After Bilt 2.0 was released, the mechanism for earning points on rent and mortgage payments turned out to be overly complicated, drawing a flood of negative feedback. As a result, the CEO rushed out a “patch” and introduced a second way to earn points on rent and mortgage payments (see Option 1 below).
One of the biggest selling points of the Bilt credit cards (Bilt Blue, Bilt Obsidian, and Bilt Palladium) is the ability to pay rent and mortgage with a credit card while earning points. To keep this product from becoming a money-loser, Bilt 2.0 introduced a set of rules governing how fees are charged on rent/mortgage payments and how points are earned, with the explicit goal of encouraging cardholders to spend more outside of rent and mortgage. This article is dedicated to explaining what this mechanism actually means (and the fact that it needs its own article already tells you how complex it is).
Bilt offers two options. You can choose only one at a time, but you can switch between them at any time, with changes taking effect the following month.
Option 1: No fee; rent/mortgage earning rate depends on non-rent spending
Under Option 1, paying rent or mortgage incurs no fee. The earning rate for Bilt Points on rent/mortgage depends on how much you spend in other categories, as shown in the table below:
| 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) |
If your non-rent spending is less than 25% of your rent/mortgage amount, then your rent/mortgage will earn a flat 250 Bilt Points.
With Option 1, there is no involvement of the Bilt Cash concept at all: you neither earn Bilt Cash nor can you use rent/mortgage fees to convert into Bilt Cash.
Under this mechanism, more everyday spending is not always better. The optimal return occurs right at the threshold; beyond that point, the effective return actually declines. For example, with Bilt Palladium, everyday spending normally earns 2x Bilt Points. If your everyday spending amount happens to be exactly equal to your rent/mortgage amount, then your rent/mortgage earns 1.25x Bilt Points, and together these transactions effectively earn 3.25x Bilt Points overall.However, if your everyday spending approaches infinity, the additional points from rent/mortgage are capped at 1.25 × the rent/mortgage amount, which becomes negligible relative to an infinite spend. In that limit, the overall earning rate converges back to 2x.
With Option 1, users with low everyday spending can choose Bilt Blue and spend 25% of their rent/mortgage amount in other categories to earn 0.5x on rent/mortgage. Heavy spenders, on the other hand, can choose Bilt Obsidian or Bilt Palladium and spend at least 100% of their rent/mortgage amount in other categories to earn 1.25x on rent/mortgage.
Option 2: Earn Bilt Cash on everyday spending; spend Bilt Cash on rent/mortgage to earn points
Option 2 is the version originally introduced when Bilt 2.0 first launched. Under this option, everyday spending earns Bilt Cash, and rent/mortgage payments consume Bilt Cash in order to earn points.
All three cards earn 4% Bilt Cash on everyday spending (i.e., spending outside rent and mortgage). Rent and mortgage payments themselves do not earn Bilt Cash.
When paying rent or mortgage, there is nominally no fee, but you also do not earn Bilt Points by default. Instead, you can choose to spend $3 in Bilt Cash to earn 100 Bilt Points, up to a cap equal to the rent/mortgage amount. For example, a $2,000 rent bill allows you to spend up to $60 in Bilt Cash to earn 2,000 Bilt Points. Effectively, this is equivalent to using Bilt Cash to pay a 3% rent/mortgage fee in exchange for the right to earn 1x Bilt Points.
A simple calculation: converting a $2,000 rent payment requires $60 in Bilt Cash. Since everyday spending earns 4% Bilt Cash, accumulating $60 in Bilt Cash requires $1,500 in everyday spending.
Comparing the two options
If we only consider the Bilt Cash earned from everyday spending, Option 2 is effectively the same as the “1x earning” row in the Option 1 table—it just takes a detour through the more complicated concept of Bilt Cash. Viewed this way, Option 1 appears superior simply because it offers more possibilities and more upside.
However, if you obtain extra Bilt Cash from sign-up bonuses or other promotions, then Option 2 makes sense: it allows you to burn Bilt Cash that would otherwise expire each year and convert it into the much more valuable Bilt Points.
Summary
No matter which option you choose, the core design philosophy of Bilt 2.0 is the same: you must spend significantly outside of rent and mortgage if you want to earn points on rent and mortgage at all.
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