The Dining 
You might already be asking yourself, “Is this the end of the VC money bonanza that resulted in rewards Challenges like ‘Spend $50, Earn $100’?” Boy, those were the good ol’ days. As these companies mature and start operationalizing their business to be more efficient, there is a lot less throwing money at random things to see if they work. Which is a bit of a bummer for us rewards seekers, but probably necessary if this business is going to be around in 2 years.
So let’s break down the major changes that have been made to the Blackbird platform and I will layer in some of my inferred reasoning as to why they made the changes they did.
The biggest one was the complete removal of the 10% top-up bonus. This one hurts, it is what allowed a savvy Blackbird user to effectively get 10% back at all Blackbird (BB) restaurants (which was even better than the 7X Friends & Family tier). I am kicking myself for not loading up on Fly as soon as I saw the “limited time” badge get added to that 10% top-up promotion. So, why did they do it? A few reasons:
Reason 1: FlyCard
The biggest reason was that they simultaneously announced the FlyCard. A Visa-backed debit card that allows you to load it up with Fly and then get 2% cash back at ALL restaurants, not just the ones in the BB network. This is pretty cool, because if you have a credit card that gives you 3% back on all purchases, you can now effectively get 5% cash back at all restaurants not on the Blackbird network by buying Fly with your CC (3%) and then using your new FlyCard when you dine (another 2%). This combo will be better than using any other dining rewards credit card and has a decent chance of allowing Blackbird to become the de facto payment option for all things dining, in network or out.
The other exciting aspect of this card is that all spend on the FlyCard counts toward Blackbird tiers, so off-network dining can now help you move up tiers!
Reason 2: You now earn Fly when paying with Fly
Up until the removal of the 10% top-up, you didn’t earn new Fly on any portion of the check that you paid with Fly. This made sense, because otherwise a Regular member would be able to effectively get 15% cash back on all checks (10% top-up + 5X member earn).
However, with the removal of the top-up bonus, there would be absolutely no incentive to load up on Fly if you did not earn new Fly when you used Blackbird Pay to pay with Fly. That would effectively have made it an incentiveless program.
Reason 3: Changes to the Challenges
It appears as if they have moved any “Buy Fly” incentives into their Challenges infrastructure. Meaning that I am seeing a lot more Challenges of “Load up $500 Fly, earn $50.” This gives them more flexibility than the 10% top-up in terms of deciding who and when they offer this to. It also seems to be structured to encourage bigger spenders to spend all of that $550 in one month so that they can then do the Challenge again the next month.
In general, my experience is that they have severely nerfed the Challenges in the last few months. The Challenges have always been one of my favorite parts of the platform, so it is sad to see these so severely diminished. I am ashamed to say that I am the sort of person that looked forward to the first day of each month so I could open up the app and see what my new Challenges were for the month! Now it just feels like I am getting a lump of coal on Christmas.
So, what does all of the above mean?
Let me shut up and try to give you a TLDR.
Blackbird appears to have ambitions to become the de facto payment card for all restaurant spend, in-network and out. As a result, they had to severely refactor their rewards program so that it made sense for this paradigm.
Here is how you should maximize your rewards in this new landscape:
- Blackbird restaurants: use Blackbird Pay to earn your member level rewards (e.g., 5% cash back for Regulars). Paying with Fly or your CC doesn’t matter, you earn the same either way and there is no longer a top-up bonus for buying Fly with a CC.
- Out-of-network restaurants: get the new FlyCard, load it with Fly using a credit card with max rewards for all spend (e.g., a 3% cash back card), then pay with FlyCard at restaurants to get an additional 2X Fly for an effective 5% cash back rate.
- Restaurants on Seated/inKind: as a quick rule, you are almost certainly going to earn more rewards now if you use these other apps.
So, should I care?!
To bring this all home, is this a good thing or a bad thing? Well, that depends on how much of your restaurant spend was on Blackbird restaurants vs. not.
It is time to do the math!
Let’s say you are a Regular member. Your effective max rewards for a Blackbird restaurant just went from +10% to +5%. BUT, you just unlocked a new way to earn an extra +2% at all restaurants.
This means that if your non-BB restaurant spend was greater than 2.5x your in-network spend, this is now a good deal for you.
Non-BB restaurant spend: $250. At +2% = $5.
BB spend: $100. At -5% = -$5
So you would need to spend more than 2.5x as much at non-BB restaurants on the FlyCard as you do in-network for these changes to be net good for your wallet*
There is more to unpack here as to why Blackbird would want to make these changes as a business (hint: your data + loyalty). But I will save that for another article, as this one is already quite hefty.
All of the above being said, please bring back fun & rewarding Challenges!
Until next time,
The Dining Dude
New to Blackbird? Start with 1,000 Fly.
Sign up through my link and you get 1,000 Fly ($10 toward any meal) on Blackbird. Zero extra cost to you.
Get Blackbird →*and this is with the big assumption that you have a credit card that rewards you at 3% or higher, because otherwise you lose the benefit of a boosted dining card because I doubt the credit card companies will classify buying Fly as a dining purchase for cards like the Sapphire Reserve (and thus you won’t get 3% Dining cash back, and might as well just use that card for dining instead of loading Fly at 1% and then getting 2% from the FlyCard).
