The Best Bilt Cash Redemption Is The Most Boring — But It Turns 30 Cents Into A Dollar

I was about to place an order from GrubHub. I tend to use DoorDash and UberEats more, but there’s one restaurant I like and order delivery from that’s only on GrubHub. Plus, I have two credit cards that offer $10 per month in credits that can be used there.

I don’t like these small credits, that I really think of as coupons or inducements to spend money on the platform. But I really am going to spend money with them, because my wife and daugher like this restaurant, too.

And as I was about to place the order I thought, ‘Great, I can redeem Bilt Cash for GrubHub, too!’

• There’s no better use of Bilt Cash, really, than spending it dollar for dollar to displace money you’re going to spend somewhere anyway – where you’re not making an extra purchase or stretching to use the credit. My Bilt credit card earns 4% back in Bilt Cash in addition to points, and if I could spend that all in ways I would spend real money, it would be saving me 4% of my card spend, and thus a real 4% rebate on top of cash.

• Still, saving $10 isn’t as emotionally satisfying as earning thousands of points or getting something ‘free’. I don’t really notice the $10 difference in my bank account or on my credit card statement.

• Intellectually, this is better value than redeeming for faster points-earning though!

Normally I value Bilt Cash at around 30-40 cents on the dollar (that’s still a minimum of an extra 1.3% rebate on top of 2% cash back). Here I was getting 100 cents on the dollar.

• Redeem the Bilt cash in the app, which took a couple of seconds.
  
• It generates a GrubHub gift card, which you copy into the GrubHub app
  
• You instantly have a $10 credit in your GrubHub account.

What’s great is that this is basically a GrubHub gift card, so you don’t have to use the Bilt card to pay for your GrubHub order. That means the Bilt Cash redemption stacks with GrubHub rebates such as from Amex Business Gold or Citi AAdvantage Executive. And since these are gift cards, not expiring coupons, you should be able to build up a balance with GrubHub. You can only redeem Bilt Cash for them once a month but you can use them any time.

Note that Bilt’s terms say these gift cards expire in 30 days but data points and the standard way GrubHub gift cards works supports what I’m seeing.

It’s worth noting that Walgreens redemptions appear bankable in much the same way. GoPutt and Lyft redemptions do not. GoPuff orders are placed through the Bilt app, while Lyft redemptions convert to an auto-applied credit for the next ride and expire at end of month.