Moan: "so far this has been an interesting father's day!"
With this news out, cascading over the clients,
don't forget to take it all out in time .. 2029 ..... time flies !

Pretty much confirms what everyone was suspecting, which was that WF was hit with a series of BIN attacks. Now we know why they were so successful.

And while the article mentions a timeframe of last summer, they really started much earlier than that. My card was first compromised in Feb 2023, and there were a number of fraud reports around then. My card was then compromised a second time in January of this year.

Wonder if WF managed to screw over the merchants with those transactions.

I had been hoping for some transfer bonus, but I finally moved my 5k Bilt points from the Rent day promos over to my AS account. For some reason, for my wife’s Bilt account every transfer fails with some “Oops” error message.

I doubt that we'll see another huge transfer bonus like we did in the past, but we may still see some smaller transfer bonuses periodically (like those from AmEx/Chase/Citi/Cap1), to a few select programs like AV (but unlikely to AS). I'm debating whether to transfer my remaining points to AA, with its deadline about a week from now.

I don't know - if they go too long without a good promo, they'll lose their reputation for good promos. I'll bet we see more, if not just to keep the bloggers happy for something to write.

Side note: I think bloggers have been effectively cut out of referral revenue at this point due to this new requirement that the person referred has to contact Bilt to push for the bonus for the referrer.

Risk benefit analysis is most definitely on the side of transferring ALL possible (1000 increments) Bilt points (to a partner program) IMMEDIATELY upon earning/posting.

Bilt is (now) demonstrably on shaky grounds, never know when the sinkhole will appear, T&C undoubtedly allow Bilt to decrease or eliminate benefits (or increase fees) at any time for any reason. Once transferred, points (or miles) are in a safer more established place and presumably immune to clawback. Other than saving Bilt points for transfer to one of multiple programs, there’s no reason to hold a significant Bilt balance. (My minority opinion against “earn and burn” is not appropriate for Bilt, Bilt points should definitely be earned and burned transferred.)

If anyone wants some answers, you won't find them here:

Fixed it: Ken Chenault and Ankur Jain say a bunch of things that don't make sense because THEY CAN (same reason a dog licks his ...).
Please don’t misunderstand, I “like” the fact that you posted the video, I most definitely do not “like” the nonsense and BS that’s being spewed by 2 people who are laughing (at WF and at us) all the way to the bank.

Just had this happen (same deal, makeup in Poland for $700ish)... but I don't have the WF card, I have the Evolve card (previous issuer). Very irritating time to have this happen as I'll be out of the country for two weeks while the card is being reissued.

Looks like I am not the only one experiencing “Oops, something went wrong” errors when trying to transfer points.

https://www.reddit.com/r/biltrewards/s/ZqjghEblKy

Just wanted to add a fraud datapoint - am on hold with WF after getting a text alert on a suspicious charge of $194.99 & responding 'no' to whether I recognize the charge.
Card is now blocked & was told to call - already on hold for 18 minutes so they must have a lot of incidents like this! The last fraud incident for me was in January 2023!

Edit: Ended up trying to call WF twice & both times was on hold for exactly 23.5 minutes at which point the recording says there are no agents available & to call back later!

I just signed up for this card and it is in the mail, how likely is it that i get the 5x on all spend as a SUB?

I thought I had found it from this thread, but maybe not - this other article about Bilt:

https://www.offthebeatenpoints.com/bilt-has-a-problem/

That article especially, but the WSJ article also, fail to mention that Bilt only really incurs costs when users either use the points on Bilt's platform, or transfer the points out to other companies. If users are holding on to their Bilt points, Bilt, for the moment, pays nothing.

And Bilt pushes for this in at least two ways: by paying interest (OK, it's a joke, but it's points), and by incentivizing users to wait for good Rent Day transfer promos. In a larger sense, many of us also try to keep points at the bank level (Bilt, Chase, Amex, etc.) to allow them to be deployed as needed when the time comes. These points have more potential this way.

My point being, just because Bilt has awarded X number of points to its users doesn't at all mean that they've had to shell out the cash for those points yet. That time could even be years away.

Yes, they have some fixed costs beyond the point costs, but the point costs much be the far, far larger liability, and, as yet, may not really affect cash flow.

Those future liabilities can greatly affect current cash flows if cardholders all start to transfer their points out. If the economics of their business model doesn't work and Wells doesn't intend to make up the difference in the long term, something is going to break at some point. That point may come sooner due to that WSJ article, as the pace of acquisition of new cardholders are likely to slow and outbound transfers are likely to increase.

I agree with you that outbound transfers are likely to increase (but maybe marginally, as I don't expect there's a huge overlap between Bilt cardholders and WSJ readers, but maybe).

But I'd think the pace of acquisition would increase, if anything. If I read about a company giving away money, the first thing I think is: how do I get some? And if you're a WSJ reader, you very well might live in NYC and pay a lot in rent.