FinTech News
Bilt Partners with Odynn for Live Hotel Award Booking Search
Bilt has unveiled a new feature that will help customers book hotel rooms using points.
About the partnership and feature:
This week, Bilt Rewards announced a partnership with Odynn that brings their Awayz platform to the Bilt app. With this integration, Bilt members can search and view real-time hotel award booking options. Currently, Bilt offers transfers to two hotel loyalty programs: IHG and Hyatt. In turn, the new Awayz-powered search function features results from that pair of brands. The partnership with Awayz joins a previous integration with Point.Me that allows users to search for award flights.
While Awayz Premium typically comes at a cost of $11.99 per month, Bilt users will be able to conduct 50 hotel award searches per month. As Bilt notes, once this allotment is exhausted, members can subscribe to Awayz to gain additional searches.
About Bilt:
Bilt is a program that allows tenants to earn points on rent. Currently, the platform is partnered with many of the country’s largest property owners and management companies. As a result, the service is currently offered to residents of more than three million units across the country.
Additionally, Bilt offers a rewards credit card issued by Wells Fargo. With the Bilt Mastercard, customers can not only pay rent with no fee but also earn 1x points on these payments. On top of that, the card earns 3x points on dining and 2x points on select travel. The company has also taken to offering monthly Rent Day promotions with double points (on all purchases except rent) and other bonuses.
What they’re saying:
Announcing the new feature, Bilt’s VP of Travel Richard Kerr stated, “We are thrilled to partner with Awayz for this new and exciting feature that elevates Bilt Member’s ability to quickly and easily use their Bilt Points.” Kerr added, “Together, Awayz and Bilt Rewards will pave the way for a new era of travel experiences, where just by paying rent, our members can book unforgettable hotel stays.”
Additionally, Odynn founder and CEO John Taylor Garner said, “We are honored to partner with Bilt, one of the most successful consumer fintechs, to continue pursuing our goal of demystifying the award space and providing transparency to a vast opaque market.”
My thoughts:
Like with the Point.Me integration before it, this new Awayz feature is a big win for Bilt users. Having personally experienced the often confusing world of award bookings, I can say that these tools are hugely helpful when it comes to researching redemption options for your Bilt Rewards.
However, the process of booking hotel awards does tend to be a lot more straightforward than flights — not to mention that there are only two Bilt hotel transfer partners. Also, in regards to the company’s note about users only being able to conduct 50 searches per month, I don’t see anywhere in the app where this restriction is disclosed nor is there a way to keep track of how many searches you’ve done (as far as I can see). Then again, 50 searches a month is an awful lot, so I’m not sure how many customers will regularly come close to this limit.
Overall, as I said in my recently updated review, the Bilt product only continues to grow more interesting — and this latest news is a perfect example of that trend.
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