How I’d Fix The Bilt Cards

Here is my proposal to the Bilt team.

This can’t be implemented right away for legal reasons, but longer term here are the three Bilt cards:

  • Blue card – no annual fee, earn 1x everywhere, 3x at some partner merchants. For every $2 spent on the card you get $1 of fee-free mortgage payment. (If this is too expensive, switch to to every $3 spent.) Automatic Bilt Silver status without any spend (for transfer promos or whatnot). 10,000 Bilt points signup bonus after $1,000 spend. 
  • Obsidian card – $95 annual fee, earns 1x everywhere, 2x on Travel unlimited, and 3x on both Dining and Grocery with a combined $25k limit per year, 3x at some partner merchants unlimited. For every $1 spent on the card you get $1 of fee-free mortgage payment. (If this is too expensive, switch to to every $2 spent.) Automatic Bilt Gold status without any spend (for transfer promos or whatnot). Two $50 hotel credits. 20,000 Bilt points signup bonus after $2,000 spend. 
  • Palladium card – $495 annual fee, earns 2x everywhere unlimited, 3x on both Dining and Grocery with a combined $25k limit per year, 4x at some partner merchants unlimited. For every $1 spent on the card you get $1 of fee-free mortgage payment. Automatic Bilt Platinum status without any spend (for transfer promos or whatnot). Two $200 hotel credits. 50,000 Bilt points signup bonus after $4,000 spend. 

Other Card Details:

  • No two rewards options.
  • No Bilt Cash earned on spend on any card. 
  • Bilt Cash runs in the background as a perks program, employed for various occasions. E.g. if you spend over $10k annual on the card you get $25 of Bilt Cash which can be used for some freebies or Collection items.
  • No Bilt status (Platinum, Gold, Silver) earned from spend on any card – it comes automatic with the card tiers, as described. 
  • Rent/mortgage payments go on the card, not directly debited from the bank (that kinda defeats the whole definition of ‘the card’ paying your rent). Possible limit of $120k in rent/mortgage payments per year, if necessary. 
  • No tax payment exclusion (I don’t see the issue on the Blue and Obsidian card; if this gets too expensive on the Palladium card figure something out, maybe put a limit or something), no gift card exclusion (just causes confusion; can send out warnings afterward if there’s some issue on a particular account), and definitely no eBay exclusion (WTH?!!).
  • Rent Day – first of each month get 1x bonus point per dollar spent, up to 1,000 bonus points each month. 

Was that so hard?

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