Bilt Card’s Seamless Switch Ends Feb. 1 — No Hard Pull, Same Card Number

This weekend is the last opportunity for existing Bilt Rewards cardmembers from Wells Fargo to ‘seamlessly transition’ to one of Bilt’s new cards. The option ends February 1 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific time (so Monday morning at 2:59 a.m. on the East Coast).

• No hard credit pull
  
• Keep same card number
  
• Apple and Google Pay automatically refresh with new card details

In addition, whatever card you pick, Bilt says monthly Rent Day will continue to offer double points on card spend up to 1,000 bonus points each month through January 1, 2027.

No Annual Fee Bilt Blue Card

The no annual fee Bilt Blue Card (See rates and fees) can earn 2.3 transferable points per dollar spent up to the amount of your rent or mortgage payment every month.

• Earns 1X points on everyday spend plus choose to earn 4% back in Bilt Cash on everyday spend. Use Bilt Cash to unlock point earnings on rent and mortgage payments with no transaction fee, up to 1X. (Up to $100 of Bilt Cash earned rolls over to the next year.)
  
• That Bilt cash lets you buy points up to the amount of your mortgage payment. You also start off with $100 of Bilt Cash when you apply and get approved for the card.

$750 in spending on the card earns $30 Bilt Cash, which can be used to earn 1,000 points on $1,000 of mortgage or rent spend. Put another way, you can choose to earn an additional 1.3 points for every dollar of spending on the card, up to three-quarters of your monthly rent or mortgage.

If you don’t use any of the ‘coupons’ or other offers from Bilt Cash, and simply convert all of your Bilt Cash into points this way, you’re earning 2.3 points per dollar spent – 1 point directly from the card, plus another 1.3 points up to 75% the amount of your housing paymnet using Bilt Cash. That makes it the market-leading points on all spend from a no annual fee card.

Bilt Obsidian Card

The Bilt Obsidian Card (See rates and fees) earns 3X points on your choice of dining or grocery spend (up to $25,000 per year).

• Spending 75% of your housing payment on the card, you’ll generate enough Bilt Cash to earn Bilt Points equal to your housing payment. That’s an additional 1.3 points per dollar.

• If you exhaust that, you also can redeem Bilt Cash for the option to earn an additional 1 point per dollar on card spend for the next $5,000 after redemption. That $5,000 spend earns the $200 Bilt Cash to do this again, and you can keep doing this up to 5 times a year. So that’s an additional 1 point per dollar on up to $25,000 spend.

That makes the Obsidian card a 4x points-earning card on your choice of dining or grocery spend (up to $25,000) – or up to 4.3, even, up to the amount of your housing payment – and you can select which category you prefer each year. There is no card you can apply for which earns more than 4 points per dollar in those categories that I know of.

The Bilt Obsidian Card has a $95 annual fee and also earns 2X points on travel. The card offers a $100 Bilt travel portal hotel credit (split semi-annually each calendar year) and there’s an initial bonus of $200 of Bilt Cash on approval.

Bilt Palladium Card

I have received my Bilt Palladium Card (See rates and fees) and I’m really excited about it. This is my ‘catch all’ card for spending that doesn’t earn bonuses somewhere else. In fact, it’s displacing Capital One’s Venture X card for much of my spending.

The card earns 2 Bilt Points per dollar on everyday spend. And you can choose to earn 4% back in Bilt Cash as well, which unlocks point earnings on rent and mortgage payments with no transaction fee (as above, spending 75% of your housing payment lets you earn as many additional points as you spend on rent and mortgage). And you can redeem Bilt Cash to earn an additional 1 point per dollar spent up to $5,000 in spend, up to five times per year.

That means you can earn 3.3 points per dollar spent up to the amount of your housing payment, and 3 points per dollar spent on up to $25,000 after that.

The card offers a $400 Bilt Travel portal hotel credit (split semi-annually per calendar year) valid on stays of 2 nights or more, comes with $200 Bilt cash annually, and it has a strong offer of $300 in Bilt Cash on approval plus 50,000 points after $4,000 in non-housing spend in the first 3 months.

When you earn the initial bonus you also receive Bilt Rewards Gold elite status valid for the rest of the year and the entire next year. That unlocks early access to events and special activities, higher transfer bonuses, and preserves 1:1 transfers from Rakuten (they’ve only promised that for all members for six months). It also unlocks access to Bilt’s Home Away From Home program which you might think of as similar to American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts for their Platinum cardmembers. Palladium comes with a Priority Pass that includes two complimentary guests.

Bilt Points Remain The Most Valuable Currency

These are transferable points, that can also be used in Bilt’s travel portal at 1.25 cents apiece (often direct bookings for hotels and air). These are their transfer partners.

• Star Alliance: Air Canada Aeroplan, Turkish Miles & Smiles, United Airlines MileagePlus, Avianca LifeMiles, TAP Air Portugal Miles&Go
  
• oneworld: Cathay Pacific Asia Miles, Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, Iberia Plus, British Airways Club, Japan Airlines Mileage Bank, Qatar Airways Privilege Club
  
• SkyTeam: Air France KLM Flying Blue, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
  
• Non-alliance: Emirates Skywards, Southwest Airlines, Aer Lingus Aer Club, Etihad Guest, Spirit Airlines Free Spirit
  
• Hotels: World Of Hyatt, IHG One Rewards, Marriott Bonvoy, Hilton Honors, Accor ALL – Accor Live Limitless

Etihad Airbus A380 First Class

On the first of the month Bilt runs Rent Day offers, and frequently those include transfer bonuses. I’ve taken advantage of bonuses up to 150%. They have more points transfer programs than Chase, American Express, Citibank or Capital One and they regularly offer transfer bonuses larger than any other program.

Ultimately I think these are really great cards, though they don’t work for everyone. Folks who were using the old Bilt card to make 5 sub-$1 purchases a month and earn points for paying rent aren’t going to repeat that experience. These products are designed to be rewarding to customers who actually use them, but they’re very good at that.

Comparing them to other products on the market rather than to the Bilt 1.0 (which never got that much of my spending), I think Bilt Blue is the best no annual fee consumer card on the market, Bilt Obsidian is the best grocery or dining card (you pick which one), and Bilt Palladium the best all-around spending card. Your spending pattern determines which one if any is a fit.