StevenSeagalFan

There are several Credit unions, in WA at least, that offer CDW/LDW on their credit cards as well.

missamo80

Yes, but is that *primary* coverage?

notquiteaff

I may just have to get the Bilt card one of these days, when I can work it out to have large pending bills to pay during the five day spending spree masquerading as a signup bonus. And the move some of my dining spend over to add to my shrinking AS stockpile of miles. I don’t have any rent or fake-rent (HOA fee) payments, so the earnings I can get from this card are limited, but I would be interested in diversifying some of my earnings away from Ultimate Rewards to AS (and I wouldn’t even lose my primary UR transfer targets, Hyatt and UA).

I wonder if this will motivate BofA to make their AS cards a bit more competitive for spend categories.

Dr Jabadski

I’ve accumulated a mid to high 6 figure Alaska Mileage Plan balance over the past 6-8 years, 99% from BOA card SUBs and minimum spends. Within BOA’s general application rules (2 cards per 2 months, 3 per 12 months, 4 per 24 months) I’ve been automatically approved for 18 BOA Alaska cards (all biz in the past few years to not affect 5/24) in that time while flying on Alaska exactly once in 2019 and closing every account at 12.5 months. Of course, I should figure out a way to spend/redeem those miles but that’s a pleasant problem . (Please, no snark for not “earning and burning”, different stokes for different folks .)

Try it (churning BOA Alsaka biz cards and SUBs every 6 months), just like Mikey, you might like it .

Idaho Territory

Why I like the Bilt card is that I can pay rent at the $1.95 ACH fee and not the 3% Credit card fee. The $50 of credit card processing quickly eats up the value of points earned no matter what card you use. It’s also good for places that don’t accept ACH or credit cards as Bilt will mail a check to arrive on the 1st.
Rent and then five small items a month go on it. Chase and Amex are the daily swipers.

notquiteaff

Or AS might discover their inner AA and decide to nuke my account for gaming

So far I have not run out of miles. I probably should close my one and only AS business card that is celebrating its eighth birth day soon and reopen it when I actually need miles and/or there is a good offer. It is one of those “classics” without spend requirement on the companion cert benefit, though.

MojoGuru

I've been flying Delta domestically almost exclusively the past 12 years. Starting in January, we've been spending on all the 2X categories on the Alaska credit card, and purchased a bunch of miles in the current sale. Moving forward we'll be flying to Hawaii or internationally every year, so view this as a much more valuable program. I signed up for Bilt immediately upon hearing the news. The Hyatt option will be handy too.

tth6133

I have to say that BoA can't be pleased with the new relationship between Bilt Rewards and AS. At least a portion of its potential customers are likely to migrate to the Bilt Rewards card, which is backed by one of its main competitors in the business. That's probably why AS offers an extra point (there're plenty of other credit cards that offer 2x that can be used for rent payments in Bilt with the same 3% fee) to placate BoA, likely at reduced or no cost. That, however, seems to me to be just a short-term solution. I don't know when the current agreement between AS and BoA is going to expire, but it wouldn't surprise me that agreement wouldn't be renewed.

leland

Remains to be seen what kind of fee they'll put on rent payments via the AS card; EDIT: it does not remain to be seen - 3% fee. Holding both cards I'm a bit indifferent but probably better for a fee to discourage further AS competition. EDIT: This works.

If no fee would make it quite easy to max the EQM spend on the AS card and get 3x miles for it on top. Would love for details soon as need to decide whether to put taxes on the AS card for EQM or not.

EDIT: Now I just need the launch date for this offer as putting a few rent payments on the card has a just marginally better return than taxes, just need to plan out the rest of year in credit card spend.

RedPanda5

they've already announced it is a 3% fee for paying rent/HOA with your AS card

since you'd already get 1 as miles per dollar (paying with the bilt card and transfering to AS) you're effectively buying AS miles for 1.5cpm

dayone

I would be very surprised.

tth6133

Not surprisingly, of the two types of credit cards that offer travel rewards, the economics work out better for the banks with bank's own transferrable-point cards than with airline/hotel co-branded cards. For airlines/hotels, it's just the opposite. Now with Wells taking the transferrable-point business (wrt to AS), BoA can't be all that happy. Even though BoA doesn't offer a transferrable-point card yet, it has to be thinking about or working on one. A BoA transferrable-point card with AS as a transfer partner would be much more attractive than one without.

Dr Jabadski

Do we think the Alaska-Hawaiian merger factors into all this in some way ?

tth6133

I have no idea, but I wouldn't think so, especially when there's still a lot of uncertainty about the merger. If the merger does take place, however, people who sit on piles of AmEx points (there're many, many more AmEx points out there than Bilt points) may choose to transfer their points to HA, on the assumption that HA miles will be converted to AS miles 1:1.

beckoa

I have not been following bilt.

Does one need the cc to take advantage of this?