem mentioned earlier. However, because each card earns 4x Bilt Cash on every purchase, there is a real possibility that there will be excess Bilt Cash accumulated by any Bilt cardholder who uses their card for most or all of their everyday spend.

For the most part, Bilt Cash can be used to essentially purchase coupons on various things like Lyft rides, Bilt Dining experiences, hotel credits, fitness classes, and even Blade helicopter airport transfers. The best use of Bilt Cash appears to be the points accelerator, which is unfortunately unavailable on the Bilt Blue card.

The Confusing and Rewarding World of Bilt Cash

When the new Bilt credit cards launched on January 14th, 2026, there was a lot of confusion about Bilt Cash. A week later, Bilt explained what it is used for. Most of the uses are not that interesting, but the point accelerator seems to be the clear best use of Bilt Cash.

David Cox's avatar by David Cox

Option 1 vs Option 2

If all of this sounds confusing to you, you’re not alone. So many people complained about this that after 2 days, Bilt offered an alternative. Option 1, is to completely forgo the Bilt Cash system and instead earn points on your rent or mortgage based on this chart:

Non-Housing Spend as Percent of Housing Spend
0% to 25%no points earned on rent or mortgage
25% to 50%.5 points per dollar on rent or mortgage
50% to 75%.75 points per dollar on rent or mortgage
75% to 100%1 point per dollar on rent or mortgage
Over 100%1.25 point per dollar on rent or mortgage

Option 2 is using Bilt Cash to unlock points on housing. Based on what we know about Bilt Cash and the fact that the point accelerator isn’t available for the Bilt Blue Card, you would have to look through the list of uses for Bilt Cash and decide whether or not anything is interesting to you. I would guess that many people will choose option 1, because it’s just simpler.

Who is the Bilt Blue Card For?

Because it is a 1X on all spending credit card, it’s not going to be great for earning points unless you are using it for rent or mortgage. I think the ideal candidate for this card is someone with a fairly large rent or mortgage payment and just enough everyday spend to earn all of the points on that housing spend. Frankly, I see the ideal candidate as a young professional with oversized rent or mortgage payments.

In the example above, the individual with a $2,500 mortgage and $1,500 in other spend per month would earn 42,000 Bilt Points in one year. I put that into Daydream Explorer on PointsYeah.com for the entire month of February (filtered for Bilt Points), and this is what I got for one-way fares from Chicago:

Obviously for a round-trip ticket you would need a ticket home as well, but there are plenty of places in Florida that you can fly for 7,500 points, Cancun for 10,000 points, or Punta Cana for 11,600. A category 1 Hyatt during standard time can be had for 5,000 points or a category 2 for 8,000 points. It might not be the most luxurious vacation ever, but when I was that age I just wanted to go somewhere warm and hang out at the beach. While 42,000 points isn’t a ton, a vacation can be assembled for that, especially if traveling with friends.

The card is currently being offered with a $100 Bilt Cash signup bonus, which would make it easier to unlock the points earned from rent or mortgage.

Conclusion

I think the Bilt Blue Card, while a disappointment to people who loved the old Bilt Card, is a good card for a fairly specific segment of the population. For other people, the Bilt Obsidian Card or Bilt Palladium Card might be a better fit. But for a young professional who doesn’t want an annual fee and wants to be able to take a no-frills trip every once in a while, I think this works better than any other option I can think of.

The Confusing and Rewarding World of Bilt Cash

Posted on by David Cox

On January 14th, 2026, Bilt launched three new credit cards to complement their rewards program. The reactions were mixed, with some people really excited about the new options plus the ability to earn points on mortgage payments, while others were angry about the changes. Both groups, however, agreed on one thing – Bilt Cash was baffling.

The three credit cards, including the no annual fee Bilt Blue Card, the $95 annual fee Bilt Obsidian card, and a $495 annual fee Palladium Card, all have one thing in common – they earn 4x Bilt Cash on every purchase. Each card earned Bilt Points at different rates, but they all earned Bilt Cash at the 4x rate.

What is Bilt Cash?

Bilt Cash was essentially created to solve a problem. Bilt’s biggest selling point was that you could earn 1X Bilt Points on rent. With the new relaunch, Bilt was extending that feature to mortgage payments. They are allowing it through their payment portal on their website using Venmo or ACH payment.

The problem for them is that there is zero money in doing that. They needed to create a way to get income to cover the cost of the points. They need people to spend on the Bilt credit cards, so they can collect interchange fees as well as interest payments on recurring balances.

Bilt Cash was created to force people to spend on the cards. The way it works is this: to unlock points for housing spend, you need to pay 3% of that amount in Bilt Cash. For example, on a $1,000 rent payment, you would need to spend $30 of Bilt Cash to unlock the 1,000 points earned on that rent. At 4X Bilt Cash earned on all non-housing spend, you would need to spend $750 outside of rent or mortgage to earn those $30 in Bilt Cash.

If your rent or mortgage was $2,000, you would need to spend $1,500 in non-housing spend on the Bilt Cards to unlock the 2,000 points earned from the housing spend. Yes, I know this is a lot of math.

What About Excess Bilt Cash?

Using Bilt Cash for unlocking points on rent or mortgages has been understood since the day they announced the new Bilt credit cards. The confusing part was about the leftover Bilt Cash, not used to unlock those points.

At first, Bilt simply said that you would be able to use it within the Bilt ecosystem on things like Lyft rides and hotel credits. What was unclear, was whether you could use Bilt Cash to completely pay for a Lyft or a hotel, or whether it would be a discount.

The Reveal

I had wondered if Bilt had a fully formed plan when they launched or if they were planning to create this over time. On January 21st, 2026, Bilt sent out an email that made it clear that they had a plan all along, and they were waiting to release the details.

Bilt has created a menu of ways to spend your Bilt Cash. For each of these, you would need to redeem Bilt Cash for these benefits on a $1 Bilt Cash to $1 US ratio. According to that email, Bilt Cash can be redeemed for:

BenefitBenefit per useFrequency/Annual Max
Grubhub Credits$10Monthly/ $120 per year
Bilt Home Delivery$5Monthly/$60 per year
Gopuff FAM membership$100Annually/$100 per year
Bilt Dining Partners$25Monthly/$300 per year
Bilt Dining Experiences$50Monthly/$600 per year
Hotel Credit through Bilt Travel Portal (Blue and Silver members)$50 (minimum 2-night stay)Monthly/$600 per year
Hotel Credit through Bilt Travel Portal (Gold and Platinum members)$100 (minimum 2-night stay)Monthly/$1200 per year
Lyft Credits$10 Monthly/$120 per year
Blacklane Rides$50 for Blue and Silver members, $100 for Gold members, $150 for Platinum membersAnnually/$50 to $150 per year
Blade Credit$350Twice Annually/$700 per year
Fitness Classes (Barry’s, Soulcycle, etc)$40Monthly/$480 per year
Walgreens$10Monthly/$120 per year

I looked through this list and said, “Oh, just a bunch of coupons”. It wasn’t that exciting, although I did see some usefulness, and I’m not gonna lie, I’m very curious about the Blacklane and Blade credits. However, it just wasn’t anything that I found particularly valuable. But then I kept reading and suddenly got very happy.

Burying the Lede

Right near the bottom of the email was some extremely valuable information. It stated “Point accelerator on everyday spend. Enable +1X bonus points on all everyday spend for the next $5,000 following activation; exclusively available to Obsidian and Palladium Cardholders; Cost $200 Bilt Cash; up to 5 activations annually; expires after $5,000 in spend or calendar year-end.”

Once this is activated, the Obsidian Card earns 4x on dining or grocery (you have to choose one), 3x on travel, 2x on everyday spend. On the Palladium card, it would earn 3x on everything once it’s enabled. That is huge! The Palladium card would earn 3x Bilt Cash on all spend, and it’s the most valuable transferable points of any program.

It’s a shame that they don’t offer this benefit to people with the no annual fee Bilt Blue Card. However, for people who are holding the Obsidian or Palladium card and will spend a lot on those cards, using $200 in Bilt points to unlock 1X on all spend for the next $5,000 in spend is awesome.

Bilt Palladium Example

For this example, I will use a fictitious scenario of a family with a $2,000 per month mortgage and sufficient income/expenses that allow for $4,000 in credit card spending. They pay for their mortgage through ACH on the Bilt platform and signed up for the Bilt Palladium Card.

Since the Palladium Card has, as part of the signup bonus, $300 in Bilt Cash, they immediately use $200 in Bilt Cash to unlock the point accelerator. Each month, they would earn $160 in Bilt Cash from the $4,000 in spend on the Palladium card, $60 of which is needed to unlock the 1X from the mortgage payment, leaving an excess of $100 in Bilt Cash each month.

This means they can unlock the point accelerator every 2 months, a maximum of 5 times. With the point accelerator, they can earn a total of 1X extra for $25,000 of their spend over the year.

In one year, they would earn 24,000 points for the mortgage, 96,000 points from the everyday spend, and an additional 25,000 points from the point accelerator. That would be a grand total of 145,000 points (not counting the signup bonus), which, if you divide by the $48,000 in spend, would equal a little over 3X on everything over the course of the year. There just isn’t any credit card available that offers that rate of return on everyday spend, especially when you realize the points are widely agreed upon as the most valuable of the transferable points currencies.

Conclusion

Bilt’s attempt to force their members to actually use their credit cards to earn points on their rent or mortgage payments, left them with an odd system for people who overshoot the goal. They created Bilt Cash, which at first glance, is a system that is designed to provide coupons for their corporate partners.

However, if you don’t see the usefulness of buying coupons with the Bilt Cash, you have a tremendous opportunity to increase your earning power on the Bilt Obsidian and Bilt Palladium cards. They were already cards that earned a decent amount of the most valuable transferable currency available. Using the point accelerator turns these cards into super earners, and I don’t see any reason why I would choose a coupon over that.

A Busy Stayover in Dublin

Posted on by David Cox

We had a short amount of time to spend in Dublin. We were using Dublin as a stopover on our way home from Nice, and that meant we had a full day and an additional evening to soak up everything we could. Our friends, Bill and Theresa were on this trip with us, where we participated in the UTMB Nice Côte d’Azur ultramarathons. The result of our races meant that both Bill and I were injured and hobbling around town.

Normally, I’m the trip planner, suggesting bars, restaurants, museums, and activities, but this time I deferred to Jenn. She had been to Dublin for three days on a girls’ trip earlier in the year, and she was in a much better position to guide our visit.

As soon as we had checked into our hotel, we were hungry and needed to go get a bite to eat. Jenn was excited about taking us to a couple of old taverns in Dublin, so we went to the Brazen Head, a classic Irish pub, founded in 1198.

The Liberty Belle, along our walk to the Brazen Head

There was a line stretching out into the street, but the service was efficient, and the line moved quickly. It didn’t take too long before sitting at an old wooden table in a crowded bar, ordering our first real Irish ales. A few minutes later, I was enjoying a properly poured Guinness while Jenn and Bill were both drinking Smithwick’s red ales. It was great to have a beer with a little malt backbone after spending the last few days in France drinking light Italian and French pilsners. It wasn’t too long before they delivered me a plate of fish and chips, which really hit the spot.

There isn’t many things more beautiful that watching a Guinness settle

After our trip to the Brazen Head, we walked down to the Temple Bar District. For it being fairly early in the evening, we certainly ran across enough people who were already overserved. That is the general reputation of the Temple Bar District, a place for overindulging. After wandering around the district for a while, we tucked into the Old Storehouse to grab a drink and listen to a little music.

The Temple Bar District

The bar was packed, standing room only, and not much room for standing either. The bar itself is another classic Irish pub with a long wood bar, tons of wainscoting, and every inch of the wall above the wainscoting covered in framed pictures. We grabbed some pints of ale and then walked outside to enjoy our beer. The weather was cool but comfortable, and outside we were able to enjoy the music at a reasonable volume.

Enjoying a Smithwick’s Red Ale outside at the Old Storehouse

We enjoyed our drinks, then headed back to the hotel to get a good night’s sleep so we could get ready for the day ahead.

Many bars had decorated with balloons to attract NFL fans who were in town. The Norseman couldn’t decide between the Vikings and the Steelers, so they decorated with both.

The next morning, we woke up and grabbed a light breakfast and a cappuccino from a little coffee shop called Two Pups, less than a block away from the Hyatt Centric, where we were staying. It was a quaint cafe with warm hosts and delicious food. The Irish are much friendlier than the French, and after several days in Nice, being treated so well by the staff felt like a warm hug.

Pastry and Cappuccino from Two Pups

Following breakfast, we headed over to the Jameson Distillery to do a tour of the facility. It was 10 AM, which seemed a little early for a distillery tour, but hey, we’re on vacation, right? The tour was wonderful, very informative, and came with samples of various Jameson products. I really enjoyed the tour, probably more than I should have, because Jenn was sliding me her samples too.

Second floor at Jameson Distillery

Following the distillery tour, we started walking toward Trinity College. However, after a kilometer, we were feeling like we needed to stop for another drink, so we ended up stopping for a pint at Trinity Bar and Venue, where I had a nice glass of Murphy’s Stout. I know, we had just left the distillery, but in our defense, Bill and I were limping pretty bad, so it did take a while to get there.

Tap selection at Trinity Bar and Venue

After the pint, we walked into Trinity College. It would have been nice to see the Long Room at the Old Library, but Jenn had been there just been there a few months earlier, and ongoing maintenance on the Library had affected the experience. They had removed a lot of the books as part of the project so I think I’ll try to return when the shelves are full again.

Old Stone Buildings at Trinity College

Trinity College itself is a beautiful campus with ancient stone buildings, cobblestone plazas, and copper statues. It’s a calm and beautiful place to visit, and I can only imagine what a privilege it is for the students to study there.

Statue of William Hartpole Lecky at Trinity College

After Trinity College, we walked down to Grafton Street, where we walked around looking at shops. The area was packed, which surprised me for a Tuesday afternoon. There were buskers playing music and singing, spread out strategically to not interfere with each other. It is a very nice area; however, for the most part, it was the most modern of the areas that we had visited so far, and I was enjoying the old buildings throughout Dublin.

We found a pub and stopped in for lunch, where I had another pint and some bangers and mash. After lunch, we left Grafton Street and headed back towards the hotel.

Bangers and Mash

St. Patrick’s Cathedral was on the way back to the hotel, and we decided to stop in. I’m always in awe of the amazing churches and cathedrals in Europe. St. Patrick’s Cathedral did not disappoint. It was founded in 1191, and like most cathedrals of the era, took more than a generation to complete. It was completed in 1270.

St Patrick’s Cathedral

St. Patrick’s Cathedral is a classic Gothic cathedral, characterized by its pointed arches and ribbed vaults. It features some amazing stained glass windows and statues, as well as ancient flags hanging from the walls. Many important people were buried here as well, including Jonathan Swift, most famous for being the author of many great works, including Gulliver’s Travels.

The bar at Teeling Distillery

Of course, we couldn’t attend an Irish cathedral without following that up with a trip to another distillery, so following St. Patrick’s, we walked over to Teeling Distillery. The Teeling Distillery is a beautiful and modern-looking distillery with a really nice bar. We sat down and had a couple drinks, some of us drinking whiskey and others mixed drinks. I went for the cheaper whiskeys on the menu and was a little disappointed, but everyone else was happy with their drinks.

After our drinks, we finished the evening at Darkey Kelly’s, a traditional Irish tavern with live music. It was suggested by the clerk at our hotel. The food was good, but it was so busy that we had to sit outside, where it was raining a little. We were under an awning, but the air was cold and moist, which did make things a little uncomfortable. We had dinner and a couple of red ales, enjoying our last night on vacation before the long flight home.

Outside at Darkey Kelly’s

We were only in Dublin for a day and a half, and what is amazing is just how much we were able to enjoy in a short amount of time. Dublin is full of history, old buildings, and especially distilleries and pubs. It’s also quite dense, meaning we were able to see quite a bit, even though we weren’t able to walk very well. We had a great time in Dublin, and I can’t wait to go back – only next time I will spend a little more time there.

Jameson Irish Whiskey Tour

Posted on by David Cox

We had the opportunity to be in Dublin for a couple of days on our last trip to Europe, and we decided to use the opportunity to visit the Jameson Distillery. We debated whether we would rather visit the Guinness Brewery or the Jameson Distillery, but Jameson won out because I’ve done a few brewery tours, but never a distillery tour. The Jameson tour didn’t disappoint.

We walked to the distillery from our hotel, which was about a 20-minute walk, and even though you would assume that a distillery would be in a gritty industrial zone, it was in a lovely area with brick and stone buildings and cobblestone streets. From Bow Street, we walked through an archway and into the Jameson complex.

Bar in the lobby

Inside the Jameson Complex, there is a small plaza with a gift shop and a restaurant. We skipped those and went straight into the distillery. The building has a modern loft feel, where the building seems old but fresh, with brick bones and lots of black iron and wood finishes. The color that brightens the room is an endless supply of green Jameson bottles.

Jameson Distillery sign near tour entrance

We went straight to the ticket counter to buy a ticket for the tour. The Bow Street tour is a 45-minute tour, and it currently costs € 26. Luckily for that price, there are some drinks that are provided. Once we paid for our tour, they sent us to the bar to get our complimentary drink before the tour began. Since I was there to fully experience Jameson Whiskey, I ordered a Jameson neat.

Workers used to be rewarded for their labor with glasses of whiskey

I’ll be honest, before this tour, I had never tried Jameson Whiskey. I had developed an affinity for American bourbon, and given how much bourbon is available in the US, I hadn’t even thought about trying Jameson. I took a sip and immediately noticed the caramel notes. It was also surprisingly smooth and gave me a pleasant, warming sensation. Ok, Jameson, you have my attention.

View from the waiting area before the tour

We waited around at the bar as the other guests began to join us. They were mostly Americans who were in town for the Steelers/Vikings game that happened the previous day. When the tour began, we were shuffled into a round brick room with some seats around a table, where the tour guide began to tell us the history of the Jameson brand. There was also a video that was artfully projected upon the table in the center of the room, which also helped explain the history of the distillery.

The projection on the table tells the history of Jameson

After the history of Jameson had been discussed, we were then moved into another room where we were asked to group up and stand around one of a series of display tables. Each of these tables had exhibits of various elements of the process, showing color development as well as demonstrating aromas that come from the maturation of the whiskey.

Demonstrations of the development of color and aroma in the whiskey

There was another video projection on the wall. This time, they demonstrated the process that they use to make Jameson Whiskey. This included the triple-distilling process as well as the maturation process in the barrel. This also included how they pick the barrels themselves. These barrels are reused American bourbon and Spanish sherry barrels, which add to the flavor and color of Jameson Whiskey.

Video showing the method of making Jameson whiskey

Finally, after the demonstration of how the whiskey is produced, we were ushered into a third room where we were given a tasting set. The guide walked us through the tasting notes of the three different whiskeys sitting in front of us. There was a classic Jameson Whiskey, Jameson Distillery Edition, and Jameson Black Label. There was also a glass of water there to cleanse your palate.

I enjoyed all of the samples, and again was pleasantly surprised by the quality of Jameson Whiskey. I had come into this experience thinking that it would be wildly inferior to the American bourbons that I’ve had, but it compares favorably. It’s definitely not better than some of my favorite bourbons, but I have to say it was better than some of the $40 bourbons that I’ve had. At the price point around half of that, it’s a solid whiskey.

Tasting three different versions of Jameson’s Whiskey

Jameson opened my eyes a little on this tour, and as I write this, I’m having a glass of Jameson right now. I learned that I don’t necessarily have to spend over $40 for a decent bottle of whiskey. It’s definitely not my favorite whiskey, but for its price, it’s very good.

I would recommend taking this tour to any Whiskey lover who finds themselves in Dublin. It was extremely informative, had great demonstrations, and a fabulous tour guide. The fact that I was able to consume some of that delicious whiskey is pretty nice, too.

Points check December 2025

Posted on by David Cox

As 2025 came to a close, we looked back at what turned out to be a fairly hectic year of travel. In March, we went to Portugal and Spain, to hike six days on the Portuguese route of the Camino de Santiago. In July, Jenn went with Emma, her sister, and her niece to Munich and Dublin, while Alex and I went to Dresden, Saxon Switzerland National Park, and Berlin. In September, we went to Nice and Dublin. It’s been a lot.

We had a blast, but it did seem to add a bit of chaos to our lives, and we agreed to do a little less in 2026. We’ll probably still take three vacations, but we’re going to stay a little closer to home and keep the trip lengths a little shorter. That being said, we’ve only planned one trip for 2026, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s a long way away and ten days long. But I swear – after that – we’ll be good, I promise!

That trip is to Tenerife, a place I’ve wanted to visit for years now. We will also spend two nights in London on our way to Tenerife and one night in Madrid on our way home. Virtually everything is booked, except for the flight from Tenerife to Madrid.

Picking an Airbnb

Tenerife is an interesting place to try to plan a vacation. There is so much to do spread out on an island that takes about an hour and a half to two hours to drive from the south side of the island to the north side. In the north, there are lush forests with beautiful hiking trails. On the south side, there are also beautiful hiking trails, but instead of pine forests, there are deserts with succulents and cacti. On the south side, there are tourist beaches, bars, and restaurants, while on the north side, the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife is the major city of the island. Also, slightly south of the center of the island is Mount Teide, a volcano towering 12,000 feet above the sea, and sometimes covered in snow.

Because there were so many things to visit all over the island, it made it tricky to pick an Airbnb. We had looked at rentals almost everywhere on the island, and finally, we just threw up our hands and let our son Alex pick. He chose a rental in Costa del Silencio, which I think will be nice. It looks like a quieter part of the island, only about a 20-minute drive from the tourist hot spots of Playa de los Americas, and about a 50-minute drive to Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Plus, if the Airbnb sucks, I can blame it on Alex.

Points or a Certificate?

It can be difficult sometimes to decide whether or not to use a hotel certificate or to use points. We have a 40,000 point IHG certificate that we wanted to use for a night in Iowa City. We have season tickets for the Iowa Hawkeye women’s basketball team, and we decided to go up the night before one of the games and enjoy Iowa City for an evening. Since we had the IHG certificate, we wanted to use it for the stay.

The problem was that the nicest IHG hotel in Iowa City was 22,000 points per night, which is well below the value of the certificate. Since the certificate expires in the fall of 2026, we figured that we probably will have the opportunity to book something more worthy of that certificate. We also had plenty of IHG points, so we decided to use points and save the certificate. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for people to make this bargain, and then find themselves later on with a certificate that they never used – so hopefully that isn’t our fate.

On to the point check!

There were no new credit card signups this month, and I think that’s because we just haven’t seen any offers that have gotten our attention lately. Since we don’t have another vacation in mind yet, we can be patient and wait until something grabs our attention.

That also means that Jenn hasn’t worked on a signup bonus in a while, and she defaulted to using her Amex Gold card. With Christmas spending being a significant part of our purchases, and there not being a consistently good way of earning points on Amazon purchases, the earning rates were a little low. That being said, we still managed to earn a return of a little over 5% on our spending not devoted to earning a signup bonus.

Card UsedSpendPoints EarnedPoint ValuePoints Per $Return on Spend
Amex Gold$2,7226,585$131.702.44.8%
Ink Cash$4412205$45.205.010.3%
Wyndham Business Earner$4212,246$24.715.35.9%
Sapphire Preferred$376376$7.711.02.1%
AAdvantage Platinum$223223$3.461.01.6%
Blue Business Plus$66132$2.642.04.0%
Total$4,24911,767$215.412.85.1%
This month’s spending not devoted to earning a signup bonus

In addition to the spending listed above, I spent a little under $2,400 on my Chase Ink Unlimited card, earning me a little less than 3,600 Ultimate Reward points. I should be hitting my signup bonus on that card in January, which is 90,000 points. We finished up the year with:

  • 268,300 Chase Ultimate Reward Points
  • 264,900 IHG Points
  • 155,400 Amex Membership Rewards Points
  • 98,800 Wyndham Points
  • 79,400 Alaska Miles
  • 33,900 American Airlines Miles
  • 19,300 Citi Thank You Points
  • 16,700 United Miles
  • 15,900 Marriott Bonvoy Points
  • 1,500 Delta Miles
  • 300 Hyatt Points
  • $133 Cash Back

According to the points valuations published by The Points Guy, these points and miles are worth a total of $12,800. We started off the year with $13,700 in points and miles. It’s shocking to me that, given the amount of travel we did in 2025, we finished the year only $900 behind where we were the previous year. Our vacation plans will be much tamer in 2026, so I expect our points balances should go up throughout 2026. That probably means we will have a wild 2027 – can’t sit on those points forever!