Bilt Rewards Free Point.me Award Searches
Some interesting news came out that will be beneficial to Bilt Rewards members. Not just Bilt Mastercard cardholders either, but anyone with a Bilt Rewards app. Members can now get free Point.me award searches right in the Bilt Rewards app. For those that don't know, Point.me is an award search program that normally comes with a $129 a year, or $12 a month, fee. That is a great perk and a reason to download the Bilt Rewards app and get involved with the program, even if you are not a cardholder. There are a few catches with this addition though, and I'll get into that in a bit.
Bilt Rewards & Point.me Team Up
Free award searches you say, that sounds amazing! And, it is, but there are a few caveats you should know about. The first one is the searches only pertain to Bilt Rewards airline partners. It won't be a full comprehensive search of every airline available like the paid version of Point.me can. That may not bother you much though since Bilt Rewards has a nice array of partners and should cover a lot of your travel needs. Which partners exactly? You can check our amazing ToP Partner Transfer Tool to see all partner programs in miles and points, but here is a list for Bilt Rewards:
- Aer Lingus
- Air Canada
- Air France/KLM
- American Airlines
- British Airways
- Cathay Pacific
- Emirates
- Hawaiian
- Iberia Airlines (coming September 2022)
- Turkish Airlines
- United
- Virgin Atlantic
They also have World of Hyatt and IHG Rewards as a transfer partner but this new feature pertains to airline partners only.
How Do You Complete Bilt Rewards Free Point.me Award Searches?
This is all very exciting, but how do we complete these searches? It all happens in the Bilt Rewards app (Apple / Android downloads)
To access this feature you need to do the following steps:
- Login into the app and head to the “Rewards” screen.
- Once there select the “Travel” tab
- Then “Flights”
- Once under Flights toggle to “Transfer Partners” where you can now search award flight availability across all Bilt transfer partners.
- Use the dropdown menu to select “Economy & Premium Economy” or “Business and First” and enter your preferred flight information.
- Once you’ve found a flight, you can transfer points directly within the Bilt app.
Everything is self contained and done right on the Bilt app. The downside is it is the searches can be a bit on the slower side. It could take a few minutes to cycle through all of the available programs when you perform these searches. This is pretty much the same as my experience when using the Point.me paid version on my computer though. It takes a while for the program to scrub all of the award availability so you just need to have a little patience. Trust me, the payoff will likely be worth it.
Screenshots Of The Bilt Rewards Point.me Search Process
For the visual learners out there here are some screen shots of the process which was laid out above. These were provided by Bilt Rewards and should help you your first time doing these searches.
Bilt Rewards Free Point.me Award Searches: ToP Thoughts
Any time we get a new feature, especially a search feature, it is a good day. When that search feature comes for free for just having an app downloaded, that is a great day! I think this is a great addition to the Bilt Rewards program and I love that it is available to all members, and not just Bilt Mastercard cardholders. They want you in their ecosystem and hope that you end up grabbing the card because of this, no doubt, but it is great that it is free to all right now none-the-less.
There are limitations with the partnership, only searching Bilt transfer partners, but that is understandable. Having to search these flights in the app may be a detraction for people that prefer to do their searches on the computer, but beggars can't be choosers. I think this gives you a chance to kick the tires on Bilt Rewards and Point.me and see if either, or both, make sense for you long term.
If you don't already have the Bilt Rewards app then download it here and get to searching! (Apple / Android )
*It should be noted that we have a business relationship with Bilt Mastercard and if you use our links in this review we may receive compensation for it. The opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by Bilt Rewards or Bilt Mastercard.
