I just did a speculative transfer to JAL this morning with Bilt. Received 315k JAL for 140k Bilt using the 125% Bilt Cash buy-up.
Our friends have been dying to take us to Japan for a while so I expect we will use it for that. Otherwise I like what I see from their partners (LATAM, cheaper BA award flights, Air France, Alaska, etc). I don’t think we will have any issues draining that balance.
Word on the street is new applications will be closed for CCC after 5/28, so apply or PC if you want one now. No changes to existing accounts mentioned. This could remain grandfathered indefinitely like Dividends or disappear like Rewards+, keeping my fingers crossed for the former.
Good to know. I thought the Citi Custom Cash was the Dividends’ replacement since they set it at roughly the same limits in 5% cashback potential. Not sure I understand Citi’s strategy to discontinue it just 5 years after introducing it.
I thought it might be worth discussing the recent changes to the Chase Sapphire Preferred:
The rest of the card (3x dining/online grocery/streaming, 2x travel, 1x everywhere else, $95 AF) remains the same.
This is a pretty tough change for me to swallow. I don’t have a ton of gas spend and I’ve been primarily redeeming Hyatt points or hotel credits for lodging in the last year. I’ve leaned hard into the Chase ecosystem over the last 5-6 years with north of $100k/yr of spend on Chase cards; Hyatt redemptions are how I’ve chosen to redeem the vast majority of my UR points. Combined with the recent Hyatt deval, it’s become much less lucrative for me to transfer to Hyatt.
I think I am going to exit the Chase ecosystem and continue going whole hog on the Bilt palladium train. Despite ever increasing interchange, Chase has really nerfed their lineup of cards for my use case. I might pick up a Rakuten AMEX card on one of their days that they bump the SUB up to $200 and transfer the points over to Bilt quarterly. Bilt is really killing it in the points space… for now.
Disappointment all around. UA and SWA could be worth more than WoH now. I only use my cards for 5x categories, which is still worth it.
People mention Bilt as the only reasonable option left. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bilt devalued WoH soon.
Which for me, being SEA-based… UA and SW do little good for me. At least Bilt has AS. We hold the AMEX plat for DL skyclub and AMEX centurion lounge access here. Aside from a few priority pass lounges, Chase offers us nothing in the lounge department. I think the Chase decision to devalue Hyatt was fully motivated by driving sign-ups for the CSR…. and I have little use for the CSR in its current form.
As for Bilt, I can see them nerfing a few things in the next year like double points on Rent Day and maybe the transfer bonuses, but I don’t see them doing anything with the Hyatt transfer rate. Hyatt and Alaska are huge draws to their ecosystem and they know that. If anything, I would have expected the Hyatt devaluation to have either lowered or maintained the price per point versus increasing the price per point their partners pay on each transfer, since in theory each point is now worth less than it was pre-devaluation.
I continue to think we’re moving towards fixed 1-1.5cpp redemptions in these programs aside from a few one-off opportunities. If Bilt sticks with 1.25cpp on their flight portal, I could live with that. 2.5% back per dollar spent on the Palladium, plus whatever bonuses I get from the accelerator and mortgage payments, is good enough for me.
Damn I used that WoH redemption quite a bit. Trade-off of nerfed redemption for hotel credit and Global entry not super appealing. Looks to me like Chase aimed the CSP to simply compete with Cap One Venture. Neither is really appealing when I’m already earning 4% on everything but insurance and taxes.
Is your 4% card the Smartly card? If you’re making transfers to Hyatt, look into the Bilt card if you haven’t already. It is very easy to earn 3x there and transfer at a 1:1 rate for Hyatt.
I intend to keep my WoH card alongside the Bilt card for income and property taxes, since those are specifically excluded by Bilt. Paying taxes is an easy way to hit the $15k spend threshold for the free night cert, on top of the anniversary cert for holding the card. Two free nights for the $99 AF plus 1:1 earn rate on taxes to cancel out the transaction fee is good enough value for me.
You mean the Obsidian ($95/year)?
I’d consider it but it sounds like they’re just constantly making changes over there, and basically doing a good job of cutting out every beneficial use of the card.
If it were free, I’d do it. But not with a fee, given their history.
Depends on your use case. I have the palladium because we have a lot of unbonused spend. The vast, vast majority of spend I have put on that card this year has come in at 3x if you take into account the point accelerators and mortgage points. I have found it fairly easy to organically use the $200 semi-annual hotel credit, which when combined with $100 in Bilt Cash, makes many hotels very close to free for two night stays.
I understand the instability concerns with Bilt but it’s just been such a monster earner for our case that I think it warrants consideration from most people in this game. As with every other card like this, be prepared to move on when it becomes unprofitable.
Understood.
I pretty much never have extra non-bonused spend. That is always going into a new SUB. And anything else will just go on my 4% Smartly.