Update 5/21/25: That didn’t last long. Starting 7/21 all cards (apart from the Bilt Mastercard) will earn 1 point per $2 spent. Previously it was 1 point per $1 spent for Visa/Mastercard & Discover.
Original post: BILT has updated the earning structure when paying rent using a credit card. Terms now state:
Rent payments made via a Visa®, Mastercard®, or Discover® credit card will earn 1 Point per $1 spent on rent paid through the Bilt App or website. Rent payments made via an American Express® credit card will earn 1 Point per $2 spent on rent paid through the Bilt App or website.
There is still a 3% fee, but this does make it profitable to use a non-BILT card to pay rent now in some instances (e.g Smartly card if you’re grandfathered). Previously you’d earn a flat 250 points.
so let me get this straight. they want to reduce the amount of points you earn AND chargem 3% fee? NEXT!!!!
@DOC What about the Alaska card?
There is no change to the 3X miles on Alaska cards.
Still 3x Alaska miles. It never got Bilt points , this is due to a special partnership.
i had recently paid my rent with a different card other than my bilt card. my landlord company has always charged a processing fee of $2.49 for electronic check rent payments, which the bilt rent payment is processed.
the 2.49 is processed the same time as the rent payment but always shos seperatly. as expected whn using other card, i was charged 3%. however. BIlt instread of charging 3% on the $2.49 . they charged and extra $3. i contacted bilt asking why i was charged $3 on the 2.49 processing fee and they said that the rent payment and processing fee are processed seperatly and that their fee is 3% with a minimum of $3 per transaction. so they chraged my card beside the 3% on my rent payment and additional $3 on the 2.49 processing fee instead of .75
Same thing happened to me
Yikes. I’d just send a check to your LL instead.
then it wouldnt be eligible the same way. at least at the time, i used my smartly card so it was a net +. but now witht he additional reduction coming to 1:2 , and i have the option of just charging directly to my credit card with the property manager that charges 3% or total makes the bilt option with the smartly card not worth the hassle. will either use my bilt card to pay it, or smartly directly with property manager, but will stop using the smartly card through bilt
Same with me. My rent is small so I can use my BofA CCR for 5.25% back, but with the devaluation it’s not worth it anymore.
My rent has a 2.5% CC direct option; this one is 3, plus you get 1%?. Never had anything Bilt, should I do this? What’s the minimum you can transfer to the partners?
Does Chase like it for SUB?
I’ve seen mixed (and dated) dp’s about using bilt to pay mortgages. Anything recent? I pay about 11k across a few different properties, would love to monetize that..
If I need to do a large minimum spend say on the Capital One Business Venture X 30k in 3 months which is a bit outside of my natural credit card spending and would need to use rent to make the difference then this is a good deal. I would have had to to pay with my credit card on the property portal and pay the same 3% fee anyway. This way I pay 3% and I can still get the required spend in but also get the Bilt points that I would have otherwise lost out on by switching rent from my BILT card to the Venture X.
Is your rent actually ‘$30K/mo’ and/or would your landlord even accept that much advanced payment? Because, to most folks, I presume, that’s obscene. Sure, there’s the niche hyper-‘manufactured spend’ community, but you fellas are outliers. Even in NYC, the average rent for a one-bedroom is $4K/mo. Even 2-3 bedrooms, under $10K/mo. I know there’s inflation and all, but what’s the world coming to these days?
Brother, what are you talking about? It seems like you didn’t even read 25% of the words that he wrote.
This is a smart move by BILT to capture the 3% fees. People who try to maximize cards and deals are going to be far more comfortable churning SUBs on rent. And BILT isn’t paying out on those SUBs–that’s for Chase/BofA/Wells/etc. Manufactured spending is a chore, while rent is easy.
So they’re going to convert some of their wildly unprofitable users who get 1% BILT points with 4 single bananas per month into profitable users who give them 3% in fees every month. Their 3% in fees more than balances out the 1% BILT points and the swipe charge from the other credit card.
They definitely did the math here and recognized that this was the amount of points to push some heavy optimizers into paying the 3% fee, instead of BILT losing money to them.
Now we just need to start watching for which banks stop counting rent payments towards SUBs or bonus % categories.
As I said repeatedly, this is just a MS with a credit card that you’ll have to pay 3% fee. Take out the BILT point since I can always get it free with my free BILT card. That is the rent opportunity. Only count the marginal benefits, not the entire benefit. It is the opportunity cost of paying rent.
Even with that, it is still just one opportunity. If I pay $1,000, I can only do it with this $1,000. For people who hit $50k or $100k each month, this is really nothing.
There are many other easy MS methods that you can MS with a 3% fee.
Your (2) assumes that you can find a different way to pay your rent/mortgage on a CC. Isn’t the value prop of Bilt that it facilitates payment even if the company doesn’t natively accept a CC payment?
Wouldn’t this be more akin to Plastiq’s model but with 2% fee?
> There are many other easy MS methods that you can MS with a 3% fee.
Can you name some for us newbies please?
1) Say to pay $1,000 rent, I can simply use my BILT card to pay it. I receive 1,000 BILT free.
2) Say you pay with your Citi DC card. You get 2% or 2x TY. If you value the TY at 1.25, it is 2.5% card. You pay 3% fee to BILT. You net loss is -0.5%. You do receive 1,000 BILT points at the cost of 0.5%, or $5.
Compared with 1), 2) is $5 lower.
Some say they do not want to apply for BILT card since they want to apply for other cards to get bonus. For me, I still have the BILT card and can still open new cards and get bonus.
Even TPG got it wrong here. It says this play is positive since you pay 0.5% and get 1x BILT point. But I’d rather to use my BILT to pay rent. This is my opportunity and it is the only opportunity with BILT card.
Some people don’t have bilt cards since it’s a waste of 5/24
Whether a card is a ‘waste of 5/24’ is a subjective, case-by-case determination. Many of us have been at this for years and years, cycling through most Chase cards, and occasionally do have an ‘opening.’ If you pay rent (and, soon, if you have a mortgage, fingers crossed) this can be lucrative. You do you, though.
Yes. It is just silly to be limited by the 5/24. If such is true, then do not even apply for any good cards just to keep card slot. I get to 4/24 and 3/24 now. But I’m not applying since I’ve not seen the ones that I like.
I agree, and would argue that the BILT Mastercard is a keeper-card. It has no annual fee (for now), and I primarily use it for rent to earn points.
If you’re a newbie, I could understand how you may want to prioritize Chase cards, because of 5/24, and for the lucrative sign-up bonuses.
But, if you’ve been at this for a while, you’ve probably already cycled through all the Chase cards, and are waiting for eligibility to reset (24-48 months depending on the card products, United, Sapphire, etc.)
Exactly. I’ve been to most of the good cards. I’m very reluctant to open new cards with those big CC banks. I’ve been trying to close some of them to reduce my AFs. So quality earnings are more important than chasing the bonuses. I do sit on a 200k MR AmEx card offer. I may open it. But I’ve already had 3 of those….
Oh, I hear you. If I cannot justify the annual fee, like, to break-even or get-ahead, that card’s gone for me. Amex, specifically, has been making it more difficult with all the coupon-book-style credits.
These days, I’m rethinking Amex Gold because that increased annual fee (now $325) is not worth the hassle of having to reload $7 to the Dunkin app each month–besides, it’s weak coffee, and donuts are ‘bad for you’. Still, I ‘feel’ somewhat ahead with the other $10/mo dining, $10/mo Uber, $50/semi annual Resy credits, but man, it’s tedious.
This is just silly. So you want to pay just to get BILT points? Then good luck with it. 5/24 is only true with Chase cards.
Some people have us bank smartly 4% card
getting the Bilt card and paying rent with it is not a smart move when you can instead put your spend towards churning INKs and NLLs – very basic math and not sure why you felt the need to confront everyone in the comment section
Woah, that’s an awful idea. Needlessly complicated. How many INK cards can one honestly churn before it’s just fraudulent. Also, 3% fees not good either. For rent, BILT Mastercard is easier for most folks. Yeesh.
It’s totally fine to get just one card for rent if simplicity is your priority. But OP is comparing value, not simplicity. The idea that Bilt is only worth using if you have the Bilt card just isn’t true. When someone uses a non-Bilt card on the Bilt platform and pays transaction fees, they’re not doing it to earn/buy Bilt points – they’re using it as a tool to meet a SUB, which delivers much higher ROI than the 1x Bilt point per dollar you’d get with the Bilt card otherwise. With Bilt now awarding 0.5-1x points on rent payments regardless of the card used, it becomes a compelling option for maximizing SUBs through rent
I hear you. I just cannot fathom needing that much ‘spend’ for SUBs for it to be worthy of the 2-3% hit. Like, most are $3-5K in 90 days, which fine, rent can ‘help’ with, but unless you’re doing the recent Capital One Venture X Business Card (350,000 Signup Bonus for $200k Total Spend), most don’t need the extra ‘spend’ that badly.
Ok this is one thing I’ve never understood. I’ve done the whole credit card game – but are people getting business credit cards and just putting their personal expenses on them to earn bonuses?
Depends on what is considered personal I suppose. I get multiple business cards a year and earn SUBs by paying estimated taxes, property taxes, insurance. All those can be considered personal by some but I work from home so house expenses are work related, so I’m sure paying rent could be work related.
Yeahh Chase is notorious with Rejections.
When everyone approves outside of the 5/24 rule. Better not to have chase .
The BILT card may use a 5/24 slot without a bonus, but over the last 2 years I’ve netted over 100,000 BILT points for paying rent that I previously received no points on. No annual fee, and I’m not stealing spend from other SUBs. It’s a unique opportunity that pays for its 5/24 spot in time, just not up front.
You can pay rent with the Discover 1% debit card through a lot of portals. Mine charges $4.95 flat fee. $90 bonus on Swagbucks as well.
Interested in the portal you use. Looking to pay HOA fees
you made me check mine and mine has the same fee as well. with 2000$ rent, i’ll earn $15 after $5 is taken by the flat fee.
note that cashback is only for 3000$ per month – total of $30 cashback. you wont earn more cashback if your rent is higher than 3000$
Really glad to see this. I have recently been using an AMEX card to pay my rent through Bilt as my residence only accepts Visa/MC. Helped me hit the Delta SUB’s but I essentially ate that 3% fee.
I don’t think I have a card in my portfolio that would make this profitable, maybe the BBP.
.5x and not 1x Bilt with an amex