Rent and Mortgage Cashback Card Bilt Just Made Long-Anticipated Changes to Its Card Program — Does It Still Make Sense?

Since its 2021 launch, Bilt Rewards has been known as the “rent card.” With just five purchases per month, you could unlock 1x points on rent — redeemable through a wide range of partners.

Those days might be over, though. As free as the money came from the Bilt program’s simplicity and versatile redemption options, the firm was practically run out of its partnership with issuer Wells Fargo — they were paying more than $10M a month to fund rent rewards.

After legal back-and-forth with its issuer, Bilt decided to move on, line up a new issuer for “Bilt 2.0”, and begin the process of migrating “5M+” users to a completely new system. We finally know what those changes entail — and for many cardholders, they could be a dealbreaker.

The day of reckoning: The Bilt 2.0 announcement was kind of a disaster because of “Bilt Cash”, a new rewards currency separate from points. Bilt Cash can be used within the Bilt ecosystem for hotels, rideshare, restaurants, transfer bonuses, and — critically — housing rewards. All card spending would earn 4% back in Bilt Cash, with the idea that users would redeem that cash to earn points on rent or mortgage payments. In practice, this meant you’d need to spend at least 75% of your monthly housing payment on general expenses — but after the backlash, Bilt folded and introduced an alternative:

• On Friday, the company announced a tiered system for those who want to forego Bilt Cash and earn points as a percentage of their monthly spend, relative to their housing payment.
• Spend 25% of your monthly housing payment and earn 0.5x points per dollar on rent or mortgage; spend 50% and earn 0.75x points; spend 75% and earn 1x points; or spend at least 100% of your monthly housing payment and earn 1.25x points on rent.

What About the Points?

There’s still going to be a free Bilt credit card, but it’ll likely be doomed for the sock drawer, earning a measly 1x points on everything. Going forward, Bilt may only make sense if you’re willing to pay for one of its two new premium cards — and it’s hard to think that’s not intentional:

• $95/year Obsidian card: 3x points on dining or grocery, 2x on travel, and 1x on everyday spending, plus a $50 semiannual Bilt Travel Hotel Credit.
• $495/year Palladium card: 2x points on everyday spend, a $100 semiannual Travel Hotel Credit, and $200 Bilt Cash award.

So What’s the Strategy?

It’s still unclear whether Bilt’s big pivot from a “rent card” to a “premium credit card brand” will pan out. Some users may decide it’s worth consolidating their inferior cards into one higher-end option. Personally, I’m not convinced it’s there yet.

• I’m on the fence, especially since the Bilt sign-up bonuses (SUBs) are honestly a little disappointing for both the $95 and $495 cards — I’m not in a rush to upgrade.
• This rollout itself hasn’t helped, either — not just because of the Bilt Cash confusion, but because Bilt yanked an even better SUB after just 24 hours.

Grain of salt: There are still plenty of great unknowns at this juncture for Bilt. The company has obviously punched well above its weight in the credit card space, but at the expense of being unprofitable. The real question is whether it can stay differentiated and keep its points valuable over time. For now, I’ll keep paying my rent through Bilt — but using an Alaska credit card.