NEW Bilt to Hilton STATUS MATCH + HUGE Southwest Card BONUS

In this video, I want to talk about two things. We have built rent day benefits, including complimentary Hilton status up to diamond, depending on what tier you are with built plus transfer bonuses to two partners. Then we also have a new huge welcome bonus on a certain Southwest Airlines credit card. 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, do subscribe, but let's get into the video. So built has just announced its October 1st rent day benefits, and this one is very heavy on transfer bonuses. The biggest headline I would say is Hilton Honors, and you actually get two different benefits with Hilton. On October 1st only, built members can transfer built points to Hilton with bonuses of up to 200% depending on your built status. Blue members get 75% bonus, silver get 100%, gold get 150, and platinum members get 175% bonus. And then platinum plus get a massive 200% bonus. Platinum plus is where you use built cash to upgrade your status. So normally you can upgrade from built blue to built silver by giving $200 in built cash. That's the extra currency you earn. Well, if you're platinum, there's nothing above platinum. But you can still upgrade and get some extra benefits, and they call that platinum plus. Anyway, the upgrade this time is $200 in built cash. The base transfer ratio between built and Hilton is one to one. So if you are platinum plus, transferring 10,000 built points would give you 30,000 Hilton Honors points. And then there's another really interesting part to this offer, and that is instant Hilton status. Make a transfer of any amount and built blue or silver members get instant Hilton silver. Gold members get instant gold, while platinum and platinum plus members get instant diamond status through the end of 2026. Then there's a status challenge. Blue and silver members can complete six nights in 90 days to upgrade their status to gold, and gold built members can complete 12 nights in 90 days to upgrade to diamond, while platinum and platinum plus members can keep diamond by completing 12 nights in 90 days. And once you have completed those nights, you keep that status until March 31st, 2028. So that's actually quite a long time. It's like a year and a half. The transfer bonus applies to up to 100,000 built points. And if you're platinum, you can also spend, like we said, $200 in built cash to buy up to that $200 bonus. But Hilton isn't the only transfer bonus that built is offering this time. Built is also offering a rent day bonus with their newest partner Amtrak guest rewards. The standard built to Amtrak transfer ratio is two to one, but on October 1st, blue members get 25% bonus, silver get 50, gold get 75, and platinum get 100. Platinum members can also spend $400 in built cash to boost that to 125. Okay, that's kind of expensive. Don't do that. Again, the bonus applies to up to 100,000 built points. So overall, this is a very strong rent day if you're looking at either Hilton stays or Amtrak travel. But personally, the part I would be looking at most closely at is the combination of a huge Hilton transfer bonus plus instant elite status. If you're interested in built, do check them out in the links down below. You don't have to have the built credit cards to be a member. You can sign up for other parts of the program. If you join their dining program alone, you can get an extra three points per dollar on all your spending at restaurants in the program. So it works great with the Amex gold for a total of seven points per dollar, four from Amex and three from built. Then you can also earn extra points at Walgreens and potentially on rent payments too. Click the link below to sign up and don't forget to link your card so that you can earn points. Also link your Lyft account for extra points on Lyft rides too. All right, let's talk about our next story. Chase has just increased the welcome bonus on one of its Southwest business credit cards, and the timing of this offer is particularly interesting. If you are trying to earn a Southwest companion pass, the Southwest rapid rewards premier business credit card is now offering 80,000 rapid rewards points after spending 3000 in the first three months. That is up from the previous 60,000 point offer. So we're talking about 20,000 additional points with exactly the same spending requirement as before. The card has a $149 annual fee, and you'll also get 6,000 rapid reward points every year on your card member anniversary. Then there are some useful Southwest specific benefits as well. Cardholders get their first check bag free along with their first check bag for up to eight additional passengers traveling on the same reservation. You also get that 15% anniversary flight discount code plus preferred or standard seat selection within 48 hours of departure when available. But the really interesting part of this offer is the companion pass. The Southwest companion pass allows you to designate another person to fly with you basically for just paying the taxes and fees whenever you buy or redeem points for your own Southwest ticket. So it's basically a two for one pass, but it has to be the same person. Normally you need to earn 135,000 qualifying points in a calendar year to get it, and points earned from Southwest credit cards and their welcome bonuses are qualifying points. They count towards a requirement. Then the card itself also provides a 10,000 point companion pass qualifying boost each year in January. So that 80,000 point welcome bonus can potentially do a huge amount of the work for you. But here's where you need to be careful. Companion pass qualification runs on the calendar year, and once you earn the companion pass it's valid for the remainder of that year and the whole of the next year. All right, so if you manage to get 135,000 points now or in October, you would get a companion pass for the rest of 2026 and all of 2027. But if you manage to get 135,000 in January, you get it for the pretty much the whole of 2027 and the whole of 2028. So earning that companion pass in early 2027 could potentially give you close to two full years of that benefit. That means if you're applying towards the end of for this card, specifically as part of a 2027 companion pass qualification strategy, you need to pay very close attention to when you apply for the card and also when you complete the spending requirement so that the points post at the right time. I would recommend applying in October, okay, don't apply now, apply in October, and then have the points post in January, okay, so don't complete the spending requirement until the end of December so that the points are actually going to post in January. Then you're also going to get 10,000 points boost in January, which is, you know, qualifies for the companion pass as well. So that's 90,000 points. And then you have a full year to earn the rest of the points for the companion pass. And hopefully you can do that in the first half of the year. So then you get it for the rest of 2027 and all of 2028. And that is doable since the current 80,000 point offer is scheduled to end on October 26. So you can wait until October, apply for this, and then follow that strategy that I just said. Good luck. All right, guys, that is the video for today. Thank you so much for watching. Don't forget to sign up for built in the links below. I wish all of our Asian viewers a happy mid autumn festival. Have a great weekend. We'll see you next time. Bye bye.