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I love the Bilt Palladium Card (See rates and fees) except for one thing. And it especially bothers me because it affects my wife.
The Bilt Palladium Card is my favorite card for actual spending right now. It earns a base two Bilt Points per dollar spent, but you can boost this to earn twice as fast. And it’s earning the most valuable points with the best transfer partners and strongest value buying travel through their portal.
The card’s initial bonus offer is 50,000 Bilt Points + Gold Status after spending $4,000 on everyday purchases in the first 3 months + $300 of Bilt Cash.
Gold status means:
- Free Go Puff delivery
- 1:1 Rakuten points transfers
- Higher Rent Day points transfer bonuses
- ‘Home Away From Home’ hotel benefits (akin to Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts)
- Early access to Rent Day experiences>
Making housing payments through this card is allowing me to effectively earn 3.3 points per dollar up to 75% of the amount of my mortgage, and after that I can redeem points for Points Accelerator to earn 3 points per dollar on up to $25,000 in spend per year. There’s actually a strategy to earn 4x on all everyday spend with this card.
Here’s what I don’t like – Bilt’s Authorized User Card – and there are four reasons why:
- It has an annual fee, and I only want it for spending. What’s neat is the authorized user can earn points in their own Bilt account or the primary cardmember’s – it’s a toggle option in the Bilt app. I want my wife’s spending depositing the points into my account for convenience managing them and so I can transfer the points into my frequent flyer accounts. So I got the card for my wife.
However Capital One has the right idea – authorized user card is free (so they can spend money on the card) while lounge access has an extra fee. I don’t even want the primary card’s Priority Pass, and don’t want to pay for one for the authorized user. In fairness, this is how Amex Platinum and Sapphire Reserve work but at least those cards provide access to their own proprietary lounges.
- Activating the authorized user was a pain. The authorized user has to have their own Bilt account to activate the card. I tried to activate without this and the error message was that the card’s CVV number didn’t match their records. In other words, the error message was wrong.
- Texts to me to authorize online charges. My wife made an online purchase and this prompted a text to authorize the charge. Even though they made her register for a Bilt account, and have her phone number, the text went to me. The whole point of an authorized user card is she should be able to make charges without me! I don’t want her to have to coordinate with me when she’s going to be using the card.
- Spend doesn’t count for points accelerator. I redeemed $200 Bilt Cash for their points accelerator, where I earn a bonus point per dollar spent for the next $5,000. This can be done 5 times per year, effectively earning 3 points per dollar spent on up to $25,000 in spend per year. And this is separate and apart from the additional earning you do making housing payments through the card and redeeming Bilt Cash.
However, this points accelerator only applies to spend on the primary card and not to spend done on the authorized user card. So the authorized user card comes with an annual fee and less earning power than the primary card.
Aside from the authorized user card, and that I have a smaller credit line than I did with the Wells Fargo Bilt card, I really like Palladium. I’m happy putting almost all of my spending on this card. I still prefer Amex Platinum (5x) or Sapphire Reserve (8x when booked through their portal) for airfare. I still prefer Sapphire Reserve (4x) for hotel spend and Amex Gold (4x on the first $25k spend annually) for groceries and (4x) for dining. But earning 3 or more points per dollar on all my other spend is just phenomenal.
And I really like Bilt Cash and track it obsessively. I don’t want to redeem it in $5 and $10 increments, even though those are closest to true cash displacement, because at those amounts the frictions and extra steps make the small amounts not as worthwhile to me. But I can’t wait to redeem for Blacklane and BLADE credits in addition to faster points-earning via mortgage payments and Points Accelerator.
It would just be nice if they would make it easier for my wife to spend on her authorized user card – or if they’d allow free points transfers between members, at least as a perk for Golds and Platinums. Then I’d get her her own card! (This would also solve the credit limit issue for me.)
so complicated for the average person and the benefits are unsustainable. Funding will Run low, they will slash benefits once again and people will sue them for violating FTC and CFPB. Enjoy the earning while you can it won’t last for long.
You make good points. I hope you raise them to BILT’s management. Mr. Jain and his colleagues seem receptive to input and timely respond.
If you do contact BILT, please also suggest that cardholders be allowed to pay the $75 annual fee users using BILT Cash. That would increase the value of BILT Cash for cardholders. It also would increase use by family members and merchant fees for BILT.
Bilt’s checks start bouncing?
I let my account convert to a Wells Fargo account. Glad I did. The whole AU thing would have been a huge pain.