Bilt cardholders and all Bilt Rewards members can now earn rewards in Bilt currency instead of earning as cash or as AmEx Membership Rewards points. (As we expected.)
Existing Rakuten customers can convert their accounts to earn in Bilt points instead of cashback/MR. (Click the ‘Create and Link’ option and input your existing Rakuten email address; the system will then prompt you to convert the account to a Rakuten-Bilt account.)
Bilt-Rakuten Conversion Rates
Earning rates:
- Temporarily, for 6 months, everyone can earn 1:1 conversion rate. For each $10 Rakuten cashback earned you’ll get 1,000 Bilt points.
- Longer term:
- Bilt Members with Blue status will receive 50 Bilt Points for every $1 in Rakuten Cash Back.
- Silver, Gold, and Platinum Bilt Members’ rate will remain 100 Bilt Points for every $1 in Rakuten Cash Back.
Our Verdict
Many people value Bilt points more than Membership Rewards points and more than cashback. That makes the temporary promo quite interesting.
Those who have higher Bilt status will consider keeping Bilt as their Rakuten points currency long-term. Those with basic Blue status will likely prefer Membership Rewards or cash.
For most people, this is likely just a temporarily interesting deal. But remember, Bilt has a $95 and $495 credit cards coming out; it’s possible those cards will get higher status or that status qualifications will change when the new Bilt card details come out.
Aside from future earnings, all of your pending rewards will get paid out as Bilt points instead of Cashback. For example, today is November 6th: if you have $1,000 in Rakuten cashback set to be paid out on November 15th, you can convert your account now to Bilt and it’ll get paid out on November 15th as 100,000 Bilt points.
Signup Offer
Note: if you are new to Rakuten, might prefer signing up with the current $50 referral bonus offer (valid through 12/31/25) instead of the 2,500 points offer from Bilt. (If – before payout – you convert your account to earning Bilt points, the $50 would get paid out as 5,000 Bilt points.) I’ll also appreciate if you use the referral option in the linked post. 🙂
