Bilt Partners With Blacklane Chauffeur Service – Earn Points & Redeem Bilt Cash

Bilt partnered with Blacklane to integrate their system with bookings, points earnings, points redemptions, and Bilt Cash redemptions.

Press Release

1. You can book Blacklane rides from within the Bilt Travel portal. You can pay with any credit card you want. It’s not yet clear if the charges post as Bilt or Blacklane. 
2. You can use up to $50/$100/$150 in Bilt Cash each calendar year toward a Blacklane booking: up to $50/year for Blue & Silver status, up to $100/year for Gold status, and up to $150/year for Platinum status. When you book within the Bilt Travel portal, you’ll have the option to apply Bilt Cash up to the allowed amount; the remainder will be paid with a credit card (any card). 
3. Blacklane rides booked within Bilt will earn 1x Bilt points on any part paid with a credit card (any card).
4. Bilt points can be redeemed to book Blacklane rides. Redemption rate is .7 cents per point, so not really interesting.

Our Verdict

We knew that the Bilt Cash redemption option was coming, nice to see that live now. Also recently went live was the Bilt Cash redemption options for Blade helicopter rides and for certain Equinox gym purchases. 

The other interesting news here is the 1x Bilt points earning when booking within the Bilt Travel system, so that’s an added bonus for any Blacklane bookings.

We don’t yet know if these purchases run through Blacklane’s payment system or they get billed as Bilt. If it runs through Blacklane, then this would make for a nice new stack with the Citi Strata Elite credit: 1) book via Bilt Travel to earn 1x points, 2) apply some Bilt Cash if you’d like, 3) pay the balance with Strata Elite to get that $100 credit. 

A few other notes:

• You can also book out into the future which is useful for end of year bookings when Bilt Cash expires (Bilt Cash expires on December 31st of each year other $100 which rolls over). In December, you can book out a Blacklane for the following year and use up some Bilt Cash that way. 
• You won’t be able to use Blacklane promo codes when booking Blacklane on Bilt
• See this comment on VFTW about how the charge codes on the credit card; not yet clear if it’ll stack with the Strata Elite credit.