Bilt just announced major changes that come with a deadline: opt out in the app by the day before your card anniversary, or the 4% Bilt Cash you earn today disappears for good. For big spenders, it’s the most consequential Bilt change yet, and the clock is already ticking. Also today: Delta nonstops to Punta Cana from 24K points, and our first dispatch from a very delicious week in Mexico City.
⏰ Bilt Cardholders: Mark Your Calendar
If you have a Bilt card, there’s a new deadline approaching that you’ll want to know about.
Bilt just announced a big shake-up for 2027. Here’s the deal: Right now, cardholders can choose to earn 4% back in Bilt Cash on everyday purchases. Bilt Cash is the program’s second rewards currency, separate from Bilt points, and it works like store credit inside the Bilt ecosystem.
On your card anniversary, Bilt is removing that option and moving everyone to a new default unless you opt out in the Bilt app first.
If you’ve had a card since launch, your last day to opt out is Feb. 6. It’s a one-way door: Once you’re switched, you can’t go back. New cardholders in 2027 won’t get the 4% option at all.
Additionally, Bilt Cash will now last 12 months instead of expiring every Dec. 31, and that includes what you’ve already earned. That’s a real win.
Some of the “perks,” though, are cuts in disguise. The Palladium’s new $600 Bilt Cash credit sounds like a raise until you realize it replaces the $200 in Bilt Cash and $400 in hotel credits you already get.
And starting Jan. 1, the amount of Bilt Cash members can put toward hotels drops by more than 80%. For top-tier members, it falls from up to $1,200 a year to $200.
So, should you opt out of the new system? For me, it’s easy: yes. I pay my mortgage through Bilt and put most of my everyday spending on my Palladium card (hello, daycare bill).
All that Bilt Cash has effectively turned my card into one that earns 3 points per dollar on up to $25,000 a year, thanks to the Points Accelerator option, and the new setup can’t touch that.
My rule of thumb: If you charge more to your card each month than your rent or mortgage payment, opting out probably pays off. If you don’t, let the switch happen.
And when in doubt, opt out. You can always move to the new benefits later.
Read our full story on Bilt’s 2027 changes here!
– Nick Serati, Thrifty Traveler co-founder
🤝 Deal of the Day: Fly Delta Nonstop to Punta Cana from 24K Pts!
Heat scale (out of 3): 🔥
Why we love it: Book your winter trip to the Dominican Republic with these low, nonstop rates flying Delta to Punta Cana!
Book with Air France/KLM Flying Blue or Virgin Atlantic for these Main Cabin rates that are significantly cheaper than Delta SkyMiles rates in most cases.
Flying from five different Delta hubs, all for less than 44,000 miles roundtrip!
Sign up now to get all the details on this deal & don’t miss the next flight deal alert.
Already a member? Log in to see all your deals.
– Gunnar Olson, Thrifty Traveler Premium deal analyst
🎃 Don’t Let Your October Card Credits Ghost You
Halloween lands on a Saturday this year … and so does the deadline for every monthly credit on your travel cards.
If you carry a premium travel card, you probably have a few of these use-it-or-lose-it statement credits that knock money off your bill each month: dining, rideshare, streaming, maybe coffee or grocery delivery.
None of them roll over, so whatever you don’t use by Oct. 31 is gone for good, and November’s fresh batch won’t make up for it.
So take five minutes this week. Order takeout one night, pay the streaming bill, book your ride to the airport. And don’t wait until Saturday night. A charge that doesn’t process until November won’t count toward October.
Not sure what’s still unused? That’s exactly why we built our free Credit Card Benefit Tracker.
Log in, and anything expiring within two weeks is already flagged in red. Right now, that’s every October credit you haven’t touched.
While you’re in there, check your calendar-year credits, too. Anything that resets Dec. 31 has just over two months left.
Log in to Card Benefit Tracker. New here? Start tracking your cards for free.
– Nick Serati, Thrifty Traveler co-founder
🎙️ On the Pod: 12 Biz Class Seats You Can Actually Book
🧠 Having points is one thing, but finding availability to use them is another. That’s why we’re going through the business class flights you can actually book if you follow a few simple rules.
Watch it now on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
🇲🇽 Highlights & Takeaways from Last Week’s TT Trip to Mexico City
A note from Kyle: This is our first dispatch from our annual team retreat to CDMX last week – stay tuned for more tips, must-eats, guides, and more!
We’ve been talking about heading down to Mexico City as a team for as long as I’ve worked at Thrifty Traveler … so, going on a decade. Selfishly, I’ve pushed for it every year for our annual company trip.
Thanks to some help from the Flight Deal Gods (is it cheating if we run a flight deal service?), a lucky 13 of us TTers made our way to Mexico’s capital city last week – many, for the first time.
Travelers, it lives up to the hype. You can call it “Ciudad de México” or “CDMX” or “La capital” or “DF.” I’d call it “one of the best cities in the world.”
Mexico City is every bit as captivating, electric, approachable, and delicious as you might hope. It’s somehow simultaneously massive – a sprawling metropolis with 16 boroughs home to over 20 million people – yet equally intimate. Few cities this big can make you feel at home immediately.
We’ll have plenty of stories in this here newsletter recapping all the ins and outs (and especially the food) of our stay, but here are a few thoughts on why it should be on your list – yes, even if you’ve already been.
🛫 It’s easy to get to. Mexico City is one of the best-connected cities in the Western Hemisphere, with nonstop service from 30 cities in the U.S. and Canada. Competition from low-cost carriers like Volaris and Viva can make it a pretty cheap trip, too.
💸 And it can be a great use of miles, too. Unfortunately, most of us are based in Minneapolis, where that kind of competition is nowhere to be found – Delta is the only game in town. So rather than forking over $900-plus apiece or something like 90,000 SkyMiles, we booked those exact same Delta nonstops using our favorite workaround: Air France/KLM Flying Blue.
The final total? Just 29,000 miles apiece – actually, even fewer points thanks to a transfer bonus from Amex to Flying Blue available at the time.
Booking Aeromexico using Virgin Atlantic points can also be a steal for as low as 11,000 miles roundtrip.
🚙 Getting around the city is a mixed bag. Ubers are plentiful and shockingly cheap … but traffic in CDMX can be atrocious. So it’s worth scoping out the city’s subway system, on which a ride costs you just 5 pesos (just over a quarter!) each way – no matter how far you go or how many transfers you need to take.
🌮 Eat. A lot. And then even more. Seriously, Mexico City immediately vaulted up my list of the best food cities on the planet alongside the likes of Istanbul, Hanoi, Singapore, and Oaxaca to the south. We’ll dedicate an entire future newsletter segment – heck, maybe two! – just to eating (and drinking) your way around CDMX. But a few can’t miss spots include Taqueria Orinoco, El Turix, and the aptly named Los Tacos for some of the best (you guessed it) tacos in town. The churros from Churrería El Moro are worthy of the hype. And a nice dinner at Guzina Oaxaca is an absolute must. No excuses.
🗿 Head to Teotihuacan to make you smarter. Half of us spent the day walking through the ruins of Teotihuacan, an ancient, massive, and slightly mysterious site an hour and change outside of the city that actually predated the buildup of the Aztec empire.
It’s equal parts impressive, thought-provoking, and troubling to trace history from the pyramids built by hand here to the Mexica people who turned Tenochtitlan (in modern-day CDMX) into the seat of a fearsome empire … that the Spanish conquistadors eventually dismantled.
🤼 And ‘Lucha Libre’ to make you dumber – and I mean that as the highest compliment: Mexico’s famed wrestling is an absolute cannot miss. With each flip and bodyslam, it felt like the roof might blow off the building of “La Arena México.” The beers and snacks were flowing, the vibes were sky-high, and the “técnicos” – the good guys – sent “Los Rudos” running home.
After writing all that, I’m itching to go back … and we haven’t even been home for a week!
– Kyle Potter, executive editor
✈️ Other Travel Tidbits
- 🚗 Starting tomorrow (Oct. 28), Turo renters can book Teslas that have Full Self-Driving (Supervised) turned on. Just don’t nap: the driver still has to stay alert and be ready to take over. (Turo)
- 🛒 DoorDash is reportedly in advanced talks to buy Instacart. If a deal goes through, it could change the DoorDash and Instacart credits on many travel cards. (The Wall Street Journal)
- 📱 AT&T customers can get 5,000 free AAdvantage miles just for linking their AT&T and AAdvantage accounts. Move fast: only the first 65,000 people get 5,000. After that, it drops to 2,500. (View from the Wing)
- ✈️ Qatar Airways and WestJet launched a codeshare agreement. Qatar flyers can now connect through Toronto (YYZ) and Montreal (YUL) to nine more Canadian cities on one ticket. (Qatar Airways)
