Bilt Bulletin May 2026 | Bilt Cash, Point Accelerators, Grubhub Changes, Priority Pass Confusion & New Rent Card Options
Justin Vacula of the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast is joined by returning guest Darren for a May 2026 Bilt Bulletin, covering the latest Bilt Rewards updates, Bilt Cash strategy, point accelerators, rent payment options, and recent changes affecting Bilt cardholders.
Justin and Darren discuss how they are using the Bilt Palladium Card, Bilt Cash, and Bilt’s point accelerator system. They review their recent earning and redemption stats, look at the new tracker showing total accelerator spend, and discuss how these tools may help users understand their Bilt Rewards activity more clearly.
They also cover the change to the monthly $10 Grubhub credit, which moved from a balance-add gift card style benefit to a per-order discount code. Justin and Darren explain why this change may still be useful, especially now that it can stack with the American Express Gold Card Grubhub credit.
The episode also addresses a brief Priority Pass restaurant access glitch, the World Legend Mastercard Taste of Priceless lounges in Hong Kong and São Paulo, with Mexico City expected soon, and new ways to pay rent with non-Bilt credit cards. One new option discussed is earning 3X Flying Blue points on rent payments with a 3% fee.
Justin and Darren also answer a listener question about how to use Bilt Cash before most of it expires, play a Rent Day guessing game, and share upcoming travel plans, including Miami and a cruise.
Timestamps
00:00 Intro And Setup
02:06 Bilt Basics Overview
04:30 Spending Stats And Status
08:46 Bilt Bananas And App Updates
10:53 Grubhub Credit Changes
15:23 Priority Pass Confusion
16:54 Taste Of Priceless Lounges
18:18 Show Announcements Break
20:42 Pay Rent With Air France Credit Card
23:37 Rent Day Guessing Game
24:29 Listener Question: Bilt Cash
32:29 Miami Trip And Cruise Plans
36:55 Wrap Up And Outro
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Rough Transcript:
Travel at low cost with points and miles. Credit card rewards bring the smiles. Many adventures, tales to be told. Make and save money, the world will unfold
Fight the war on happiness, pick up the gold. The Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast breaks the mold
You’re listening to the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast. I’m your host, Justin Vacula, here to help you make money, save money, and travel the world at low cost with credit card points, miles, benefits, and loyalty programs. Returning guest Darren joins me for another Bilt Bulletin episode May 2026. We discuss recent Bilt news, our Bilt cash redemptions and progress with points accelerators, changes to the $10 [00:01:00] Grubhub credit, confusion about Priority Pass, and more.
On with today’s episode, recorded May 22nd, 2026. Welcome back to the show, Darren. Thank you, Justin. Always good to talk points and miles, and especially another Bilt Bulletin, May edition. We have to get it in. I’ll be traveling shortly, so recording today before I fly out to Miami to use my Bilt cash and Bilt hotel benefit for $300 off a two-night stay in Miami.
Looking forward to it, and then going on a Virgin Voyages cruise. Love stacking those deals, Justin, right? I’m sure you also probably found a way to pay for your plane ticket down to Miami with some sort of points and miles. Maybe also Bilt transferred to Alaska? This was direct through American Airlines, as I still have American Airlines points through the Barclays Aviator card, RIP.
Now it’s a Citi card. [00:02:00] I got the new Citi card in, and I’m starting to use it. Back in with Citi, maybe. But we’ll go back to Bilt. If you’re new to Bilt, here are the basics. The Bilt Palladium Card, this is the higher annual fee card with, I believe at the time of recording, a 50,000-point sign-up bonus. You get 2X points on all spending or 3 times points on all spending up to $25,000 in a calendar year when you use Bilt Cash, a secondary currency for the point accelerator feature.
Bilt points earned from spending can be transferred to various hotel and airline partners, including Hyatt and Atmos Rewards with Alaska. You also get 4% back in Bilt Cash on your spending, and you can use this for the point accelerator I mentioned or for various travel, dining, or other benefits, like the $100 monthly hotel credit I mentioned, a $25 dining credit at select restaurants, a $10 Grubhub credit per [00:03:00] month, a $10 Lyft credit per month, and more.
That’s the Bilt basics, Darren. Ooh, very good, Justin. You forgot the big Bilt classic, though, the Bilt paying your mortgage or rent. You can redeem Bilt cash to pay rent or your mortgage. Not with the Bilt card anymore, of course, Justin, unfortunately, but directly through your bank account and earn Bilt points on that.
We’ll talk about an addition to that, but you can also, if you prefer, although neither you nor I prefer and wouldn’t recommend, you can also switch to earning points multiplier on your mortgage or rent instead of Bilt cash, but then you miss out on all the credits you just mentioned there.
Not something we’d recommend, but the rent is, as far as we know, still the only card or only platform that allows you to earn points directly by paying rent or mortgage. That’s right, [00:04:00] and you don’t need to be a renter or pay a mortgage in order to use the Bilt Card, but I’ve seen it as more of a benefit.
I used to pay my rent through a payment portal that was about a five dollar fee per month, but now it’s up to 3%, so I’m using my Bilt Cash and paying my rent through the Bilt platform with my checking account and indirectly the Bilt Palladium Card. Lots to love with Bilt, although a little bit complex, lots of features, some things to keep track of, but we’re here to demystify.
And some stats. Again, we’re here at the end of May 2026. I’ve been actively using my Bilt Palladium Card. I earned 125,000 points, and I still have $261 in Bilt Cash after many redemptions I’ve spent more than 21,000 so far in 2026, and a lot of this was boosted to the 3X with the point accelerator feature.
I also have gold status with Bilt from the Palladium signup bonus [00:05:00] and spent about $24,000 total, which is about 1,000 away from the 25,000 spend needed to re-qualify for gold status. These numbers are a little bit different because not all the spend was boosted with the point accelerator. There’s a little bit of a lag once you finish each chunk of 5,000.
Some of the transactions go from pending to posted, and then you have to activate the point accelerator again. I’ll likely spend 50,000 on this card for the Bilt Platinum status. This gives a free Blade helicopter ride, Flying Blue status, and bonuses on point transfers on the first day of each month, and some other benefits.
How’s your spending and your redemptions? Not quite as good as yours, Justin, but pretty good. I should also add, I think both of us earned $300 in Bilt Cash or Bilt Bucks for our sign-up for the Palladium, and big boost in Bilt Bucks there to start with. I have earned 103,000 Bilt points so [00:06:00] far this year 50,000 through the sign-up bonus for the Palladium, 53,000 through spend, including almost two accelerators, so almost $10,000 in accelerators.
I’m a month behind, I think, at least you, Justin, because as some listeners may remember, when I first transitioned my card from the Wells Fargo card, I was stuck in the mortgage multiplier point earning instead of the Bilt Bucks point earning. Glad to be on the right side of that now and on my Bilt point earning journey.
The redemptions, I’m looking here. This month I’ve activated another points accelerator that was $200 in Bilt Cash.
I did not use the dining credit this month. I haven’t been near a dining location, which is a weakness of the program. I hope there are more restaurants in the future, but I will be in Las Vegas next month to use that $25 dining credit once again, or the dining redemption. The $10 Grubhub credit I [00:07:00] used, and we’ll get a little bit into that later.
I used a $10 Lyft credit. This also stacked with the Chase Sapphire Reserve Lyft credit, and now I’m seeing the Blade Helicopter Airport transfer credit. Now it’s saying two available each year, up to $350 per seat. That looks to be a change, but it’s still saying coming soon, but now it’s explaining how much Bilt Cash it is.
That’s an option towards the end of the year with leftover Bilt Cash perhaps. I skipped the $10 Walgreens credit. There’s been a lot of confusion about the gift cards, the codes, using them in store, but I did use my $10 CVS ExtraCare credit, formerly known as the CarePass And that’s my Bilt Cash breakdown for the month.
I mentioned I did use the $100 hotel credit, but that was redeemed in another month. So after all my Bilt Cash activity, five points accelerators, I still have $261 remaining. [00:08:00] Yeah.
The $100 Blacklane credit, Justin, also still coming soon. Coming soon . Gold status exclusive. Up to $100 Bilt Cash for that $100 credit, , that’s not bad. And then the up to 350 credit per seat Justin, for the Blade helicopter airport transfer credit. Coming soon as well.
Come on, Bilt. Give us a shot, baby. You gotta give us a shot. That was George r. Martin in South Park. “The dragons are coming. They’re coming soon. The pizzas are coming. They’re coming soon.” This has been a few months now we’re waiting for Blacklane and Blade, but I’m not sure Blacklane will ever come due to some changes there, and perhaps merging or being acquired by Uber.
I don’t know. Justin, I didn’t hear you say anything about the $10 Bilt collection credit, and yet I think there’s a picture circulating on the interwebs, Justin, of you- … with five Bilt bananas. Is this true? Can you confirm or deny this [00:09:00] is the case? I was in St. Louis and someone else had the Bilt bananas.
You can buy them for $15 and use the $10 credit, so it’d be $5 for this memorabilia, let’s say, but they were not my bananas. It was Brandon F., so thanks, Brandon, for the invitation and meeting in St. Louis. I see. I see. All right, not my bananas. Not my bananas. I’m holding them for a friend.
They’re not mine. Yeah. I swear.
There was a slight quality of life improvement to the point accelerator feature. Now, the mobile app and if you view BILT through browser, you get to see your total spend across all point accelerators and how many you’ve used for the year.
Before, you could lose track of how many you activated, how much you’ve spent, or it was an America-loves-math moment. Now it’s more clear. You see the cumulative amount, mine showing more than 20,000 since I’m on the fifth accelerator
Yeah, and [00:10:00] mine is showing 9,300 that’s a nice feature in here. I think any time a credit card company or platform gives us a chance to keep better track of our miles or points earning capacity it’s a benefit. Really like that feature on some other cards, especially around sign-up bonuses.
My wife was also just approved for the Chase Sapphire Reserve personal card, and I’ll have to look to see whether the sub-tracker is on there as well. But all that to say, thanks, Richard. We appreciate the opportunity to track how we’re spending money through the Accelerator.
It’s good. You could wonder how many more you have. You’re wondering about, “Should I save my Bilt Cash or not?” I think the verdict is just spend your Bilt Cash aggressively because a chunk of it will expire at the end of the year. Keep on redeeming that Bilt Cash. Earn and burn, baby.
Some other changes in May 2026. In past months, the Bilt $10 [00:11:00] Bilt Cash Grubhub redemption would give you a gift card code, and you can add this to your Grubhub balance. Some would then wait to have a bigger balance for a bigger Bilt redemption, but now it’s a $10 code that applies to an order. On the negative side, you can’t carry the $10 over month to month like in the past where you would just add it to your gift card balance.
But on the positive side, you can now stack this with existing gift card balance and the $10 a month Amex Gold card credit. Now you can get $20 off a month if you stack this $10 from Bilt with the $10 from the Amex Gold card. It’s been challenging for me to find entrees that would be around a $10 price point.
I have seen it at some places, but usually it would come to about 14 or $15. With only the $10 I’d end up spending a little bit, but now I can stack the Amex [00:12:00] Gold with the Grubhub credit and get the 20 off. Maybe add a side, something small to get it to that $20 mark or slightly under. But in the past, when you had that gift card code, you couldn’t stack that with the Amex Gold card, so you were only getting 10 off or you would just add it to your account and then use it in a future month.
Some good, some bad with this change. Yeah, I agree. I think generally it’s less flexible than it used to be. For example, the Walgreens redemption that has been very popular at my house with three daughters, lots of makeup and makeup remover and other who knows what that gets spent there.
So $10 is really easy. You could use several Walgreens gift cards at checkout. Would like to have that same opportunity for Grubhub redemptions but, like you say, there’s some silver lining there in being able to stack those things together. We’ll roll with it. I don’t know that $10 Grubhub is going to dramatically change the fundamental [00:13:00] value of the Bilt platform or the Bilt Platinum card.
What do you think, Justin? Not much, but it is nice to be able to stack it now with the gift card balance. I like that, and I’ve taken the approach with Lyft as well when I get the $10 off a Lyft ride. Usually Lyft rides are more than $10 unless it’s a short hop in Las Vegas or other places. I purchased Lyft gift cards using the Chase Sapphire Reserve link with DoorDash.
I purchased a $200 Lyft gift card. I believe it was 10% off. I got a $20 discount. Now I can use the Bilt $10 Lyft benefit. It will come off the total of the ride, and then the remainder will go towards the gift card balance. So some ways to not have to spend as much out of pocket, or maybe we’re just spending in advance and saving for the future
Just like our friends at Panera, Justin. Those 20% off gift cards come around once a year, and it’s- Oh, way more [00:14:00] than once a year. Way more than once a year? Okay. All right. And the recent gimmick of the buy $50, get a $10 bonus card, for the America Loves Math crowd out there, not quite a 20% discount, but maybe a 20% rebate.
Maybe. Maybe. Is it really 60, and then you’re getting the 10? I don’t know. Yeah. But you can chime in the comments your thoughts on that and other things with Bilt, how it’s going for you, how you’re using your Bilt Cash if you’ve redeemed with Grubhub this month. But with the excess of Bilt Cash, the Grubhub redemption is still appealing.
If Bilt Cash were scarce, I would probably skip the Grubhub benefit, but why not? I’ll get that $10 every month. Pretty easy to use, especially for pickup orders
Yeah. I think most will find a way to use $10 Grubhub, $10 Lyft, especially if you’re doing some travel. Always nice to have an alternative to Uber, and then, we, you and I both stack up a number of [00:15:00] Amex credits into Uber. But having those opportunities to diversify and if Uber has a premium pricing or surge pricing or something like that, to be able to pivot, it’s always a nice opportunity.
I have balances with both programs, Uber and Lyft, because sometimes I see those price differences or there are random or maybe random promos. We’ll move on to some possible enhancement, but definite confusion. For a moment, we thought we had a Bilt buff with restaurants being added to Bilt’s Priority Pass benefit, but that turned out not to be the case, not in that situation.
We usually say America loves math, but this was definitely America loves confusion and maybe a Bilt bluff. Some saw restaurants appearing in their Priority Pass account through Bilt, blogs picked this up, but then there was an update. Darren, an update, like Unsolved Mysteries, update a [00:16:00] few hours later as a glitch, and Bilt confirmed this was the case.
Maybe MasterCard was to blame, maybe Priority Pass is to blame. MasterCard’s World Legend marketing, did you know this is a World Legend MasterCard? That’s a flavor of this Bilt Palladium. It noted dining, retail, and spa experiences, but Bilt confirmed this was not a feature of the Bilt Palladium card.
This was something from Priority Pass or MasterCard. We almost got our restaurants back. It’s hard to get that restaurant access in airports. This was a benefit on many cards, but that was taken away as well, or some restaurants stopped participating in the program. Cue the sad trombone, Justin.
War on happiness. Womp. What started out as a Bilt buff turned into a Bilt bluff, sadly. However, there is some interesting news for international travelers [00:17:00] related to the World Legend MasterCards, as you mentioned earlier, of which Bilt Palladium is one. Citi Strata Elite and Citi Advantage Globe card are the other two that I’m aware of.
You can now access the Taste of Priceless. That is the actual name of the program, Justin. Wow. Taste of Priceless. Probably just some scraps for your birthday, right? Scraps and leftovers There are two lounges currently available. I guess we’re gonna call it available, I don’t know. Two Taste of Priceless lounges it will say available.
One in Hong Kong, one in São Paulo, Brazil, with a third lounge coming soon to Mexico City. Oh, another coming soon. Yep, another one coming soon to Mexico City. Awful branding, Taste of Priceless. I cannot think of a worse name for an airport lounge that serves food. And it’s a nice little perk for a World [00:18:00] Legend MasterCard.
Certainly if I’m in one of these locations, I would pop in and see how things look. Why wouldn’t they just call it the Priceless Airport Lounge? Why have Taste of Priceless? I can’t imagine, “Oh, this tastes priceless.” I cannot even think of a reasonable response to that. I think it’s the- All right, we’ll take a break for some announcements with that horrible naming.
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Welcome back to the show, Darren. Thanks, Justin.
The next update here is about adding another credit card to use to pay rent. Currently, Bilt users, even without the Bilt Palladium Card, can pay rent using the Alaska card for 3X Atmos points. You do pay a [00:21:00] 3% fee for that, and now Bilt is out with a different way to earn Air France KLM Flying Blue points, like Flying Blue miles.
Tell us, Justin, what’s that all about? A new update indeed for May of 2026, Bilt adjacent or perhaps more direct, if you have the Air France KLM Visa credit card, I believe this is with Bank of America, you can pay your rent earning 3X Air France points, but you pay a 3% fee. To do this, you can add the Air France card to your Bilt wallet.
Anyone can do that, even if they don’t have a Bilt credit card, and you can pay rent. Only rent, though, not mortgage. I don’t see this to be very exciting given that there’s a 3% fee compared to using a Bilt card to pay rent with no fee, and then you’re earning 1X Bilt points. But I guess this can make sense for people who are soon flying Air France, they don’t have other ways to earn points, and maybe for people [00:22:00] who can’t get approved for Bilt credit cards.
I agree, Justin most of my Air France points and miles have been transferred from other flexible currencies like Amex. It’s really easy to earn Air France points. They’re transferring membership rewards in other currencies, so I don’t see this to be too appealing.
I don’t know of many people who have the Air France card with Bank of America because many other Bank of America cards, as we talked about in a past episode, are very appealing, especially the Alaska cards with Atmos rewards. But it’s a niche opportunity for some people, and some people also want that float, that perhaps their statement closes at the end of the month, they pay rent on the first of the month, and they have additional time to pay.
I believe this is directly using the credit card. I could be wrong on that, but it’s another option, although I imagine most listeners probably wouldn’t take that option.
You can [00:23:00] earn XP for elite status boosters. 80 XP when you spend 15,000 and another 60 when you spend 25,000 or more. America loves math once again. Both, both in a calendar year, so that’s all the math I’m gonna do on today’s show, I promise. Oh, I’m sure there’ll be more.
Come on, listeners want it. Get out your calculators. Yeah, the 3% fee and getting the 3x Air France points, eh, not so great there, but again, an option. And speaking of options, you exercised an option. You wanted to add a new segment, a Guess About Rent Day. For those who don’t know, the first of the month offers 1,000 bonus BILT points if you spend $1,000 or more on the card, and you get a transfer bonus to a BILT partner.
Any guesses on who the bonused BILT partner will be? I feel like this is the low-hanging fruit [00:24:00] here, but I’m gonna guess Air France-KLM. Ooh. Yep, right? Tie it together. Oftentimes I feel like that’s the case, and I think that’ll be the situation here as well. So that’s my guess, Justin, but doesn’t make it right.
What do you think? The situation of what happened and everything before that’s what dictates that. Exactly. It could be. Certainly better than Spirit Airlines
Poor Spirit. It’s a trap. It’s a trap. Yeah. Admiral Ackbar is warning us all.
I don’t have guesses on this one, but I do have a listener question from supporter of the show, Pablo. Once again, if you subscribe on SubscribeStar or YouTube, you can have your questions answered on the show.
Pablo says, “My main question is about the best way to use Bilt Cash. I’ve used it for the hotel, $100, and I used the points accelerator, going on my fourth, plus a few credits and offers. But since I spend a lot on Bilt, I may still have a [00:25:00] decent balance by year-end.” What are your thoughts on that? It’s the things we’ve already talked about here.
The BILT accelerator is a big one. The hotel credits I think are nice, especially if you can stack those with the Palladium $200 hotel credits as well. For me, the challenge sometimes is having two nights. Oftentimes our travel is just a night here or there. I know Justin, you’ve been encouraging me to use the $25 credit at select BILT dining partners.
Absolutely. We’ll actually have maybe a chance to do that tomorrow. Oh. I will be in Virginia for a show, and there’s a Toastique right next door to the hotel. It apparently takes Bilt dining mobile checkout, so I’ll report back in the June Bilt bulletin. How do you spell that, Toastique?
Toastique. Toast. It’s like Plastiq, Justin. Toastique is toast, I-Q-U-E. [00:26:00] I guess that’s maybe not how you pronounce it, but that’s how I’m gonna pronounce it- Oh … until further notice. It’s like Kalaya or Kalaya in Philadelphia in the Fishtown area. Perhaps. What do they serve at Toastique? Is it a bar, a restaurant, both?
This may surprise you, they serve a lot of toast the classic avocado toast toast with salmon, toast with lox various toast things. My guess is my wife and I’ll probably go for the coffee, various coffee options and maybe a small breakfast item to share.
We’re not big breakfast eaters, but we do enjoy some coffee and little caffeine to kick off our day. And Bilt Cash redemptions. And Bilt Cash redemptions, Justin. We gotta use those $25, I think the other challenge and maybe for you too, is some of these Bilt redemptions are not necessarily meant for folks that don’t live outside of an urban area like Philadelphia, like New York City, like Boston.
So for us it’s a little more challenging and we have to look to see [00:27:00] if we can utilize some of these credits when we are traveling closer to some of those urban areas. That’s what I was thinking about for our trip this weekend and we’ll see if that comes to fruition, as they say. And the Bilt Cash is probably thought of as gravy at some point because you’re still getting that 3x with the point accelerator, and if you had another credit card where you could just earn 3x on unbonused spending for 25,000 spend you probably still would think that’s a really good deal, as most of these unbonused spend cards are only 2x.
Getting the Bilt Cash gives you extra opportunities. It would be sad to see it expire at the end of the year, but even if we end up with something like 400 or 500 Bilt Cash or more at the end of the year, we still had a good year with the card. Hopefully more will carry over. Maybe they won’t expire as much or they’ll add other redemption options.
Use it aggressively while you still can. I think using the point accelerator is absolutely the best way to [00:28:00] go, and probably one of the easiest ways to go as it’s not these smaller credits. You just click a button and you’re set for that 5,000 in spending. Here’s an interesting idea, Justin, I just thought about, so it’s not in the script.
I’m gonna get your honest reaction. Say it’s October, we’ve gone through all our accelerators, we have enough Bilt Cash to do the GrubHub and the Walgreens and the dining. Would you consider switching away from Bilt Cash to the previously mentioned mortgage or rent multiplier and try to earn extra points in, say, October, November, December, burning up that Bilt Cash so you don’t have it go to waste while earning extra Bilt points, and then flip the switch the other way come January and go back to earning Bilt Cash?
What do you think? That is interesting. I like it. You do get that option to switch, although I believe it’s a month cooldown between each [00:29:00] switch. That could make sense, but it would be very sad if they added a new redemption or changed the terms and then you missed out on all that extra Bilt Cash.
That is a good point. There’s two parties in this game Justin? There’s us, and there’s the credit card company or the platform here, like Bilt. Maybe they throw something out crazy at the end. I guess the other thing that we didn’t talk about but Pablo might be interested in is the ability to buy up.
If the rent day special is Flying Blue and he’s considering, for example, flying to France or to Amsterdam and wants to utilize those points, he may be able to go from gold to platinum by buying up and using Bilt Cash to further increase his transfer bonus. So to your point, we’d hate to run out of Bilt Cash at the end and not be able to do that.
That would be something to consider. I like that, too, buying up to get a better transfer bonus. You have to be platinum status. That’s the 50,000 in spending. I think it’s most appealing to hit [00:30:00] that 25k. After the 25k, you’re only getting the 2x plus the Bilt Cash. But if you think the Bilt Cash is gonna expire, then maybe you wouldn’t spend more than 25,000.
But if you would value the status benefits and the extra helicopter ride and that Flying Blue status as well, that’s an interesting stack. You could spend the 50,000, get the Flying Blue status, and then transfer the Bilt points to Flying Blue. That’s an option. Or you could transfer your Amex Membership Rewards, have the status with them, get a better flight.
That’s interesting. You have a lot of choices once again here with Bilt.
I’m at 261 in Bilt Cash right now. The other hotel redemption will be another hundred in Bilt Cash. We’ll see. How much do you think I’ll have in November? Maybe 500 or 600 if it keeps going and I don’t have as many redemptions I’ve already redeemed for the accelerators.
We’ll see how it goes. That would be a fun math problem to predict that, but I’ll [00:31:00] just let the numbers go as they will rather than making that prediction and calculation. Yeah. Quick update on the how much Bilt Cash can you roll over to the next year. It is $100 in Bilt Cash or Bilt Bucks, oh, not much. Not much. I think that might be something we talk about in our maybe September, October Bilt bulletin. Should we consider flipping the switch and burning down that Bilt Bucks, Bilt Cash, and earning a few more Bilt points on our rent or mortgage? Yeah, that could be a good option or being aggressive with that buying up and getting a better transfer bonus on rent day.
But so far, the rent day partners haven’t been super appealing for me. I’m very likely going to transfer to Atmos, but if I got my wish and Atmos were the transfer partner for June, I would transfer my entire Bilt balance and even buy up as well to get a bigger transfer. I’m running low on my [00:32:00] AA currency, and I’d like to get into Atmos for flights with them and also booking on AA flights You know who also is running low on AA currency?
Me. Yeah. You gotta get the family in. That’s what I’m seeing here. Oh, I know. I know. Yeah. No, it’s, A little family affair. Yeah, that’s right. It’s time for P3 to start earning her keep.
I like it, and thanks again, Pablo, for your questions and for supporting the show. I’m looking forward to this Miami trip. This is with Bilt. I’m going to take a video of the room. First time at this property, the Miami River Inn by Rennzi.
I usually stay with Hyatt, Hilton, Wyndham, not these boutique or off-brand hotels, but I’m giving it a chance, especially with $300 off for paying about $20 out of pocket for two nights. I think a great deal. Stay tuned to the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast YouTube channel. You can see that room video [00:33:00] and many other room videos as I’m doing travel videos in addition to the podcast.
And then it’s the comp cruise of Virgin Voyages. This is through Ocean, not Oceans, Casino in Atlantic City. I’m going to Dominican Republic and the Bimini Beach Club, returning to Virgin Voyages.
It’s an American Airlines flight from Philadelphia to Miami, and they upgraded me to business class for this three-hour domestic flight, thanks to AA Platinum Pro status. We’ll get some more space and be closer to the front of the plane. Even the small upgrades I appreciate. Absolutely. Any time that you can sit closer to the pilot.
There’s still an open invitation to Richard Kerr or perhaps other representatives from Bilt to come on the show and join the Bilt Bulletin or perhaps a separate episode. Maybe he can meet you in Miami, Justin, and take advantage of your [00:34:00] hotel space, do a little podcasting on the road That could be, although I do prefer the home setup.
I do. Better audio quality. We strive for that here. Certainly one of the best in the business on audio quality. Yes. It’ll be good to meet with Kerr in the future. Better than meeting with Dave Ramsey, of course, who’s now promoting- … people to break up with their boyfriends even though they pay their full rent.
They want them to be debt-free before marriage, but Dave Ramsey says, “He’s a loser. Break up with him. You deserve better, princess.” I’ve seen these memes online where certain people are seated in an airplane and who would you like to sit next to? If we had Richard Kerr in one aisle, Dave Ramsey in the other aisle, you better believe it’s next to Bilt rather than the Dave Ramsey Show.
Oh my gosh. I think Dave Ramsey would be insufferable. Not of course that he would fly a commercial. I’m sure he’s got his own private jet that he paid all in cash for Justin? Yes. He says, “Forget about miles and [00:35:00] points. Just pay for your own God dang vacation,” or whatever accent he puts through it.
Or you could pay $4,000 to go on a cruise to meet Dave Ramsey, but I’d rather take my comp cruise with Virgin Voyages. I think I’d rather hit myself in the head with a hammer than spend- … $4,000 on a cruise with Dave Ramsey, so yeah. So- 4,000 on any cruise. Yeah. Well- I couldn’t see paying… all the comp cruise opportunities that we have.
Wow. Yeah. Excellent.
As far as upcoming travel for me I mentioned my wife and I are gonna head down to Virginia. It’ll be an interesting experience. There’s a college band that I used to go see quite a bit when I was in college, so 25 years ago now. And they play usually one show a year in the Northern Virginia area.
I look around the small venue that they’re playing and think, “Wow, there’s a lot of old people here, Justin.” And yeah. And then I think, we’re both getting near that 40 years old. I might be one of those old people.
Used a Marriott free night certificate, topped it off for a hotel just within walking [00:36:00] distance of the venue. We’ll try out hopefully the Bilt Dining mobile checkout at Toastique. I’ll report whether I was able to make it work, Justin.
Hopefully they don’t charge $15 for a grilled cheese. I have seen that at some places, expensive grilled cheeses. How much more of an upcharge can there be? But with the $25 off with Bilt, I guess why not? And the avocado toast.
I’m looking at going to the Mediterranean restaurant, Zaytinya, I believe, part of the José Andrés restaurant group. Probably a little bit out of pocket on that one, but still a good deal with the $25 off.
Yeah. Any time you can get $25 off a meal I think it’s definitely worth doing. Yes, as long as you don’t go in and overspend it. I’ve heard that before, like with the Caesars Rewards Celebration Dinner. “Oh, I got my $100 off.” “Oh, but we went to such and such place, and we spent $400, but we got $100 off.”
Any other thoughts on BILT to close the show? I think Bilt [00:37:00] platform and Bilt Palladium Card continues to offer value for those that are willing to work a little bit for it.
As other podcast hosts that we know and enjoy say, sometimes you feel like we’re working for them more than they’re working for us. That’s okay. I think the benefits still vastly outweigh the cost thus far, and I’m pretty happy with our first year of the Bilt Palladium. It hasn’t been too bad.
The points accelerator, very easy to activate. I have calendar notifications for some of these monthly redemptions, and it’s what I’m doing anyway. I was already using Grubhub with the Amex Gold. I was already using Lyft with the Chase Sapphire Reserve, and you use these services when traveling, or at least the rideshare.
Grubhub, a good benefit to save money on dining, for sure.
Thank you for joining me today. My pleasure, Justin. It’s always good to catch up, and the BILT Bulletin is one of my favorite ways to do it. Thanks everyone for listening, and stay tuned for future episodes. For more content between shows, follow Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast on Facebook and X.
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