A rumor on r/creditcards (based on this Bilt Rewards page of code) reveals the full rumored details of the three upcoming Bilt cards.
The rumor has it that the new Bilt cards will no longer allow free rent/mortgage payments when using the Bilt card. Instead, they’re introducing something called Bilt Cash which can be used to cover the 3% fees.
Bilt Cash will be earned as a signup bonus, and will also be earned at a rate of 4% of your regular spend on the card. For example, if you spend $750 each month on your Bilt card on ordinary purchases, you’ll have $30 (4%) in Bilt Cash which can be used to offset $1,000 in rent/mortgage payments since that would usually cost 3% or $30.
Bilt Cash will also be able to be used for Bilt Travel hotel bookings, Lyft credit, select fitness classe, GoPuff, select dining partners, and for the Bilt Collection.
Blue Card
- $0 annual fee
- Welcome Bonus: $100 Bilt Cash
- Rewards: 1x points on all spend, including rent and mortgage payments
- You’ll also get 4% Bilt Cash on all regular spend (non rent/mortgage).
- No foreign transaction fees
Obsidian Card
- $95 annual fee
- Welcome Bonus: $200 Bilt Cash
- Rewards:
- 3x points earned on Dining or Grocery (up to $25,000 per year)
- 2x points earned on Travel
- 1x points earned on Rent payment
- You’ll also get 4% Bilt Cash on all regular spend (non rent/mortgage).
- $200 Bilt Cash welcome bonus
- $100 Bilt Travel Hotel credit (two $50 credits for the two halves of the year)
- Cellular Telephone Protection
- No foreign transaction fees
Palladium Card
- $495 annual fee
- Welcome bonus:
- $300 Bilt Cash, plus 50,000 points bonus after $4,000 spend, also Gold status.
- Rewards:
- 2x points earned on all spend
- 1x points earned on Rent payment
- You’ll also get 4% Bilt Cash on all regular spend (non rent/mortgage).
- $400 Bilt Travel Hotel credit (two $200 credits for the two halves of the year)
- $200 Bilt Cash credit each year as an annual benefit
- Priority Pass
- No foreign transaction fees
Our Verdict
We wrote about Bilt 2.0 in this prior post, and we shared some initial rumors about the Bilt cards in this post. The new information paints a more complete picture, but we’ll have to see if it all turns out to be correct.
Basically, you’ll have to spend 75% of your rent/mortgage payment to make it free (unless you have Bilt Cash from a signup bonus or the like). E.g. if your rent is $4,000, then you’ll have to spend $3,000 to make it free.
Overall, a lot to digest here in terms of if these cards are worthwhile. There’s not a ton here in terms of signup bonus. Looking at the cards long term value will depend on how much you can gain from the rent/mortgage payment and how much regular spend you can put on the card organically.
Update – Analysis
I see the comments are super negative about the cards, so I thought to add a bit more of my own analysis:
It’s worth thinking about these cards from a few different angles –
- Ignore the rent payment aspect entirely – does the card make sense for you? Those who have high spend overall might find the 2x everywhere on the $495 Palladium card interesting, and those who can max out the $25k in Grocery spend each year might find the 3x Grocery on the $95 Obsidian card interesting. Depends a lot how highly you value the Bilt points. If you don’t pay rent/mortgage, you can use the 4% Bilt Cash earned for Lyft, select dining partners, or Hotel bookings.
- Does the added rent benefit move the needle to make it worthwhile? Some people might anyway be putting a few thousand dollars of grocery spend on the $95 card or a few thousand dollars of regular spend on the $495 card. And so the rent/mortgage might end up coming automatically.
- A lot will also depend on how you value the hotel credits. Someone who considers the $400 in hotel credits as “mostly offsetting the annual fee” will find the $495 card much more interesting than someone who find the hotel credits another nuisance.
- Signup bonus angle – really nothing to write home about here. Could still make sense to do the 50k bonus on the $495 Palladium card if you value the card itself somewhat.
In the end, I think there will be some people who will find value here, more-so for those who aren’t constantly shifting cards and who have high spend in the regular or Grocery categories.
It does now feel complicated to get what would seemingly be the core benefit of the card – the rent/mortgage payment benefit. Whereas in the older system you simply had to have 5 transactions, you’ll now have to monitor your spend volume month-by-month. And it takes a bit of a math brain to grasp the numbers which complicates the card.
Ironically, I wonder if Bilt wasn’t a rent payment company at all, and just ran the card without any of the Bilt Cash or any of the rent payment benefits, if the card might seem more simple and interesting for select high spend users who want to take advantage of the 2x everywhere ($495 card) or 3x Grocery options ($95 card).
Update #2 – Other Versions
Second update – the Reddit folks report that the source code shows two other versions of these cards as well. The other versions have either a fixed spend requirement to get your rent payment fee-free or 10 transactions to get the rent payment fee-free. These versions don’t offer a flat 1x on rent, instead it varies from .5x – 1x or from .75x – 1.25x, depending on the card. We’ll find out next week when the information comes out officially from Bilt on January 14th.
