A Q&A with Richard Kerr, VP of travel at Bilt Rewards, on recent changes — and what the future may hold

01.08.2024 - 18:58 / thepointsguy.com

The Bilt Rewards program has been on a roll for the last few years, launching lucrative promotions and adding new partners, all while enabling its members to earn points on rent (up to 100,000 points in a calendar year) with the no-annual-fee Bilt Mastercard® (see rates and fees).

However, 2024 hasn't been all positive for the program, as it lost American Airlines as a transfer partner and recently announced a new, lower cap on bonus points during its monthly Rent Day offers. In addition, starting Oct. 1, tax payments on the Bilt Mastercard will no longer earn bonus rewards during promotions.

Has Bilt lost some of its momentum? Or are these minor changes that set the program up for the future?

To help uncover the answers to these questions, we arranged a Q&A with Richard Kerr, vice president of travel at Bilt Rewards. And he shared some fascinating insight into the program, including a peek behind the curtain at how Bilt uses data to inform its strategy.

This interview was conducted via email. Answers have been lightly edited for clarity and compliance with TPG's style guide.

Nick: First of all, thank you for taking the time to answer these questions, as we have a lot of readers who are loyal Bilt members.

Richard: It's unbelievable to think it's already been over three years since I had the opportunity to join the team starting Bilt Rewards. As everyone here at TPG knows, I spent years studying loyalty programs and writing incredibly nerdy pieces for TPG, and I hope some of that knowledge is evident in the program we've designed.

Bilt has made some significant positive announcements in recent months, but it's also lost American as a transfer partner and now implemented a cap on bonus points for Rent Day. Was the program simply too rewarding to be sustainable? Are we entering a new era of tightening perks?

Absolutely not; in fact, it's the opposite. Remember, Bilt today is a loyalty platform for the home and neighborhood, and we are scaling to a more mass market customer. While many early adopters were very points-savvy (and trust me, I love all our gamers), we must invest and expand to benefits that appeal to as many members as possible — which means rethinking how and where we invest dollars.

This kind of adaptability and the willingness to change have been core to our identity since the start. There's a story I like to tell about my first 30 days of Bilt. We changed the original value proposition of our beta cobranded card from what was perceived as confusing into what has become one of the most popular, no-annual-fee cards on the market (see rates and fees), offering earning rates and benefits that outperform many premium cards. We always have and will continue to iterate and make changes