Rove Now Offers Up To 14 Miles Per Dollar At 2,000 Restaurants, Instant Gift Card Rewards And New App

Rove Miles is making the jump from an online travel and shopping portal to something closer to a complete rewards system. It has launched a mobile app, card-linked restaurant rewards, instantly rewarding gift cards and in-store offers, while rebuilding its hotel platform and shopping extensions. Members can now earn miles from ordinary spending, rather than just when booking travel or through an online shopping portal. I’ve become increasingly impressed with what Rove is building. It is a standalone rewards program that’s not attached to a bank, airline or hotel. It lets members earn miles from shopping and travel and then transfer them to more than 20 loyalty programs or use them directly for flights and hotels. And their ‘travel portal purchases’ are actually rewarding because hotel bookings can still earn loyalty program points and status, and points can frequently be redeemed at 1.25 cents apiece towards paid travel. They’re doing something that’s really hard. They don’t have a natural customer base. Others have tried this and failed. Bilt is the most successful, and they have a natural customer base and distribution channel through member residences (the buildings people live in). Rove has to convince members every day to use them, which means they need to be more rewarding on each transaction. That’s expensive! And whether or not they ultimately succeed, it’s valuable for customers right now. And they’ve assembled several interesting transfer partners, including programs that are difficult or impossible to reach through the major bank currencies like Lufthansa Miles & More, Japan Airlines Mileage Bank, SAS and Air India plus staples such as Air Canada and Air France KLM. Rove is offering new members 500 miles instantly at signup. Published end date is 8/31 for the current offer. The person referring you also gets 500 miles once you’ve earned at least 250 miles, plus 10% of the miles you earn for 6 months. You’re welcome to leave your referral link in the comments. Several New Features Rove announced several changes changes: Rove Dining Link a card, eat at a participating restaurant and miles post automatically. They aren’t saying what platform powers this. Rewards Network powers most of these programs and provides access to thousands of restaurants. An iPhone app and Android public beta. It combines flights, hotels, shopping, dining, gift cards, transfers and account management. Instant gift card miles. Gift cards were already part of Rove’s shopping ecosystem, but Rove is now selling them itself and awarding immediately usable miles. In-store card-linked offers just rolling out. The program will begin with hundreds of stores and expand over time. Hotel booking rebuild. Rove already offered Loyalty Eligible rates that can earn hotel points, elite nights and status benefits. They say there are now a lot more of those. Safari and mobile Safari extensions are new. Chrome and online coupons alreadyy existed and those are being redesigned as well. Rove Dining Launches At More Than 2,000 Restaurants Rove Dining lets members link an eligible payment card and then pay normally at participating restaurants. There are no coupons, individual restaurant activations or receipts to upload. Miles generally post within seven days. This works like all the airline and hotel dining programs. The program launches with more than 2,000 restaurants in 20 markets: Atlanta Austin Boston Chicago Dallas Denver Houston Los Angeles Miami Minneapolis Nashville New York City Philadelphia Phoenix Portland San Diego San Francisco Seattle Tampa Washington, D.C. Rove says the median earning rate is approximately 6 to 8 miles per dollar, with supplied restaurant screens showing offers as high as 14 miles per dollar. Eligible spending is capped at $3,500 per transaction. That’s higher earning than you get from comparable programs (and these are transferable points. Earning excludes tax, tip and additional fees though. Terms prohibit stacking its miles with another dining rewards or loyalty program. Since this is brand new I haven’t seen yet whether this is actually Rewards Netowrk, and so whether linking a card to Rove automatically removes that card from another Rewards Network program. They simply say members are not entitled to both sets of dining rewards. Instant Gift Cards Award Instant Miles Gift card earning is not new here. Members could already go through its shopping portal to buy eligible cards, but portal rewards can take weeks or months to become available. The new marketplace is supposed to offer 500 retailers with Rove as merchant of record, so they issue the gift card and post the miles immediately. That means if you were 2,000 miles short in a rewards program to book an award you could buy a gift card for something you’ll buy later, get the miles and transfer them right away. Examples supplied by Rove include (on top of rewards for the credit card spend buying the gift cards): 1x at Airbnb 2x at Starbucks and Nordstrom 3x at Marriott 3.2x on a Visa gift card 4x at Ulta 5x at H&M 7x at Columbia Sportswear Compare with United MileagePlus X, Fluz, ordinary shopping portals and discounted gift card markets, of course. And bear in mind that with Rove as the merchant of record, you’re not earning a travel multiplier on your credit card when buying a gift card from a travel provider. Rove Is Adding In-Store Shopping Rove is beginning to offer card-linked rewards at brick-and-mortar retailers. The initial program will include hundreds of stores, with a promise of more added over time. That’s like Amex, Citi and Chase Offers (and other card-linked, merchant-funded offers). Rove’s Hotel Rebuild Makes Its Best Feature Easier To Use Rove’s most innovative product is its Loyalty Eligible hotel rate. At participating Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, IHG, Accor, Wyndham, Choice and Best Western hotels, members can earn Rove miles while remaining eligible for applicable hotel points, elite-night credit and status benefits. It also means redeeming Rove Miles for hotel stays that are treated as revenue stays, where you earn hotel points, elite status credit, and receive your status benefits during the stay when choosing one of these rates. The rebuilt platform reportedly adds many tens of thousands of hotels properties. Rove says approximately 99% of properties within its eligible hotel chains now have Loyalty Eligible coverage. The improvement comes from new partnerships and better room mapping, which allows Rove to match rooms and rates from its systems with the correct rooms sold by the hotel. The base Loyalty Eligible earning rate remains a flat 5 miles per dollar. I wouldn’t book all my room nights through Rove – you should be getting standard room rates but those aren’t going to match AAA rates, corporate rates, or other discounts you’re eligible for. Rove also has higher earning on hotel inventory that doesn’t earn points – often at the same hotels, side by side so you can choose. They’re also adding an artificial intelligence tool in the app that answers questions about pet policies, amenities, restaurants and airport distances. That is convenient, but doesn’t seem like it gives you anything beyond a hotel’s published feed. Why This Expansion Matters To Rove Rove says hundreds of thousands of members have redeemed well over one billion Rove miles in the past year. It also says those miles were redeemed at more than twice the average value of traditional credit card points. You’re not redeeming your points at average value, so that’s not meaningful. But they’re high value points. And the program only launched last year. Public reporting initially placed Rove’s funding at $2 million, with backing from Y Combinator, General Catalyst and Soma Capital. Forbes subsequently listed $3.5 million. Rove now tells me that it has raised a total amount in the low eight figures. In contrast, though, Bilt reports raising over $800 million. Continued fundraises are reassuring. It means Rove has attracted continued financial backing while it builds out expensive travel, loyalty and merchant relationships. I am happy to earn large numbers of Rove miles when the value proposition is strong. I will transfer or redeem them when I have a good use. I am not going to accumulate a seven-figure balance with them – they aren’t yet a store of value. But the faster they grow, the faster they attract members and transaction volume, the faster they can attain a level of escape velocity that can make them a permanent part of the ecosystem. And having more competition in this space is great for us. Topics on this page