Category Archives for Credit Cards.
Bilt Palladium is almost live, and the value is easier to understand once you strip away the noise: it can function as a 3x+ catch-all card with unusually strong transfer partners. With the welcome bonus, Bilt Cash redemptions that boost earning, and the potential to stack a big transfer bonus, the first-year math can reach roughly 400,000 points.
Bilt Blue looks like a plain no annual fee card, but the Bilt Cash mechanic changes the math. If you convert the 4% Bilt Cash into points via rent/mortgage-linked redemptions, you can get to about 2.3 transferable points per dollar on everyday spend—up to a monthly cap tied to your housing payment.
The new Bilt Card doesn’t work like a normal Chase or Amex product where one bank issues, services, funds, and owns the economics end-to-end. Bilt Card 2.0 is a split stack: Column is the bank and lender of record, Cardless runs servicing and the tech layer, Fidem (and its capital partners) fund receivables, and Bilt provides the rewards program—on Mastercard rails. Once you see the roles, the money flows (interchange, interest, and who gets paid for what) make a lot more sense.
Bilt finally published the missing Bilt Cash details—and they change how the new cards pencil out. With the “extra 1x” points option, Palladium effectively becomes a 3x catch-all card (up to $25,000 in spend), while Obsidian can hit 4x in your chosen category.
Hyatt is advertising this card bonus as 5 free nights, but the spend required to earn it also triggers the card’s annual Category 1–4 night and generates enough points for another award night. Put it together and the “5-night” offer can realistically turn into 7 nights at Category 1–4 Hyatt hotels.
Bilt wants you to treat Bilt Cash like money, but that framing misses what’s actually new here. It functions more like a monthly “benefits budget” that lets you pick the credits and perks you value—more points, rides, dining, hotel benefits—rather than forcing everyone into the same coupon book. The one big catch: expiration, which turns end-of-year spending into a lot less attractive deal.
Bilt just released the missing details behind its new cards: what the promised 4% “Bilt Cash” actually buys on top of points. The redemption menu is much bigger than expected—ranging from monthly Grubhub and Lyft credits to Blacklane rides, hotel portal credits, and even Blade flights—and there’s a points-accelerator option that can effectively raise your ongoing earn rate if you play it right.
Citi’s new Strata Elite card doesn’t just come with a 100,000 point bonus – its Splurge, Blacklane, and $300 hotel credits are timed to the calendar year, so you can use them twice in your first cardmember year. Here’s exactly how to stack those perks, plus Priority Pass and Admirals Club passes, to squeeze the maximum value out of year one.
Citi’s new premium Strata Elite card delivers far more first-year value than its $595 fee suggests — credits stack twice, bonuses are huge, and the math almost feels like a mistake.
Premium cards have turned into coupon books, and the fatigue is real—especially when you’re doing math and chasing tiny monthly credits to justify a huge annual fee. The trick is to treat Amex Platinum and Sapphire Reserve differently: cover the fee with credits you’d use anyway, value the lounge network you’ll actually visit, and put spend where the earn rates make sense so the “extras” feel like upside instead of homework.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
