Citi Changed the Rules. Bilt Got Worse.

Citi updates their rules, Built is not having a good time, Japan Airlines gets a new partner, and Alaska gets a major update. This and more in today's roundup. Big favorite thumbs up to help with the algorithm, even though I'm unaffected. Share this with them. Starting off, Citi just added once in a lifetime rules for some of their cards. We're going to see this on the Strata cards, and let's look at the terms. The new account bonus offer is not available if you currently have, or previously had, a Citi Strata Elite account. In the past, it was 48 months, so 4 years. This is the top level card, but let's look at the mid-level. Here we're going to have similar language, offers not available if you currently have, or previously had, a Citi Strata Premier, or a Citi Premier account. The second card listed is the prior iteration of the card. Since I got a welcome bonus for it in the past, I'm not eligible now. Even with the no annual fee Citi Strata card, we see the same thing. Here it's for a Citi Strata or Citi Strata Student account. Once in a lifetime language is pretty bad across the board, and my fear is that it ends up getting a bit worse, and it can be worse. For example, let's say they layer on family language or the ladder language. They end up doing family, then three bonuses become only one, which is not a good time. An example of a family language is that you're allowed one bonus within the family of cards. So let's say ABC, pick one of ABC, and oftentimes it's going to be that C1. Higher annual fees generally mean higher bonuses, and you'd want to optimize for that. Ladder language would be annoying, but less painful than family. For example, we've seen ladders with Delta cards. It pretty much means you need to start at the bottom and then work your way up and get to the top. So let's say you have three cards, ABC. A is the flagship, B is the mid-level, C is no annual fee. You'd want to get C first, and then B, and then A. If you did the reverse, if you did A first, then it kind of knocks you out of the B and C bonus. And if you did B first, it knocks you out of C. So generally, either C, B, A, or sometimes B, A, especially if C doesn't have a great bonus, or it doesn't matter. Right now, it's once-in-a-lifetime, but I am a bit surprised they're doing this. I get why other banks do this, because I feel like they're positioned to, and they kind of have the right to. City is city. Nothing wrong with city, but I feel like there are levels to it, and city isn't at that level. Maybe unfair, but I feel like even Capital One has kind of stepped past city. With that said, if there's one thing I've learned from this space, it's to optimize for intro bonuses and aggressively redeem your points when you have the chance. Bonuses get harder over time, and redemption options become more expensive. Go for that upside while it's on the table. Take that trip while you can. Also, funny enough, depending on when you started, there's a chance you might have gotten two or even four of these intro bonuses. But yeah, wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people got two to three intro bonuses for the City Strata Premier card or its prior equivalent. One good thing from all of this is that it's only isolated to the Strata cards, at least for now. Their other cards are still fair game. One of the best options given upside for a lot of us is the American Airline cards, which are still on the table. For example, the City Advantage Platinum Select card is going to be 48 months, and still a great opportunity. With the flagship City Advantage Executive World Legend Mastercard, that's going to be more interesting because it is a bit of a different card, but still 48 months there. I think for most people, the mid-level makes more sense as a chase, and then top-level only makes sense if you really value lounges. Yeah, if you are eligible for these American bonuses, I'd probably grab them while you can, especially if you want to start that 48-month clock. Worst case being that they end up adding lifetime language here as well, and you end up missing out on two bonuses. On a side note, if you want to learn about City cards, or pretty much any other cards out there, and you want to support the channel, we have links on the website, AskSabby.com, and also down below in the description box. Make sure the links are competitive, that they make sense for you, but otherwise, it's a huge way to support the channel, so thank you in advance. On a related note, City just added Japan Airlines' mileage bank as a new transfer option. With this new addition, they also have a limited-time 30% transfer bonus. With the 30% bonus, 1,000 City becomes 1,300 JAL. This ends October 24th, 2026. This now means that we have four programs, technically five, that transfer to JAL. For one-to-one, we have Built, City, Rove, and for two-to-1.5, we have Capital One Miles. Oh, also, if you have City No Annual Fee cards, then it would transfer one to 0.7, so 1,000 to 700. Marriott, technically, is an option, but it doesn't really make sense for most people, unless you really don't value Marriott. In their case, it's three-to-one, and then when you transfer over 60,000 Bonvoy, you get 5,000 miles as a bonus. Normally, 1,000 becomes 333, and then 60,000 would become 20,000 plus 5,000, so 25,000. Effectively, three-to-1.25, if you do it in that way, which is what you'd want to do. The crazy thing is that with all these partners, it's a very stark contrast to what Japan Airlines was. In the past, it was very hard to get JAL. For example, back in 2018, eight years ago now, one of the meta-redemptions for Marriott coins were vacation packages where you would pick nights, and also miles for any airline currency. American Airlines and Japan Airlines were the two big ones that people would go for, given the difficulty of getting the currencies, and also the upside. But yeah, Japan Airlines was one of the go-tos, and one I even consider myself. Given all of this, with Japan Airlines opening up its ports to these bank partners, we have seen devaluations, and also major bumps and jumps in redemption costs. More bank partners means more points in circulation, just given the nature of it, which kind of is a points or miles inflation. There's more miles in the ecosystem, then things eventually cost more, and also availability becomes tougher. Part of it is obviously demand on our end, but you also have to consider for Japan Airlines, they are making an intentional decision to open the floodgates. They didn't have to do this. Mind you, I don't mind. It's kind of dependent on them, and for us to play accordingly. Like of all currencies, don't speculatively transfer because there's a bonus. Even though it sounds good, you need to have a redemption ready in order to use the points. Transfer because there's availability for something you want to do, and you're ready to book. If you're transferring points in, a lot of other people are doing the same thing, and they're going to see that, so they're going to have to increase prices. At least with the bank reward programs, you have flexibility, so if, let's say, JAL gets devalued, you can go transfer somewhere else. You have other options. You're not stuck with one program. Speaking of Japan Airlines, Rove just launched with them for October. They actually ended up adding three programs here, so Flying Blue, Qatar, and Japan Airlines. For Rove miles to JAL, there's a 50% bonus, so 1,000 Rove is 1,500 JAL through October 31st, 2026. If you have a redemption in mind, then great transfer, but otherwise be careful. For Rove to Qatar, it's a bit interesting, so it's up to 35% bonus and same date period. If you transfer under 50K Rove, it's just 15% bonus. 50K to right under 100K is 25%, and then 100K or more is 35%. So for most people, you'd want to transfer 100K if that's an option. Also, if you do want to go to the Middle East right now, or if it's on the table for you, then it might make a lot of sense because there is a lot of availability. It's been a lot easier than it's ever been, but you potentially not wanting to be over there. I think it's still relatively safe, but I know a lot of people who just wouldn't be comfortable with that, which is also fair. For Rove to Flying Blue, it's a 40% bonus, so 1,000 Rove is 1,400 Flying Blue and same dates. The best use case here probably being Delta. Flying to Europe could also work depending on the rates and whether there's any specials, but be careful of taxes and fees. Also, maybe I'm alone here, but I feel like Flying Blue has been a lot tougher in the last year or so. And yeah, it's just been not a great time. It kind of feels like a minor devaluation, if not a very literal one, with their recent changes. I talk about this a lot, but we travel pretty last minute, we change our plans pretty often, and with their whole program, making cancellations tough, it just doesn't really work as much for us. Devaluations happen, just the nature of things and something that you want to be careful with. Speaking of devaluation, Built is devaluing their transfer rate to Hyatt. I'm not at all surprised because Built has been bleeding money and also I think Hyatt is raising prices on their end. Starting January 1st, 2027, Built's rewards to World of Hyatt is going to be at 4 to 3. Before, it was 1 to 1, so 4 to 4. Once the new year rolls around, it's going to be 1,000 Built to 750 World of Hyatt. This does mirror changes that we're seeing across the industry. And again, my best bet is that Hyatt is increasing prices and other banks are trying to figure out if it works. And if it doesn't, they have to also decrease their transfer rate to make the transfer make sense. For the most part, these banks have internal targets for what they're comfortable losing or what they're comfortable paying for these points amounts. If Hyatt increases prices, then banks have two options. It's either to cancel that partnership, which generally doesn't make sense, or to adjust accordingly. If you think about it for banks, when you want to cash out your points, a lot of them let you do 1,000 bank points would be $10, so one cent per point. That's the default internal rate that they have for their points and what they're very happy to pay. Also what they technically owe on the books because these points that they owe you are liabilities for them. In the past, Hyatt has wanted between 1 to 1.5 cents per point for these book purchases. And with the banks, they're probably buying a lot, probably tens of millions of points a miles. Let's call it one cent. So the bank pays Hyatt $10 and they get 1,000 Hyatt and then you exchange 1,000 bank points for 1,000 Hyatt. It pretty much is a wash for the bank. They're not really affected. They're paying what they expected to pay. If Hyatt increases prices on the back end, then things change. Let's say the bank pays $10 to Hyatt and Hyatt only wants to give them 750 points. That means in order to get 1,000 Hyatt, the bank is now paying 13 bucks. When you transfer points to Hyatt, it's technically not that. You're transferring points to the bank's allotted amount of points that they already pre-bought. So yeah, before it cost the bank 10 bucks and they didn't really care. Now it's costing them 13 bucks. The alternative to decreasing the transfer rate would be to have more profitable cards. So let's say increase the annual fee or if the profitability of the card is already there, then they can keep it at one-to-one. And even if they are losing a bit of money there, it's still making money on the other end. So it works out. With some other banks, that's what we're actually seeing. But if BILT, that's not the case. So BILT is decreasing the rates across the board, whether no annual fee, mid-level, or even their flagship. I am a bit surprised because I think on the flagship, I expected them to keep it at one-to-one. Maybe they will if you have elite status with them or if you do enough bank payments or something or use the card enough, but it just doesn't really make sense. You would think that the top level is a loss leader and they're comfortable with that. I guess a factor might be that there is a lot of turmoil within the company and a lot of people don't necessarily seem happy, even employees. You would think employees would be the happiest with a company doing well and stock price going up and valuation going up because they have ownership. For example, if you look at OpenAI or Entropic, everyone's very happy because everyone's comped very well and their stocks are doing great or technically stock options, but you get the idea. Heading over to Bilt, it's pretty much the opposite. So they have a 2.7 score and a decent sample of 58 different reviews. So it's not like one person pulling it down. Also reading through a lot of the reviews, it doesn't seem like a good time. The funny thing is that even if you look at other historically not fun banks to work at, let's say Wells Fargo at 3.5 or Bank of America at 3.9, those are kind of the numbers I expected and not ideal, but still makes sense. The argument against it is that while Bilt is a startup, they don't have as many people. You probably have to work harder with big banks. You leave at five. That's fine. You clock out startups. That's not the case. Even then, if you look at other startups, let's say Ramp 3.8 score, not great, but also not as bad as Bilt. Ramp is growing fast, lots of pressure there. So pretty comparable to me. Same thing with something like Brex, which is technically now owned by Capital One, 3.8, but yeah, pressure not unexpected and a lot of people have to work hard. A bit less fair is Rove, but even then they have a 3.9, not the greatest sample of five, but yeah, that's kind of what you expect in terms of numbers, 3.5 to 4 range. Another way to think of it is like restaurants. If you have 4.5 or up, great restaurant, 4 to 4.5, not bad at all, pretty good. 3.5 to 4 is what you'd expect and kind of a normal area one. You might not want to recommend it to a friend, but it's one of your go-tos that's in your neighborhood. I don't know if I'd want to go to a restaurant that had a 2.7 score. I feel like there has to be something inherently wrong there, whether it's like cockroaches, rats or something. Maybe I'm alone, but with a 2.7, I'd be scared that they go out of business or that it implodes. Oh, funny. Clicking into it, it drops to 2.6, so even a bit worse and 31% of people who work there would recommend it to a friend and only 33% of people approve of the CEO. Looking at Ramp, 90% approved the CEO, 62% would recommend it to a friend. Brex, 72% would recommend it to a friend and 78% approve of the CEO. If anything, it feels like the employees that built just aren't happy. Compensation to 2.9, diversity 2.7, culture 2.4, career opportunities 2.8, so not good at all. Work-life balance, not surprised there, 2.5 and then senior management is the lowest one at 2.2. And mind you, I get startups. I've done a startup. I invest in startups. I know the space. I'm in San Francisco for a reason. It is very tough. Work-life balance doesn't exist and you are working very hard for kind of a mission. But the ideal though is that you want the mission to make sense. Take a look at some of the more recent reviews. Headline here is mediocre work for a mediocre business. The big disadvantage being that they don't know what they're doing. The team feels arrogant and unfriendly and they're also unorganized and no one listens. No one is paying attention. Beyond that, it seems like they are micromanaging and that there's no trust or autonomy. Suffocating controls make work unbearable. I'm not going to read through all the reviews here, but there are a ton. And I think if you are curious at the state of a company, that is a very good thing to look at. It's a lot of negative ones. The positive ones feel very questionable to me, like they're being conceded or maybe potentially not me saying that it's fake. Some people might think it was fake. For example, five out of five ones. This company is supportive. That's fine. Absolutely love working there. That's fine. And there's no cons. I love the company. I have a great experience. Even with good experiences, there's generally some bad, like you're not nitpicking if you're trying to point out some improvement areas and things that aren't necessarily the best. Taking a look at another one, same kind of idea that it's a great company, but the disadvantage being that it's a startup environment. So if you're not used to that, then that's not going to be a fun time. Also, maybe unfair, but I tend to be a believer of reviews that have a bit more depth rather than just one or two sentences, whether positive or negative. So same thing with restaurants. If they have a one-star review and it's just a negative thing, like server was terrible, that doesn't really matter because that's just someone being angry. That's not really valid. On the other hand, if someone actually bothered to write a detailed review and you can kind of see the depth of this here and their experience, this is a software engineer, then I tend to believe it a lot more. The pros here being that you can learn a lot, but that's most startups. You do have a lot more control. You do see a lot more. The cons are a giant checklist. You have terrible leadership. No one has your back. The company cares only about profit maxing and nothing else. CEO is apparently not the greatest. And then managers dump their stress on their employees. You think that leadership was making millions from the way they act, which only highlights how little it actually makes. That's actually the part that scares me the most because they are still trying to figure out the monetization. The prior Wells Fargo stuff works out for them, I guess, but not for Wells Fargo. So the question is whether they can flip the switch to find a model that actually makes money. The last one and the one that kind of resonated the most with me is that everyone is pretending that this mess somehow works. There's no standard workflow and meetings just happen. And it's kind of a useless process. Again, for us as consumers and users of the product, that's not generally a good thing. It makes sense if they were, let's say, a 10 person team or something and worth like 30 million, but they're worth billions. We think that at this stage, that they're not flying by the seat of their pants. Also, this isn't me saying that you shouldn't get the cards. The cards get value, but be careful. Have a backup plan case. It doesn't work out. And you need to have a secondary option. I'm not sure why, but there's a lot of people who seem very incessant on only running one card. And they're like, why would you have any other card at all when you can just have, let's say, the built card and only have that card? But it seems like they've never seen a devaluation or a card get canceled before. It kind of actually reminds me of the Uber card back in the day. Very good card, very competitive. But I think everyone knew that it was going to get nerfed and it was expected. Yeah, a lot of people pushed for only that card. And then when it did get canceled, they complained and they wondered why. And I feel like other people just switched to other cards. It's the state of the system and just normal. Also, reminder that you don't have to use all your cards. You can have them for their benefits or their free nights or something, but you don't actually have to physically use each one all the time. OK, a bit of a tangent, but let's go back to the Hyatt end. So even with the devaluation, I would argue that it does make sense, whether built or someone else, especially for the top luxury stuff that we talked about and that we cover a lot on the travel channel. So I'd be fine. It tends to work out pretty great if you are player two or fancy and you're trying to keep people happy. The thing, too, is that it doesn't have to only be on the top end. It also works for economic stays. For example, I was in Dallas for a conference and ended up staying at a Hyatt place. The retail price was about 130 and then 151 after taxes and fees. It's a very normal hotel, so nothing really fancy at all. At the same time, you could also use points to cover a night, for example, 4,500 points a night, which isn't bad at all. So for that 151 night, which isn't unreasonable, that's something I'd happily pay using 4,500 points. That's 3.4 cents per point. So very good value. 100 to 150 is in that would pay range for these traveling hotels. We're talking 150. We're not talking 15,000. Even with the devaluation, 4 to 3 would be 6,000 bank. The 4,500 Hyatt, let's say the bank points would be worth one cent per point. So 60 bucks, 4,500 Hyatt in this case is worth 151. With that 60 bucks, could you get 151 value? Otherwise, maybe if you invested, but for that trip that you're already taking, not the case. If you travel anyways, there's probably going to be a time where it doesn't make sense, even if it's not all the time. OK, but what if I invest the money and it becomes a lot more outside of YOLOing into stocks or meme coins? You're generally looking at only 7 to 10% per year, and then maybe 15% given the last 10 years, which has been a pretty crazy bull run. In order to turn 60 bucks into 150 to cover hotel night, you'd be looking at 7 years of pretty insane compounding at 15%. So at year 7, it becomes 159. That's ignoring inflation and the fact that the rooms probably going to end up costing more. So let's assume a 3.4% year over year inflation, which is kind of what it is right now. And then the point the investment gets more ahead. So where you get more value from the investing instead of redeeming it for the room would be year 9. So 9 years at a 15% run rate compounding, then it makes more sense. And of course, if you don't travel at all, then it doesn't make sense. Invest it, that's fine. But what I'm trying to say is that if you do travel with any frequency, there's going to be occasions where it makes sense. Think of it like poker. So you'd have a bunch of chips. You don't play every hand. It's not always going to make sense, but you'd want them ready for when it does. Again, if you want to learn about cards, we have links on our website, and down below in the description box. If you made it to this point, leave a magnifying glass emoji in the comments down below, and I'll try to heart it and also respond. Three questions. Number one, what are your thoughts on Citi adding once in a lifetime language? And do you think that they're even positioned to? Number two, what are your thoughts on Japan Airlines adding more transfer partners? And do you think it's going to lead to fast devaluations? Let me know and everyone else know in the comments down below. Big favorite thumbs up, share this, but otherwise hope you liked it. See you next time. Also, IHG update will be the next video because there is a lot going on and I'm kind of catching up.