Best-ever bonus? Book a business-class flight to Japan for 25K points

Bilt Rewards offers special promotions on or around the first of each month, but next month is particularly special.

For this upcoming Bilt Rent Day on March 1, members can enjoy a status-based Japan Airlines Mileage Bank transfer bonus of 25% to 100%. Plus, Bilt members can use $135 of Bilt Cash to unlock a higher transfer bonus of up to 125%.

This transfer bonus has caught our attention as arguably the most valuable offer we’ve seen. If you’re dreaming of traveling to Japan (or booking a Oneworld partner flight) with your Bilt Points, here’s how to get the most value from this amazing offer and decide if it’s right for you.

Earn up to a 125% bonus when you transfer your Bilt points to Japan Airlines

You can normally transfer Bilt points to Japan Airlines Mileage Bank at a 1:1 ratio. On March 1 only, the transfer ratio improves based on your Bilt Rewards status level:

• Blue: 25% bonus (so 10,000 Bilt points become 12,500 Japan Airlines miles)
• Silver: 50% bonus (10,000 Bilt points become 15,000 Japan Airlines miles)
• Gold: 75% bonus (10,000 Bilt points become 17,500 Japan Airlines miles)
• Platinum: 100% bonus (10,000 Bilt points become 20,000 Japan Airlines miles)

Platinum members can go even further. By redeeming $135 in Bilt Cash, they can unlock a 125% transfer bonus, meaning 10,000 Bilt points become 22,500 Japan Airlines miles.

Members at lower status tiers can also redeem $135 in Bilt Cash to access the transfer bonus of the next tier up (a Blue member can access the Silver bonus, for instance), but you can only move up one tier.

Therefore, a Silver member cannot spend $270 in Bilt Cash to access the Platinum rate.

Related: Bilt 2.0 transition questions answered: What you need to know

Why this is a valuable airline transfer bonus

Bonuses from transferable rewards programs to airline partners are a regular occurrence; however, the bonus levels are usually no more than 30%, with 40% being an especially generous offer.

So, for Bilt Rewards to offer up to a 125% bonus on a valuable Oneworld airline transfer partner is particularly noteworthy. It may make this bonus the best one we’ve seen.

Japan Airlines miles are typically harder to earn, and because the loyalty program offers a distance-based, dynamically priced award chart, there are some great deals you can book.

Japan Airlines’ Mileage Bank program offers flights from various North American mainland gateways to Japan starting from just:

• 27,000 miles in economy class
• 40,000 miles in premium economy
• 55,000 miles in business class
• 110,000 miles in first class

Related: Japan Airlines’ Airbus A350-1000 inaugural from New York to Tokyo: Same great service, fabulous new seats

This means that for booking lie-flat business-class seats to Japan with this bonus, you would need to transfer the following Bilt points:

• Blue status member (25% bonus): 44,000 Bilt points for 55,000 Japan Airlines miles
• Silver (50% bonus): 37,000 Bilt points for 55,500 Japan Airlines miles
• Gold (75% bonus): 32,000 Bilt points for 56,000 Japan Airlines miles
• Platinum (100% bonus): 28,000 Bilt points for 56,000 Japan Airlines miles
• Platinum plus $135 Bilt Cash (125% bonus): 25,000 Bilt points for 56,250 Japan Airlines miles

Seats at these lowest saver-level amounts are strictly limited and won’t be available on all routes or dates.

The program does at least offer additional award seats at relatively low dynamically priced levels, with several months of availability from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport (ORD) to Kansai International Airport (KIX) in Osaka, Japan, for under 100,000 miles one-way in business class, for example. If you do have access to at least a 100% transfer bonus from Bilt, this is still an excellent deal with much wider availability.

You can also book flights on Oneworld partner airlines like American Airlines, Qantas and British Airways at the following rates:

The program also partners with other airlines, such as Air France, Emirates and JetBlue, which use a different award chart.

In theory, the same award inventory that programs like Air France-KLM Flying Blue provide to other partner programs, such as Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, should be bookable with Japan Airlines miles; however, in our searches, we were unable to find business-class awards to Europe, even when they were available through other partners, as shown on the handy Seats.aero tool.

Economy awards were easy to find this summer at a reasonable 23,000 Mileage Bank miles from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) to Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) and an astonishingly low $5.60 in taxes and fees compared with the $104 Air France-KLM Flying Blue charges for the same redemption.

How to find award seats using Japan Airlines miles

Log in to your Mileage Bank Account and then select the type of flights you want to book from the Domestic or International Award Tickets dropdown menu.

For long-haul flights operated by Japan Airlines, choose JAL International Award Tickets, or for flights operated by partner airlines, choose JMB Partner Airlines Award Tickets.

You’ll then be shown different flight price options with the ability to see prices for three dates either side, and then you can book your flights online paying the taxes and fees by credit card.

You can also search for any route across the whole year using the international award ticket search availability calendar to see the cheapest months.

How to prepare for Bilt’s up to 125% transfer bonus to Japan Airlines

There are some important caveats to note before jumping on this offer.

Japan Airlines Mileage Bank accounts must be at least 60 days old before miles can be used to book travel. Bilt members do receive an exception; if your account is less than 60 days old, there is a hold of up to seven days after a transfer before you can redeem, but that narrow window still requires you to have a specific redemption ready to go immediately. It’s a good idea to create your account as soon as possible, but you can still search for availability even if you haven’t cleared this window.

We expect plenty of Bilt Rewards members to take advantage of this transfer bonus, so the sooner you create your Mileage Bank account, the sooner you will be outside of the seven-day hold and can snap up the limited availability at the lowest rates.

Japan Airlines Mileage Bank has a firm three-year expiration policy on miles. There is no activity-based extension mechanism like many other programs offer. If you transfer miles speculatively and don’t use them within 36 months, you will lose them. Transfers from Bilt Rewards to any transfer partner cannot be reversed.

Japan Airlines miles can only be used to book award travel for you and direct family members — those connected through blood or marriage. Unlike many other programs, you cannot book for a friend or travel companion who is not a family member.

The program tends to release award space for its own members and partner program members from the same inventory pool, so holding a Mileage Bank account does not guarantee better access to premium cabin seats over those you’d find through American Airlines AAdvantage or Alaska Airlines Atmos Rewards. However, Japan Airlines opens its award schedule to Mileage Bank members 360 days in advance (at midnight in Japan, or 10 a.m. Eastern time). Most Oneworld partner programs work within a booking window of around 330 to 331 days. That roughly 30-day gap may not sound significant, but on competitive routes where business-class saver award space is limited, it can be the difference between securing your preferred dates and missing out entirely.

Members who search for flights approximately 12 months out on Japan Airlines’ own website will frequently see business-class availability that has not yet appeared in any partner program.

Bottom line

While we don’t usually recommend speculatively transferring points and miles (i.e., when you don’t have an immediate use for them), no matter how generous the transfer bonus, this is the one time we may not follow our own advice.

If you have elite status in the Bilt Rewards program and/or Bilt Cash, you’d be happy to redeem to move up a tier; this may be the best transfer bonus we see this year.

While securing four business-class seats to Japan this summer at the lowest saver rates is unlikely, if you are looking to travel in 12 or 13 months, such as for the 2027 cherry blossom season, this could be an amazing opportunity to get incredible value from your Bilt points. This is especially true given the Mileage Bank program offers plenty of awards at fair rates, even when the cheapest saver seats are no longer available, and provides its members with a month head start on booking awards.

Because the transfer bonus only lasts a day, we recommend signing up for the Mileage Bank program immediately. Play around with routes and dates to get a sense of the availability and pricing and better understand how the program works, then crunch the numbers and decide if you want to participate, as transfers cannot be reversed.

And remember, if you’re looking to easily earn Bilt points, a transferable currency that TPG values at 2.2 cents per point, per our March 2026 valuations, you may want to consider one of Bilt’s credit cards.

Related reading: