If there were ever two brands destined to make your wallet and your workout routine feel slightly more sophisticated, it’s Bilt and Equinox.
Bilt, the rewards program that turned paying rent into something resembling a financial strategy, has teamed up with Equinox, the luxury fitness empire where even sweating feels like it should come with a concierge. The partnership is a natural fit: one rewards you for where you live, the other rewards you for pretending you enjoy burpees.
The appeal is simple. Bilt members can earn rewards tied to their Equinox spending, giving fitness enthusiasts another reason to put their monthly gym bill to work. And because this is Equinox, we’re not talking about a basic treadmill-and-water-bottle situation. We’re talking polished locker rooms, intimidatingly attractive people, classes with names that sound like boutique European automobiles, and enough wellness amenities to make your old gym membership feel like a cry for help.
For Bilt, the partnership is another smart move in its mission to make everyday spending more rewarding. Dining, travel, rent—and now getting absolutely destroyed by a trainer at 7 a.m.—can all become part of the rewards equation.
For Equinox, it’s a way to make an already premium membership feel even more valuable, particularly for Bilt’s financially savvy, urban-minded audience.
There is, of course, a tiny catch: rewards points cannot actually make you exercise.
They can, however, make the pain feel more productive.
And that may be the genius of the Bilt-Equinox partnership. In a world where everything from your credit card to your coffee order is fighting for loyalty, Bilt and Equinox have figured out a particularly New York proposition: You might as well earn points while spending money to become the best version of yourself.
Now you really have no reason to cancel that 6 a.m. class.
