I have written extensively about the Bilt program. You can find a review of my one year with the Bilt Mastercard here. If you are interested in applying for the Bilt Mastercard, I would greatly appreciate if you use my link here. I will get some bonus points as a referrer.
Bilt has “built” a unique set of transfer partners since it’s launch almost 3 years ago. Currently, it has the heavyweights of Hyatt, American Airlines (leaving in June), Alaska Airlines, United, Air Canada, Air France, the Avios ecosystem, Turkish, and a plethora of other transfer partners that have niche uses. Their credit card, currently issued by Wells Fargo, is absolutely fantastic, particularly for double points on all purchases on the 1st of the month. Indeed, I pay most of my large bills on that day specifically so that I can get the double points.
Recently, Wells Fargo announced that they were going to be expanding into transfer partners on their own proprietary credit cards. Their transfer partners include the Avios ecosystem, Air France, Avianca, & Choice hotels, all which have been expanding their repertoire of bank partners that they are willing to work with.
Given that Bilt has such a great set of transfer partners and partners with Wells Fargo, and that Wells Fargo is expanding into the transferable rewards currency ecosystem, I’ve seen musings in a variety of places (primarily Reddit and Doctor of Credit) that suggest that Wells Fargo might be able to leverage their relationship with Bilt to add the likes of American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, & Hyatt to their own transferable currency cards.
I’m not privy to these conversations, but I have a working belief about what will actually happen.
I absolutely do not believe that that Wells Fargo will gain these transfer partners for their proprietary cards. I give it about a .00001% chance of happening. While it would be absolutely fantastic for these options to be added to the Wells Fargo ecosystem, I have a working hypothesis for why this won’t happen.
Note that this is pure speculation. I could absolutely (and most likely am on some parts!) wrong.
What is Bilt?
Bilt, at its core, is a marketing channel for rental complexes and those who manage rental companies. While it has a rewards program, the main way with which people are going to interact with the program is from earing points on rent. In high rent cities such as New York City, San Francisco, DC, etc., that can add up to a ton of points over the course of the year.
While I don’t know the exact specifications, Bilt employees and other bloggers have talked about how Bilt has build relationships with each travel partner to offer the ability to transfer points from the Bilt ecosystem to the respective travel partners. Indeed, Richard Kerr, formerly of The Points Guy and I believe one of the first people to ever sell a Facebook Group, is the VP of Travel and posts often about his meetings with travel brands, building that relationship with them. He’s also an avid traveler, having redeemed millions of points and miles over the years.
Why Won’t Wells Fargo Leverage Bilt for More Partners
Like I said earlier, I could be wrong. However, I don’t think that Wells Fargo will be able to leverage Bilt’s relationships for their own ecosystem. Why?
Consider this: each of these major brands (i.e., American Airlines, United Airlines, Hyatt, Alaska Airlines) have incredibly profitable relationships with their own banks to administer their own co-branded cards. For example, both United Airlines and Hyatt have very close relationships with Chase. Chase administers both United Airlines and Hyatt credit cards.
If I were a betting man, I would gander that the contracts between these major brands and their respective banks have exclusivity clauses that do not allow them to partner with other banks. I would argue that this is the reason that Delta doesn’t partner with anyone but American Express. We see similar relationships where United and Hyatt don’t partner with anyone but Chase. Those relationships are very lucrative for these travel partners, and they wouldn’t want to do anything to jeopardize those relationships.
However, Bilt isn’t a bank. They have a credit card, but they aren’t a bank. They’re a marketing channel with a proprietary rewards system that rewards you for your rent. I would assume that greater than 90% of points come from credit card spend. However, because they aren’t a bank, they can partner with a more diverse set of partners.
Depending on how contracts are structured (and what corporate lawyers are willing to argue), I would assume that most travel partners take the stance that they aren’t undermining their relationships with other banks, as they have a relationship with Bilt, not Wells Fargo.
I would bet that American Airlines thought about this and ended their relationship with Bilt because of it. I don’t know for sure. That’s a much more risky bet.
Regardless, my current hypothesis is that Wells Fargo won’t leverage partnerships with the major US-focused travel brands because of exclusivity clauses in contracts that are related to partnering with other banks.
Time will tell. I think Wells Fargo has gotten great initial partners, and I’ll be interested to see how they develop their program. However, I don’t think it will involve major US brands.
What about Marriott and IHG?
That’s a great question. I’ll update this post once I think about it more.
Conclusion
Wells Fargo has started letting customers transfer their points to travel partners. However, I do not think that they will be able to leverage their Bilt partnership to get the major US transfer travel partners.
What do you think? What transfer partners do you expect Wells Fargo to add this year? Do you think I’m wrong?