#261: Building Bilt Rewards from Strength to Strength

Welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty, an industry podcast for loyalty marketing professionals. I’m your host, Paula Thomas, and if you work in loyalty marketing, join me every week to learn the latest ideas from loyalty specialists around the world.

 

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Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of Let’s Talk Loyalty featuring industry veteran, Dave Canty, Head of Loyalty and Partnerships at Bilt Rewards. One of my favorite loyalty propositions to emerge in recent years. Dave joined us on the show in August, 2021, to introduce this exciting brand new concept of rewarding members of their program, simply for paying their rent on time. Bilt rewards has a mission and a purpose to support landlords, tenants, travel brands, and banking and lifestyle partners, all as important stakeholders and all who see the incredible benefits of tracking and rewarding the otherwise mundane behavior of paying your rent, but Bilt Rewards does it in a way that creates an exciting path to home ownership, or alternatively, members can enjoy more affordable travel options to plan the trip of their dreams. I hope you enjoy the latest insight from Bilt Rewards as it continues, its impressive growth and continues to make rent more rewarding.

 

So Mr. Dave Canty, welcome back to Let’s Talk Loyalty. 

 

Hi, Paula, how are you? 

 

I’m extremely well, I’m very glad to have you back on the show, Dave. You’ve been, um.. 

 

Yeah, it’s great to be back. 

 

Oh, honestly, I’ve been excited looking at everything you’ve been posting on LinkedIn. Um, of course, my main source of professional knowledge. So it’s been a year since you were on the show last year and introduced our audience to Bilt Rewards and you have done some incredible work. I think when we talked before, you were literally saying it’s like week by week, you’re launching new things. So today we’re here to update our global audience. Um, remind them, I guess, as well, Dave, I think about the, the proposition, cuz I still think it’s the only proposition of its kind in the world for, for good reason. Uh, but before we get into Bilt Rewards in 2022, um, as you know, my opening question, uh, this year is understanding, you know, what your favorite loyalty program might be from a personal perspective. So let’s kick off with that. 

 

Wow. It’s a, it’s a big question. Um, because there’s so many really good loyalty programs out there. Um, and I-I’d like to think that I’ve been part of many great ones. Um, but I would say the, my favorite program at the moment is probably World of Hyatt. Um, it’s a hotel program, and I, and I’ve worked in the hotel space for a number of years, obviously with, uh, with Starwood and subsequently IHG and of course, IHG just announced their new program with IHG One Rewards. But I, um, I became a member of World of Hyatt maybe, a couple of years ago and I found that program to be very, very easy to kind of use and get the benefit from, um, and thankfully I’m, I’m, I’m a globalist, um, within the, the Hyatt program now. Yeah. But the recognition and the benefits that you get, um, within that program, um, really ring through to me. So yeah, I’d say World of Hyatt is the, the one that’s yeah. In the box seat for now. 

 

Wonderful. Wonderful. And just I’ll tell the audience. I didn’t actually tell Dave. I was gonna ask him. That’s why I put him on the spot. So well done, Dave. Thanks. Sorry for throwing you under a bus there. But, um, but no, what I really like though, Dave is, as you said, you have extraordinary, uh, career and loyalty. Anyone who doesn’t know Dave canteen, make sure to look up his LinkedIn profile and, and connect with them. Um, but I think what you’re, you’re talking about Dave is, first of all, I absolutely agree that easy is the first prerequisite, uh, for any loyalty program, uh, because at the end of the day, like we’re all super busy, the last thing we want is to, you know, Wade through terms and conditions to understand what the consumer benefit might be. And then even when we talked last year, about your favorite statistic, Dave, I remember you talking about redemption being the, the most important thing. So, you know, the fact that you are able to benefit from World of Hyatt. You can articulate that. Um, it means absolutely it’s delivering for you as an individual. So even if you didn’t have the loyalty career and expertise, um, you know, you would know exactly to be able to, to avail of the World of Hyatt Program. So let’s get back to Bilt Rewards, Dave. Um, yeah, as I said at the start, it was last August when you were on Let’s Talk Loyalty. Introducing this idea that rent can be rewarding. Um, a dramatic concept, um, definitely one that I don’t think anyone had even ever considered, you know, and I was just watching all of your videos, actually, Dave, of course, on the, on the content side. And it seems that the average, uh, spend on rent is $200,000 for an average person. So an extraordinary figure of unrewarded spend, which Bilt Rewards has found a way to build rewards propositions. So tell us, how are things going just in general for Bilt Rewards since you launched last year. Yeah, it’s, it’s kind of been extraordinary, actually. It, it’s funny that you say it’s been a year in, in August and we actually only celebrated our year in production in, out, out in the, in the wild, as it were in June. Um, so there was a lot of work done pre-launch obviously getting ourselves prepared. Um, but in the last year, obviously, just to kind of reiterate the, the value proposition. Yes. Um, Bilt Rewards is all about making rent rewarding and allowing you to earn points on rent. But we also have a much bigger mission and that’s kind of building a, a, you know, a pathway to homeownership over time. Yeah. Because everybody’s largest, monthly expense is rent. And right now, unless you’re part of the Bilt Rewards Program, you don’t necessarily get anything at all for it. It’s kind of money thrown away. Yeah. So what we noticed was there was an opportunity to not only reward it, but also, um, report on it in such a way that it builds your credit history. So we did add that element to the program since I spoke to you last, um, it’s important for young people to be able to build their credit scores. And it’s kind of crazy that your largest monthly expense. Doesn’t get reported to the credit agencies. So it’s not building your credit score. Bilt Rewards now does that, we report on-time payments to the credit bureaus, all three of them. Um, so, What that does is it allows you to continuously build your credit score. And hopefully when it does come to a time where you wanna move away from rent and go into home ownership, the cost of, um, Getting a mortgage is greatly reduced because you have a, a higher score. So that’s one of the, the, the amazing things that we’ve done. Um, and we’re continuing to, to keep our ear to the ground and, and listen to our members all the time about what are the things that you like about the program? What are the things that, you think we could do better and so forth? You know, I think I mentioned, um, our CEO, Ankur Jain, um, the, the last time out. Yeah. So Ankur is a very kind of engaged CEO at every level of the business. And he continuously wants to learn about what customers are saying. And so he, he does send an email out to customers on a very regular basis. And he also is a CEO who responds to people who come back to him, um, which is incredible because, you know, I could be sitting at home on, on a, on a Sunday and all of a sudden I get an email and it’s Ankur responding to a, a member and copying me in if there’s a loyalty related element that he thinks that we should consider. Yeah. So what I love about that is, Continuously listening to your customer and understanding that while we’re very proud of what we’ve created, we can’t just rest on our laurels. We’ve gotta continuously ensure that we’re listening to what’s going on and seeing if there’s ways in which we can continuously improve. Um, so we did that and on top of introducing the, the, uh, rent report thing. We also, uh, build functionality into the app now as well, that allows you to kind of set up auto-pay, um, so that, you know, your, your rent payment automatically goes every month and there there’s nothing to, to, to worry about and your points get deposited and so forth. However, It’s also important to remember that as you’re accumulating these points, people have got to understand how to use them. And we’ve placed a lot of focus on not just giving people options, but also giving them tips. And we’ve created a lot of editorial that is very educational. Um, and you know, one of, one of my team members, uh, Richard Kerr came to us from The Points Guy. And Richard is very adept at looking at how to get the best value out of multiple programs across the spectrum. So by looking at our partnership, um, ecosystem, Richard will basically create content and say, Hey, if you were thinking about traveling here, um, here’s how you can get there by using your Bilt points with our partners, and here’s how you’re gonna get the most value. Yeah. Um, we also, uh, have created content with Jonathan Lawless, um, Jonathan is a veteran from the, um, Housing kind of, uh, space. So he went, he, he spent, uh, many, many years in, in with Fannie Mae. Um, and, and he kind of brings a lot of a wealth of knowledge in educating young people about the steps that they need to kind of take to get to home ownership and also kind of what are the watch outs that you’ve gotta look for? Yeah. So there’s, we’re creating that type of content as well. So there’s, the educational element is huge, because we, we, you know, while everything that we’re doing is, is kind of, from our perspective, it’s intended to allow people to get the most value out of the program. Um, so those are a couple of things that we’ve done. There’s there’s many more and I’m sure we’ll talk a little bit more about those as we go, but, um, quite proud of, of, of those, because that kind of allows us to have this very kind of holistic view. Yeah. Um, in, in how the program kind of continuously evolves.

 

For sure. And it’s almost difficult to pick which one to start with Dave, but, um, I guess the, the credit, uh, reporting that, uh, that you mentioned is the first huge new benefit for your members. Um, what struck me on that one, Dave is, of course, nobody ever intends to be late, late paying their rent. I mean, that’s pretty much a given. Um, but I was thinking about it from the perspective of your landlord community, and how delighted they must be, that, uh, there’s another reason for their tenant. To pay them on time because now there’s actually, you know, a reason, I guess, beyond the, the obvious, uh, but there’s a long-term reason for, for people to, to make sure that that gets done. So I always love loyalty programs when they take all of the stakeholders into account take care of all of their needs. So I’m just imagining you must have wonderful relationships with, um, the, the actual community of landlords. I can’t remember the name that you use for your, um, The Bilt alliance, The Built Alliance, Thank you. 

 

The Bilt Alliance. Yeah. So, um, and the Bilt Alliance. Yes, you’re absolutely correct, The Bilt Alliance is made up of a number of truly tremendous, real estate partners and owners. Um, and I, you know, I have to give significant credit to our growth team and, you know, our real estate team for building relationships there. Yeah. Um, and by continuously listening to them as well about what’s important to them. And you know, one of the, one of the great things about Bilt Rewards is, Not only are we a value proposition to the, to the renter. We’re also a value proposition to the landlord because we’re essentially not only allowing them to attract the right kind of, you know, renters who, who basically they can trust to, to, to, to pay on time. Um, but also retain, um, good renters, because now they have a currency that they can use to basically say, Hey, if you’d like to renew, uh, for another year or whatever, I’m happy to kind of sit down with you and negotiate on, um, you know, awarding you X number of, of Bilt, uh, points. So that’s, that’s, that’s something that we’ve created that allow it’s it’s a program now the landlords can kind of use as a tool to not only attract new renters, but also retain, um, high-value renters as well. Yeah. Um, so, and continuously building credit scores allows them to not only do the, the renters benefit from that, of course, but the landlords have a level of security in the sense of um, these act, these are actually high quality, um, uh, renters that, that I’m happy to have in my building. 

 

Yeah, and it strike me as much as the consumer proposition hadn’t occurred to anyone except, uh, your founder Ankur. Um, it even sounds to me like the, the real estate industry themselves possibly had never considered the idea of a loyalty program in order to, as you said, both identify and retain profitable tenants. So it seems amazing as well that, um, we all miss this massive opportunity, uh, until now. 

 

You know, sometimes the most simple ideas are, are, are the best and, um, if you think about it, writing checks today, uh, to pay rent is so kind of 1980 in, in some ways. Totally. Um, yeah. And, you know, getting, getting rent to the digital age, um, It seems kind of just a simple thing now I, I, I, and I noticed that there was a, a, an announcement in Dubai now where they’re, they’re looking at digitizing it. Yeah. Um, but really kind of getting, um, to a way that allows people to actually use their phone, to actually pay rent, um, is just simple. Um, so, yeah, we’re, we’re gonna continue to look for ways that kind of make the app even more kind of intuitive. Um, but you know, the other thing as well is we look at the payment platforms with, within the, the Bilt Alliance and we’re, we want to make sure that, Bilt is making that easy, not just for the tenant, but for the landlord as well. So yeah, building technology that allows the renter to pay in a very seamless way and indeed the, the landlord to receive those, those, um, those rent payments, uh, efficiently, Is, is, is it’s, it’s a no brainer. And then of course there’s reporting that, that goes with that and, and, and support. So, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a great, building a loyalty program with the value proposition that kind of appeals to all stakeholders is really the holy grail. Totally. Um, and that’s, that’s where we. 

 

Yeah. Yeah, no, it is. It’s incredible. And I’ve said to you before, I do wish I was in the US, or I wish you were in Dubai because, um, yes, we, we, we love where we rent, but, um, you know, we do resent the, the payment of rent for nothing in return. And again, I think, you know, even as I think about our, our mindset in our, our home country of Ireland renting was just something that we were all, I suppose, brought up to avoid because of this idea that it was dead money and it was a waste and whatever. So, um, you know, absolutely wonderful that you’re, you’re finding ways to, to build it for, for everybody the other piece. Well, ho, ho, ho get enough learnings and, um, We’ll perfect it in such a way that allows us to, to become portable at some point and look at other markets as, as those become available but right now, obviously the United States is, is it big enough market for us to focus on.

 

Yeah, one thing at a time. And I think I was trying to push you on that last year and you were very clear. You were like, no, we have a lot of work to do so. So remind me, actually, Dave, what is the membership number in, in the US at the moment?

 

Uh, we’re so just we’re a year in now and we’re approaching, we’re approaching about a half a million, uh, members now. Amazing. Yeah. And, and, and we’re still kind of rolling out. So we have, yeah. In the Bilt Alliance, we have access to about 2 million apartments. But we’ve only rolled out to. Um, about, I don’t know, 20% of those. Um, so those, the, so the uptake, uh, within the first 30 days of activating a property has been, significant, so, you know, we’re, we’re getting, we’re getting people, uh, we’re we’re probably getting between a 35 and 40% activation rate in the first 30 days of, um, announcing it properly. So, yeah. Um, it’s, it’s been, it’s been really tremendous to, to, to see.

 

Wonderful. Yeah, that that’s extraordinary. And again, it’s the kind of thing people will tell each other about, so I can just imagine the tenants in each of the buildings, you know, explaining the proposition to each other, um, over time, so that will continue. Exactly. Because if you think about it, you know, we are, we’re predominantly a, a, not just a young program, but we’re made up of young people. Yeah. Um, as well. So our renters are mainly kind of, you know, Millennial and Gen Z. Um, and that is a population that does kind of talk to each other. And there’s a lot of advocacy and recommendation that goes on across the, um, that, that. Generation. Yeah. And that was why when we were kind of building out the, the, the travel element of this, that’s actually a generation that hasn’t necessarily kind of attached themselves to any specific travel program. And we felt that by building out a, you know, a really good ecosystem, that allows them to have access and choice, um, in, in travel would allow us to stimulate the love of travel as well. And it was kind of ironic that we kind of launched in the middle of COVID. Yeah. Um, when travel was kind of restricted, so there was, there was kind of, where travel possibly wasn’t even a consideration at one point for, for that younger generation, now it is because they’re looking at ways in which they can explore beyond their, their local areas. And yeah, and even though the, the, the globe now has become an attractive, uh, proposition.

 

So, We think that by continuously kind of working and listening to them and building out the value proposition that we’re stimulating a love for travel as well. And that’s why we put a lot of focus into the, the travel side of, of the program and making Bilt Rewards and, and Bilt  Points, um, giving the utility to those in the travel space is, is an important, uh, part of what we’re doing.

 

Yeah, I’ll definitely want to explore that a bit more in a minute, Dave, but a couple of things, even on what you just talked about. I mean, I think we’ve both seen an awful lot of research with exactly this demographic you’re talking about Dave. In fact, I think you, you did a lot of consulting work specifically around kind of Gen Z and Millennials if I’m correct,  and then that’s then bring back to our last conversation. So, so anything I’ve seen was always this, uh, you know, conclusion and concern, I would say for, for all of us in the loyalty industry, was that loyalty programs in general were just not resonating. They were extremely cynical and when we think about it now through the lens of what you’ve created, of course they were cynical. They didn’t have enough spend on airlines or even on grocery dare I say, to ever earn anything to make them excited. So I think this is the first time they can even appreciate, oh, there’s a currency and there’s reasons and there’s benefits for behaving in certain ways. So why would I not do that? It’s incredible. 

 

It is incredible and I think the, the, um, what, we’ve, what we’ve done as leaders in loyalty over time is we’ve allowed complexity to creep in, um, you know, as programs kind of mature. Yeah. Um, more and more kind of terms and conditions kind of come to the fore. Yeah. Um, and even though you try and improve programs by adding new benefits and so forth, uh, sometimes you lose sight of the fact that by adding things and putting, you know, asterisks and, you know, yeah. Uh, super, you know, super text kind of one, two threes, and so forth. Yeah. Um, you’re adding a layer of complexity and friction that this generation are just not interested in and totally, they will literally switch off and say, I’m not interested. Do not make me do the math. Yeah. Because that’s not what I’m about. Um, so, there’s a real importance within the loyalty kind of space for program, um, managers to think about stripping back and re kind of configuring the programs to make it so simple for people to use and understand that they don’t have to think about it. Yeah. Um, you know, I, I spoke at the very top about, um, these destination fees and, and amenity fees and so forth. People should never have to think about that kind of stuff, because you turn up in a, a, a hotel, you think that you’ve, you’ve got a, a hotel room for, let’s say $200 a night. Yeah. And when you go to check out it’s $2, it’s $249 because, oh yeah, there’s a, there’s this fee. Um, that kind of thing, really kind of gets in the, in throat of, of the younger generation. And we’ve gotta think about better ways to either disclose it at the, you know, right up front. Yeah. And basically say or bring it in as a benefit within your program that look, if you’re loyal to me, I’m gonna make sure that you’re not going to get kind of, um, blindsided by certain things. Yeah. Um, you know, and I, by the way, I’m not having to go out the hotel industry. I’m just using that as an example. Of course. Um, yeah, but I do, I do think that there’s an opportunity for, um, for all loyalty programs to really think about how they can remove the friction elements of their program. To get customers much more engaged. Yeah. And at Bilt Rewards, we’re continuously looking for ways. Yeah. To make it frictionless and simple. Um, now have we cracked a knot? Probably not. You know, as, as I kind of go through our app experience every day, I think it’s tremendous. Yeah. Um, It, it, it would be kind of naive of me to kind of think, okay, my experience is that of everybody else’s, it’s that, and that’s why Ankur, you know, out there listening along with everybody else, by the way, it’s not just Ankur, but, um, I just use his, him as an example, but we’re all out there kind of trying to understand what are the things and what’s the experience like for everybody else and how can we continue to stay improved? Yeah. Um, and you know, that’s, that’s what we’ve been doing. 

 

Yeah. Yeah, no, it’s a good mindset, um, and I was smiling away to myself as I was thinking of my own kind of partnership negotiations over the years, um, back in my days with, with oh two priority and my self-imposed rule for any partner was you can have one asterisk. That’s it. You know, right. You’re right. You’re you know, so, so you can have like a, let’s say two for one, and you can exclude maybe the weekend. I totally get that. It has to make commercial sense for the partner, but if you then say, oh, and only before four o’clock or once you start saying, and, and totally, and it totally upsets everybody, so I completely get it. And, uh, yeah, one asterisks is, uh, is, is the maximum allowed in any, any partnership that I do. So quite funny that, uh, focus on simplicity and I guess genuine integrity as well about, uh, recognizing and rewarding people. 

 

Absolutely. I mean, you’ve basically, um, made a promise to that customer about the fact that look, I would like you to be loyal to my brand. Yeah. Um, and in order to, in order to earn that loyalty and promising you a value proposition that I shouldn’t be making it difficult for you to, to understand or so, yeah. Um, it’s just kinda, you know, keep it simple. That’s that’s what it’s all about. 

 

Yeah, sure. But I, I love the fact, as I said, the mindset that Bilt Rewards has as a company, um, the focus on, you know, what is the experience that every individual is having. And even to go back to the piece that you were telling us a bit about Dave, in terms of the education piece, Um, so I did have a look on your YouTube channel we’ll, of course, make sure to link to it in the show notes. And I was looking at, um, you know, your, your team, as you said, talking from, you know, their expertise maybe in the past with The Points Guy and now literally kind of, you know, explaining how to get from the US to Hawaii on, you know, various different airline partners, hotel partners, including the World of Hyatt was a great example. Um, and just to be able to understand the booking process, the, um, the education piece was, was incredible, to even understand, oh, if I use this booking engine, that’s just an indication of the points required versus this booking engine is actually live inventory with that level of points. So as a consumer, and again, clearly I’m not in the, in the US loyalty market, even as a consumer. Um, I just found that content amazing and a really important part of your strategy by all accounts. 

 

It really is. Um, you know, it, it’s kind of funny when we first came out with the, the proposition of make rent rewarding. Um, one of the, one of the most asked questions we got was what’s the catch. And we had to keep saying there is no catch at all. Yeah. Um, and one of the things that we wanna make sure that we’re doing is allowing people to really understand the ins and outs of, of all programs, um, so that they can actually get the full benefit, not just from Bilt Rewards, but from our partners as well. Yeah. Um, you know, and, and we want to make sure that Bilt Rewards members are engaging with our partners. You know, it’s a, it’s kind of a win, win, win um, not, not just for, um, Bilt, not just for our member, but also for our partners because you know, we are going out and we’re, we’re working and developing relationships with all of these partners, and the reason that we’re doing that is because we want our members to get the full benefit. Um, and it’s important that we introduced that educational element. And, you know, one of the things we, we actually have got out to partners ourselves and said, look, we would like to have your permission to kind of talk a little bit more about your program, not just Bilt. Yeah. Um, but we’d like to talk about your program and create content that allows our members to understand how to use your program as well. Um, so you’re gonna see more and more of that as, as we go. Yeah. Um, Because at the end of the day, kind of giving people content like that, that they can kind of always go back to and, uh, reference or even points their friends to, to say, Hey, um, I watch this and it’s, it’s worth having a look at, so yeah, there’s, there’s, there’s a lot in there whether it be in the Bilt Rewards App or whether it be on the, the Bilt Rewards YouTube channel. Um, absolutely. I would encourage people to go in and have a look. 

 

Yeah. And what it looks like you’re as well doing Dave, is there are I suppose influencers or, you know, I suppose just trusted personalities that are talking and even as I said, yes, I was looking about, you know, redeeming on travel, but also there was lovely videos about, you know, uh, flower arranging, which, um, I just thought was super nice, um, quite unexpected. I, You know, somebody who has ever dabbled with flower ranging, but I was kind of looking at, uh, the wonderful presenter going, oh, she looks cool. Oh, I can do that. That’s amazing.  so.. 

 

Yeah, I mean, at, at the, at the end of the day, I suppose we’re a lifestyle brand in, in many ways. Um, and we wanna be relevant in all aspects of your life. Um, you know, and we, we do that, not just through content, um, and, and, and so forth, but it’s also about making sure that as we build out our partnership kind of ecosystem, whether it be travel, fitness, housing, and there’s gonna be more, um, you know, we wanna make sure that every kind of thing that we do, whether it be an added benefit or an added partner, is something that’s relevant to your life. Um, And that’s, that’s how we kind of approach conversations with partners as well is, you know, we want to be a program that allows people to understand that we are relevant to you from the very first day of rent all the way to home ownership. Yeah. And by building out that ecosystem in the middle. Yeah. Um, you, you, you get that. Yeah. Um, and it’s not only kind of billing out, but also being a trusted source. Um, And that trust is a very big kind of word in the loyalty space. Yeah. Um, now it’s, it’s easily lost and it’s also very important to make sure that your recovery process, uh, is, is in place, so, you know, inevitably there’s going to be one or two customers that you’ll disappoint, not intentionally, but there’s something that will go wrong. Yeah. But it’s how you actually address that and recover from it. Yeah. So we’ll really test, um, whether that person will be loyal to you on a go-forward basis. And in some cases, it reaffirms the relationship. Yeah. Um, based on, on, you know, if, if you go through a, a good recovery and you show good intent. Yeah. Um, I think that’s, that’s hugely important. And, you know, that’s something that I’ve always been conscious in all of the programs that I’ve worked in. Totally. And I’m very proud of, of our customer service team and Bilt, our, our basic, you know, they look at this as if it’s their own. Baby as it were and our members are part of their family and they wanna make sure that they’re taken care of. Yeah. Um, so, you know, and if things kind of need to get laddered up, it, everybody kind of jumps in to try and solve what, whatever the, the, the challenge is, um, if it’s raised. Yeah. Um, so customer service is a, is a very, very big deal. Totally. Um, you know, and, one of the other things that happened actually, uh, since we, since, since we last spoke was, uh, uh, we announced our partnership with Wells Fargo. Okay. You know, Wells Fargo is one of the largest banks in the United States, and, um, there’s a brand that, you know, is very powerful in the housing space as well. Yeah. Um, and it, it was important for us to ensure that we were able to come to the table and say, Hey, we can be the perfect partner for you. Um, and we, so we’ve established a terrific relationship with the Wells Fargo team and, um, and that allows us to kind of think about how do we continuously evolve the program, uh, long into the future. So lots going on there as well. 

 

Lots going on there as well. And just to finish the other, I suppose, observation on your kind of content and education strategy Dave, I did even say see wonderful things, as you mentioned, where people can kind of point to each other where it’s simple things like what is a mortgage? You know, I mean, it is still quite shocking that we don’t learn it in school. You, you know, we’re lucky we learn it at home, but if not, then, you know, where are you going to for, for advice on those sorts of things so to even have that kind of content, as you said, to support that big mission of, you know, people who are renting, but on a, on a, a bigger pathway to home ownership, I think there’s, um, there’s an awful lot going on there that I can see is coming through and really working at every level for your members.

 

Yeah. I mean, financial wellness is certainly something that we’ve got to ensure the younger generation, um, have full visibility and, and, and comfortability within. Yeah. Um, so yes, we’re gonna continuously create content that, uh, is educational that in, in that regard, we’re gonna look at partnerships that allow us to, to, um, bring financial health as well and education well, as Fargo’s gonna be one of those partners. Um, and you know, even from an investment perspective as well, we want, we want, uh, customers to, to feel like we’re continuously looking for ways that, that, um, make sense to them. 

 

Yeah. Yeah. The final bit I wanted to ask you about Dave today was the other amazing partnerships I saw you announcing, um, two of the biggest brands in the world, dare I say it certainly in the lifestyle space, um, Expedia and Amazon. So tell us what you’ve, uh, launched for Bilt Rewards with the, with these two giants. 

 

Yeah. So Expedia have been a great partner to, to work with. So what we started to do, and this was this, again, comes back to stimulating travel for the younger generation. Um, so while we’ve got terrific loyalty partners that, you know, allow members to, to transfer their Bilt Points into airlines and, and hotels directly, and there’s true value in doing that. We also wanted to make sure that, uh, we made it easy for members to book directly into in, in our app. Um, so the, the, the Bilt Travel portal is, is powered by Expedia, and that obviously opens up the globe, um, you know, for, for whether it be, uh, airlines, whether it be car hotel, or even kind of experiences that you want to, to take part in, um, when you get to that destination. So we, we just announced that, um, uh, the weekend of, uh, July 4th, actually, which was, um, you know, it was kind of very exciting for us because I think we announced it on June 30th, uh, kind of going into the holiday period, understanding that, you know, everybody, uh, will have already had their travel plans and they they’ve already done that, but we wanted to kind of, um, when they come back from their travel. Yeah. Kind of know that now it’s easy through build to kind of continuously look for your next, uh, your, your next thing. So we’re, we’re, we’re truly delighted to, to be working with, um, with Expedia in that regard. Yeah. And even within the, the Bilt App, and I know that you, you, you don’t see it outside of the United States but when you actually go into the booking portal, you can actually also search with our partner airlines directly in there, so like, you know, with American Airlines, there’s, there’s actually a dropdown that allows you to search for award flights directly in American, in, in the app. Yeah. You can drop down to United Aeroplan. Wow. Um, So all of that is it, it, it, again, it’s, it’s about removing friction and making it easy. And you know, I, I’m a, I’ve been in travel for most of my life. Uh, I encourage my kids to travel. Um, my daughter’s about to move over to, to London, um, and go to her first year in college there and I, to me, that’s a great experience and, you know, um, You get to enjoy different cultures, you get to kind of, um, see different the world through different eyes as, or, yeah. Um, I wanna make sure that we stimulate that amongst our members, and making it easy to do so is, is important to us. So that’s on the, on the travel side. Uh, we also announced a significant partnership with Amazon. Um, and obviously delighted to, to, to be a partner with, with Amazon because, again, it comes down to making things easy. Um, and we know that our members are shopping in Amazon, and yeah, I wanted to make sure that they have the utility to be able to use their points, uh, on Amazon. So we, we create a partnership with them that allows Bilt members now to kind of go in and, um, on checkout they can select to use their points to, to check out, um, you know, right now that that relationship is only open to, uh, Bilt MasterCard holders, but we’re hoping to extend that beyond to the, to the broader base, but, um, lots going on, um, uh, and lots more to come follow there’s, there’s so much that we’re, we’re continuously working on, but I’m very excited about those. I mean, those are two extraordinarily, huge brands. Yeah. And for them to kind of place their faith in a one-year-old company. Yeah. That is really trying to kind of, um, make a, a mark in, in, in the world. Um, I, I feel it’s, it’s, it’s quite validating in some ways, and it means that we’re obviously doing something right, because yeah, when we start looking and, you know, I, I kind of talk about the feedback again and, um, we’re always interested in hearing, um, you know, is, is, is the Bilt Rewards program really kind of delivering on its message and the, the answer is yes. And we’re getting that back in, in spades. Yeah. Um, and you know, Obviously, as we kind of go out and, and add additional partners into the, the, the program, it’s important that we have the product there that, that we can stand behind. You know, we’ve built, we’ve built great relationships, um, in the influencer community. Um, and the blogger community. Yeah. And a lot of people kind of asked me about how, why is everybody talking about Bilt Rewards? Yeah. And the, the, the, the true point there is, it literally is a great program. It’s a world-class program. Yeah. That we make it easy for them to write about. Yeah, we’re not feeding them any scripted stuff, you know, they’re free to make, uh, their own judgments and their own, um, uh, points of view. Yeah. Um, and thankfully most of that has been truly positive. Um, but it’s important as well for us to, to listen to what they’re saying. Um, but if you, if you could, if you could deliver a great program, you’re making their life easy as well. It’s, it’s easy for them to write. 

 

Yeah. Yeah. I’ve often said publicity PR whatever term you want to use is the single best form of marketing. It’s it’s, you know, the obvious, you know, word of mouth on steroids, dare I say so, Um, I, I really believe it’s too expensive to do all our own communications, no matter what product you have. So you do need the media to, uh, to, to, to drive awareness of it for you. So it’s obviously working extremely well, huh?

 

It’s working really, really well. Um, we’ve established great relationships. We have a trust that’s going there where, you know, if somebody, um, has a, a very deliberate question, we answer it very transparently. Yeah. Um, and you know, if we, we, we just point to the app and we, we do, we do let that audience know ahead of time when things are calming so that they can prepare. Yeah. Um, But we, we that’s that’s as much as we do, we just basically say, this is what we’re doing. We’re very excited about it. And we hope that it’s gonna be meaningful and we invite them to have a look at it and make, make, make comments. Um, and right now it’s something that we’re, we’re, we’re, we’re proud of the relationships that we’re building there. Yeah. Uh, long may that continue. Um, But we can’t lose sight of the fact that we have to be continuously listening as well, you know? Yeah. To every stakeholder, whether it be the customer, the landlord, partner, Yeah. Um, or, or influencer, blogger, whatever. Yeah. We wanna make sure that, um, we’ve nailed it.

 

Well, I think on that note, I’m going to say, I think you’ve nailed it so far, so good.  And I’m sure you guys are gonna continue nailing it Dave, it’s always extremely exciting to hear about what you’re up to. So that’s all the questions I had from my side. Is there anything else you wanted to mention before we wrap up?

 

No, I would just like to, um, say, first of all, thank you for the opportunity to come back on, on Let’s Talk Loyalty. Uh, I, I think it’s a, it’s a great platform, but I do wanna kind of thank our partners who have believed in us from the beginning. Um, you know, we did ask a lot of people to kind of, um, you know, to take a leap of faith with us and I’m hoping that we’re delivering on, on that promise. Yeah. Uh, we’re still on a ramp. Um, you know, so we, we have future partners that we, we, we also wanna kind of talk to, I also wanna kind of thank our, our, our members who basically kind of said, this is something I wanna be part of. Um, and if you’re enjoying it and you are a member of Bilt Rewards, um, tell your friends, um, because it’s, like I said, uh, earlier in the, in, in the program, There is zero catch it’s a, there are no fees to be part of this program. Yeah. Um, and it’s, it’s an opportunity for you to, to make rent truly rewarding. 

 

Wonderful. Well, listen, on that note, I will say Dave Canty, Head of Loyalty and Partnerships at Bilt Rewards. Thank you so much. And congratulations from Let’s Talk Loyalty. 

 

Thanks Paula. 

 

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