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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).