NEW Amex Transfer Partner + NEW Bilt Hotel Status & CSP 100k Last Chance

In this video, I want to talk about three things. American Express has just added a new transfer partner to their membership rewards earning cards. We have built rent day benefits, which includes status match to a certain hotel chain, and we have a confirmed end date for the Chase Sapphire Preferred 100,000 point bonus that you should know about. Hey, credit warriors, welcome to the show. My name is Ben Hedges, AKA The Credit Shifu, and on this channel, I cover US credit cards, personal finance, and luxury travel. If you like the sound of that, please subscribe, and this video is brought to you by Monarch, but more on that later. So American Express has added a new transfer partner. I'm sure you know what transfer partners are, but very quickly, if you have an Amex membership rewards earning card like any of these ones, all right, the platinum, gold, and green, and there's a few others that earn membership rewards points, you have two ways of booking travel with the points that you earn on your spending, okay, either directly through Amex's travel portal, where one point is worth 1 cent for flights and hotels in the Fine Hotels and Resorts collection, or other hotels, it's typically 0.7 cents. I think for car rentals, it's like half a cent, maybe. I don't know, there's a few different options. I normally recommend don't use points at less than 1 cent per point anyway. Then the other way of booking travel is through transferring your points to transfer partners like airlines and hotels, and with transfer partners, you're normally gonna see an average of around 2 cents per point in value. If you know what you're doing with transfer partners, you can actually get even more value, like 6 cents per point, or even more sometimes. Up until recently, Amex has had 16 airline transfer partners and three hotels, but the number of hotels has just changed to four because they have just added leading hotels of the world and their loyalty program, which is called Leaders Club. Now, you can see the transfer ratio is 1,000 Amex points to 250 Leaders Club points. That may sound bad, but it actually isn't. We'll talk about the value of the points in just a moment, but first, what is Leading Hotels of the World? Well, they are a collection of over 400 luxury and boutique hotels across the world, and all these properties look beautiful, okay? I especially like the look of some of the ones on the coast in Italy, or look at this one in Nagoya, Japan, which also looks amazing, or if you want something in the US, try the Setai in Miami. That one looks awesome too. These hotels all look great for a high-end vacation, all right? These aren't like functional getaway places for a weekend away where you just need somewhere to crash for the night, no. These are hotels where you really wanna spend some time and enjoy the location and the amenities. Now, Amex points transfer over at a four-to-one ratio, or 1,000 Amex points becomes 250 Leading Hotel points, like we said, but their points are typically worth about eight cents per point, so that actually, on average, is gonna be a value of two cents per point that you're getting for your Amex points, so even though it's a bad ratio, it doesn't matter because the value is so high, and if you have the Platinum or Business Platinum, you can actually stack this with even more value. Here's how. So last year, Amex added complimentary Sterling status with Leading Hotels of the World to those two cards. You need to enroll in that on your benefits page, but once you have enrolled, Sterling status will give you up to five pre-arrival upgrades per year and a 5% points bonus, and all those benefits with Sterling status are actually on top of things like free breakfast that you get by just being a member of their loyalty program. Even the basic tier of membership with their loyalty program is pretty generous. So anyway, that partner is now live for you to use. I personally think I will be looking to try it out, but let's move on to the new built status match, and then we'll tell you exactly when the Sapphire Preferred 100,000-point bonus is ending, but first, with all the financial knowledge that we share on this channel, all the credit cards that you can apply for that bring you huge value in points and free stuff, I think it's really important that you need to keep a very close eye on your finances so that you don't get into debt and undo all the rewards that you are earning, and that's why I've partnered with Monarch. It is a financial planning app that syncs with over 13,000 financial institutions so you can create a 100% clear picture of your finances. I can set budgets for different categories of spending, and as you're setting it up, Monarch shows you the most recent few months for that category so you can set a realistic goal. So let's say 300 for gas, then 300 for restaurants and bars. I don't know, I've been dining out a lot lately, and this delicious new Vietnamese place just opened. I wanna go there a few more times this month, so maybe let's set it at 500. The important thing is that once it is set, you keep to it. Once you're set up, you'll be able to view your entire budget and see how much you have left in each category or if you've gone over. For credit cards, you'll be able to see all of your balances in one place and how much of your credit limit you're using. And if you have credit card debt, which if you've been following my advice, you shouldn't, but if you have, having all your credit card balances in one app also lets you know whether you are truly paying down your debt or just moving it from one card to another. Monarch is private and ad-free. You are the customer, not the product. They're not selling your data to third parties. You have both mobile and desktop versions with everything displayed in one clean dashboard. And it's couples-friendly, so my wife can log in too and get a complete picture of our shared finances. So a big thank you to Monarch for partnering with me. Scan the QR code on screen now or click the link in the description below to start your free trial. And my viewers will also get 50% off their first year with code BEN50. Okay, so Built is the very popular reward system that lets you earn points on rent and mortgage payments. And in addition to that, has a very cool dining program that lets you earn an extra three Built points per dollar on your dining spend, as long as the restaurant you're dining at is in the program. They also have a selection of Built credit cards that give extra benefits like paying rent with no transaction fee, but you don't have to have the Built credit cards to be part of the Built rewards program. Every month on the first, Built does their so-called Rent Day. If you have the credit cards, you get double points on everything except for rent, but all members can enjoy some of the other benefits of Rent Day, which change every time. This month, we have a status match with Accor Hotels. Now, Accor is a Built partner. Points transfer over at a three to two ratio, and they have 45 different hotel brands in 110 countries. They own Fairmont, which you may remember, I stayed at the Fairmont Orchid on the big island of Hawaii a couple of years ago. That hotel is really nice and it's a chain, so there are Fairmont's in other places too. But anyway, let's talk about the status match. So to get it, you just need to transfer some Built points to Accor. Then your status gets upgraded. Cool thing is, even if you are just a Blue member, which is the basic member with Built, you still get Silver status with Accor, which gets you a welcome drink and late checkout. Here are all the details of how it works. So Blue members will match to Silver with Accor. Silver Built members will match also to Silver with Accor. So the bottom two levels are the same. Gold with Built matches to Gold status with Accor, and this gets you room upgrades and early check-in and all the benefits of Silver as well. Then Platinum Built members can match to Platinum status with Accor, which gets you suite upgrades, lounge access, and all the other stuff from the lower tiers. There are also some points transfer amounts that we have to look at. So if you want to get the Silver or Gold status with Accor, first of all, you have to be the correct status level with Built, okay? So either Blue, Silver, or Gold if you want the Gold, and then you have to transfer 5,000 points. If you want to get Platinum status with Accor, first of all, you need to be Platinum with Built, and then you need to transfer 15,000 points. And your status will be valid until December 31st, 2027. So you actually get a year and a half. So it's actually a pretty good deal. If you want to take advantage of this, remember it is for one day only on August 1st. And if you don't have a trip in mind yet, I would suggest just transfer over the minimum amount of points that you need to get the status. So either 5,000 or 15,000. You don't want to waste the points if they're kind of stuck in Accor. Because remember, if you couldn't find a points redemption with Accor, your status benefits still work for paid trips to whatever hotel you stay at as well. So even if you didn't use points, you'd still be able to make use of the status if you were going on a paid trip. I'll put a signup link for Built in the description below. You can also link a card so that you can use their dining program, which gets you an average of three points per dollar extra on top of what you earn on your credit card on whatever restaurant you're dining at, as long as the restaurant is in the program. Link will be in the description. All right, let's look at our final story of the day, the exact date when the Chase Sapphire Preferred 100,000 point bonus ends. Now the Sapphire Preferred, Chase's very popular mid-tier travel card with a $95 annual fee, has been offering 100,000 points as a welcome bonus for a few weeks now. This is worth over $1,000, okay? Like the minimum value is 1,000, but depending on how you use it, you could get up to two or even more, you know, 2,000 or even more in value out of it. The offer is now marked as ending soon on their landing page. We did a report a few days ago that targeted mailers were showing August 17th at the end date. That may be true for the people who receive those mailers, but now we have a confirmed end date for online applications. Someone actually commented on my video a few days ago, said that they talked with a Chase rep and the Chase rep said the bonus ends on July 30th. Sorry, I can't find the original comment, but the points guy actually came out with an article saying that it ends at exactly 3 p.m. Eastern time on July 30th, which is tomorrow. And you know, the points guy is like pretty corporate now. He's pretty close with all the credit card companies, so I'm sure his information is accurate. I may very well apply for this card tonight. I'm still thinking about it. I'll let you know if I do it or not. If you want this bonus, do be quick. I'll put a link to the card down in the description below where you can sign up for it. All right, guys, that is the video for today. Thank you so much for watching. Don't forget to check out Monarch in the description below or by scanning the QR code on screen now. You can get a free trial and use my code BEN50 for 50% off your first year when your trial ends. Please subscribe if you're new and we'll see you in the next video. Bye-bye.