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Bilt Rewards unveiled their three new credit cards on Wednesday. There’s a ton of value here, but it’s complicated. And a lot of folks are confused.
I applied and was approved for their premium Bilt Palladium Card (See rates and fees) because I like the idea of earning points for my mortgage, earning 2x on everything, and Bilt points are the most valuable currency I know. They have the best transfer partners, period.
The card also comes with Bilt Gold status, which means continued 1:1 points transfers from the Rakuten shopping portal, as well as use of their Home Away From Home hotel booking program (similar to Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts).
But where things got confusing was earning Bilt cash – in addition to points – and using it to pay a fee to earn points on rent or mortgage. It’s a whole separate currency, and the idea of a fee that you buy down with a separate currency you earn spending on the cards just felt cumbersome. They’ve already fixed this.
They needed a way to get customers doing more than just using the card for rent. The original version let you make five purchases – fill up your gas tank once, split into five purchases; go to a minimart and buy 5 bananas in separate transactions; buy five $1 Amazon gift cards – and that was a money-loser.
Instead, they are giving you two options and you can earn more than 1 point per dollar on rent and mortgage. This is an option in addition to the one they’ve already laid out.
Pay your full rent or mortgage every month with no transaction fee
Earn points on housing automatically in lieu of earning Bilt Cash
The more you use your card for everyday spend, the higher your points multiplier on housing, now up to 1.25x:
Points on Housing
Minimum everyday spend as a % of monthly rent / mortgage (Example of $2,000 rent)
0.5x points
Spend at least 25% of monthly rent ($500)
0.75x points
Spend at least 50% of monthly rent ($1,000)
1x points
Spend at least 75% of monthly rent ($1,500)
1.25x points
Spend the same or more as your monthly rent ($2,000)
You can also keep earning Bilt cash and use it towards rent and mortgage points-earning if you wish, and for ohter things. And you can switch back and forth each month as you wish.
Earn 4% back in Bilt Cash on everyday purchases, in addition to base points. Think of Bilt Cash as “choose your own reward”.
Pay your full rent or mortgage every month with no transaction fee
You can use as little or as much of your Bilt Cash to increase the total points you earn on housing that month and you do not ever pay anything out of pocket.
You can also redeem Bilt Cash dollar-for-dollar for monthly credits across the Bilt ecosystem (with monthly, merchant-specific caps), or for exclusive benefits like higher transfer bonuses and special access to experiences.
Bilt’s CEO Ankur Jain is apologizing – they made things too complicated and confusing. There’s a ton of potential value in 4% back in Bilt Cash in addition to the points that each card earns. But that ecosystem isn’t fully built out yet and their messaging about earning a currency that covers the cost of earning points on rent and mortgage overwhelmed a lot of people.
Over the past few days, I’ve spent a lot of time reading our members’ emails, DMs, and notes. Many were thoughtful and passionate. Some were frustrated. All were fair. ..we won’t always get everything right the first time, but I read all of your feedback and we will adjust quickly when we miss.
Those of us who saw through the confusion have been jumping on the cards. Some folks are upset they don’t get to just earn points for rent each month without doing anything else with Bilt. I think that adding mortgage and letting you earn more than 1 point per dollar on rent or mortgage is pretty exciting.
And by the way that applies to the no annual fee Bilt Blue Card (See rates and fees) and mid-tier Bilt Obsidian Card (See rates and fees), too, and not just to the Bilt Palladium card.
Plus, they’ve even eliminated the 100,000-point per year cap on points earned from rent and mortgage payments and you can pay rent and mortgage on more than one home and earn points now. They have a FAQ. I have to give them a lot of credit for (1) moving quickly, (2) giving members a choice, and (3) making it possible to earn even more points without taking anything away.
I wouldn’t say ‘simply’ so much as I would say ‘attempts to clean-up its own mess,’ but, okay, options are options, better than nothing. Not even sure what to do at this point, and I’m already approved for Palladium (non-TPG link, because I’d rather take a hit than support those shills), also, with a higher credit limit than Gary… teehee.
So if you’re mortgage is $2000, you have to spend 2000 in other spend to earn at 1.25x points? does that mean 1.25x on the total 4000 spent?
I really just don’t see how they build out a Built Cash redemption system that can support 4% back on top of the underlying rewards. I don’t get why they invented the cash concept to start with and not just a 1.3x multiplier you could redeem for rent points or to bonus other actions in the app (fitness classes, ride shares, etc) . It’s like they back in to the 3% fee in the weirdest way possible.
There is a lot going on here. But let’s be clear. The value of Bilt Cash is the differentiator here. The disclosure now of forthcoming (variable!) merchant specific caps is a limitation on value, particularly for very high spenders. Once we know Bilt Cash then we can can guess the value of this card. I am glad someone is trying to own the 2x space because it’s a great way to offer consumers a differentiated product. Obvs I only care about Palladium. They should have just said they needed an annual fee to continue and let’s still be friends.
He mentioned this briefly, but I still want clarity on how they intend to make it good for current users who were denied the card already, or given credit limits so low as to be functionally denied. That’s not a “seamless transition”, as was promised.
Making things up as they go along. Impossible to have any confidence in this. Impossible to immediately make up for the massive PR disaster they just created. I’ll be waiting a few months to see how things shake out before doing anything other than 1:1 Rakuten transfers on 2/15 and 5/15.
A lot of the the heat that has Bilt up (sorry) should actually be directed at Cardless (AKA Hopeless). They have a history of the weakest IT in the credit card space (maybe bought secondhand from British Airways) that likely accounts for a lot of the signup glitches.
@LLLEvelUpp: If you have the Palladium card presumably it is 1.25 Bilt points on the housing ($2,000) and 2x Bilt points on the ‘qualifying match’ ($2000).
I don’t see much value in Bilt cash as I don’t do the things “within the Bilt ecosystem” that it currently works for. Bilt hotels are expensive so the hotel credits are worth nothing to me (I already have tons of hotel credits and free nights from other cards to use up every year). I see the Palladium (the only one of the cards worth having for the other spend) as a $495 card that earns me 1X on rent for a lot of spend. My rent is $2,300 per month so I’m paying $495/year for 27,600 points, or 1.8 cents per point.
Another option, without the hoops to jump through, is to pay my rent with either my Amex Blue Business Plus or Venture X and pay a 3% fee. I’d pay $828 per year for the fee and earn 55,200 points, or 1.5 cents per point. The latter sounds better to me.
@AdamH: My take is that Bilt Cash is a currency for the ‘ecosystem’ they are building up around Bilt usage. This was a very important concept from prior to the release of Bilt 1.0, but that card did not really succeed in generating the hoped-for ecosystem. Naming an ecosystem currency may be the trick that creates it.
An analogy to the Bilt ecosystem might be the most adhesive FF programs (e.g. Avios).
@Ben: Likely Cardless made you cardless.
@Gary: I would drop the claim that this is a simplification, it is actually a parallel channel. I.e. augmentation. You still have to understand B2 v1 to choose between it or B2 v2.
I was shocked when I saw the comparison of Bilt vs others today. I had thought of it as Hyatt and Alaska with bonuses for Air france and Avianca.
With >3 points / $ spend anywhere it is great for high spenders
With Bilt 2.0, with my calcs I will get 3.3 points per $ spend using Bilt cash and 3.125 points per $ spend by 2.0ver2
The problem is as I spend more than the rent, then the value drops gradually to 2 points e.g., if I spend 100k and my rent is 1k, then the value is 2.0125 points /$ spend
I think I will stick with Ver 2.0 ver 1 and see how it plays out.
Let the masses cry for free bilt bread crumbs – this is way plenty
I was shocked when I saw the comparison of Bilt vs others today. I had thought of it as Hyatt and Alaska with bonuses for Air france and Avianca.
With >3 points / $ spend anywhere it is great for high spenders
With Bilt 2.0, with my calcs I will get 3.3 points per $ spend using Bilt cash and 3.125 points per $ spend by 2.0ver2
The problem is as I spend more than the rent, then the value drops gradually to 2 points e.g., if I spend 100k and my rent is 1k, then the value is 2.0125 points /$ spend
I think I will stick with Ver 2.0 ver 1 and see how it plays out.
Let the masses cry for free bilt bread crumbs – this is way plenty
I’ve been a BILT cardholder almost since the beginning and have been a big fan. With that said, this has been an absolutely awful transition by BILT and I’m almost ready to give up as I still can’t get my head around this (despite being in the points/miles game for 35+ years and working with numbers for a living).
I use BILT primarily for college-age kids’ rent, for restaurants, on Rent Day and maybe one estimated tax payment a year to make sure I get to Gold. Not counting rent, my monthly spending on the card ranges from $500-$10,000, or about $25k a year. My goal would be to pay my mortgage which is $3k a month. Which option would I even take?