Bilt Rewards Credit Card Review

Yesterday I tweeted a reminder that the Bilt Rewards Credit Card is being “pushed” by people with a financial interest in the company, without disclosing so. A few people ended up asking me directly and indirectly about the card as a result of that tweet, so here are my thoughts on the card.

Friendly reminder that some of the people pushing the Bilt card have a financial interest in doing so. Not saying it's a bad card…just saying that a tweet doesn't always say "sponsored" when it basically is.

— Travel Summary (@TravelSummary) September 26, 2022

I’ll do an overview and summary of the card first and then go into my thoughts.

Bilt Rewards Credit Card Quick Overview

Before offering a credit card, Bilt was a platform to pay rent to Landlords. They then launched a credit card partnered with Evolve Bank, but now partner with Wells Fargo for the Built Rewards program.

The card has changed relatively rapidly. It started as an invite-only card that earned 2x on rent payments and 1x on everything else. Later it became 1x on rent payments up to $50K a year (with 5 other purchases/month required), 2x on travel, and 3x on dining. They’ve also added some transfer partners (some very good ones), sign-up bonuses, and a referral program that has come and gone. I would bet that there will be many more changes coming.

Bilt Rewards Credit Card – The Good

There are a few very good things about the card. Here are the notable benefits:

• Earns 1x on Rent, up to $50k/year (IF you have 5 other transactions/month on the card)
• Earns 2x on Travel and 3x on Dining
• Primary Rental Car Coverage
• $800 cell phone insurance
• No foreign Transaction Fees
• Various 1:1 transfer partners, including rare ones like American Airlines and Turkish Airlines.
• No Annual Fee

There are other benefits, like trip delay coverage and Lyft/DoorDash credits, but nothing that would (or should) sway your decision to get or use the card.

Paying for Rent is the big benefit here. The benefits offered are quite good for a no-fee card.

Bilt Rewards Credit Card – The Bad

1. First and foremost, there is (as of me writing this) no sign-up bonus. If you have options and you’re trying to decide on what credit card to get, a 150K Amex Platinum Bonus (despite its ludicrous $695 fee), or even the Chase Sapphire Preferred/Reserve with 70k-80k bonuses are going to be better options (and you can strategize on earning bonuses multiple times). The Citi Premier 80k bonus, Capital One Venture 75k bonus, and number of Business Card bonuses should all be your first choice, in my opinion.

If you want to go fee-free like the Bilt Rewards Credit Card, you still have tons of options (some discussed below). In fact, it would likely be years before you ran out of cards with a sign-up bonus that you could sign up for.

Basically, I suspect the people behind the Bilt Rewards Credit Card know that points earning for rent payments is rare, and so they lure you in with that benefit but without a bonus. The problem is that a sign-up bonus is actually worth it since we’re all in it for the points/miles.

2. The other thing that I actually hate is the requirement to use the card for 5 other transactions per month to be eligible for earning points on rent. When you consider the people involved in the project are from the points world, it makes sense why this requirement was added. They know many of us sign up for cards and promptly put them in our sock drawer. They don’t want that – they want it in your wallet so you use it a lot, so they require you to actually use the card for other things if you want its one valuable benefit.

To me, this is akin to the Amex “coupon book” style where they charge a ridiculous annual fee but give you various discounts on other items. They’re counting on breakage, or that customers will forget to use it, and thus lose it. If you fail to make your 5 transactions in a month, the Bilt Rewards Credit Card really does become useless.

Is there anything else that’s bad? Not really, unless you don’t like the people involved with the company (you can easily look them up).

Bilt Rewards Credit Card – My Analysis

So if the only (major) bad thing is no sign-up bonus, and if there are a number of good things, is the card worth it? You probably know by now that the answer is always “it depends” but let’s use some practical examples.

We know there’s no (current) card/program that will beat the Bilt Rewards Credit Card on rent, so let’s leave that aside for now.

What about 3x on dining? The fee-free Chase Freedom Unlimited earns 3x on dining AND drugstores, and also gets 1.5x on literally everything else. So the Freedom Unlimited is objectively better for everyday spend, especially when it comes with a 20k-30k bonus. The Chase Freedom Flex offers the same, plus quarterly 5x categories on top of that, also with a 20k-30k bonus.

Or if you’re looking for something different, the Amex Gold earns 4x on restaurant spend AND grocery stores. It also gets 3x on flights. And while it comes with a $250 annual fee, there’s also a promo to get 20% off on restaurant spend…up to the annual fee of $250 the first year (making it essentially free that first year). Oh…and it comes with a 70K point sign-up bonus right now.

I could go on and on. In my opinion, there are many, many cards you can get that either:

1. Have better earning rates (again, aside from rent)
2. Have a sign-up bonus (sometimes BIG ones)
3. Have either no annual fee or small ones, and still come with transferable points

I can go through the same exercise with cell phone insurance, rental car coverage, and any trip delay/cancellation coverage. There’s nothing the Bilt Rewards Credit Card does that other cards don’t do equally well or better.

Except for paying rent.

So let’s look at that. If your rent is, for example, $2k a month…you’ll earn 24k points for the year. Those are points that you probably would not have earned, so that’s cool. And if you rent a place that has a relatively high rent, you can potentially earn 50k points/year. That’s pretty good.

Is it worth sacrificing those other bonuses? That’s where it gets difficult.

If you play this game right and sign up for credit cards for the bonuses regularly, while making sure you’re paying off balances and taking care of your credit, then you can and should earn more than that 50k/year by signing up for other cards. And as I demonstrated earlier, you’re not losing out on any other benefits since plenty of other cards offer the same or better benefits.

We all have limited slots with banks to apply for credit cards. If you happen to not be banned by Wells Fargo (some of us old-timers are), and are at your 5/24 limit with Chase, and you’re within your first or second lifetime with Amex on many cards, AND pay rent, then yeah, this card might be for you.

Or, if you really have a need to earn more American Airlines miles, Turkish Airlines miles, or Hyatt points, AND you pay a lot in rent, then yeah, this card is a good option.

Opportunity Cost

This is the real question: If you don’t have the Bilt Rewards Credit Card, is it worth applying for this card versus another card? In my opinion, the answer is most likely no, because another card will give you a bonus. Many of us think in terms of 12 month cycles because it’s easy for our brains – but let’s break that down into a 3 month cycle and see where it gets us.

If your rent is $3k/month and you apply for the Bilt Rewards Credit Card today, you will earn 9k points in 3 months. By then, you could have earned, at a minimum, a $500 cash bonus or other more valuable points bonus. It is objectively better to take a sign-up bonus than earn 9k points, even if that $500 cash bonus requires a $99 non-waived annual fee. Then after another 3 months you could do it again, and again, and again. Add your rent amount in and see if it makes sense to you, keeping in mind the cap of ~4,200 points/month.

Many of us know that Chase has a 5/24 rule. If you have more than 5 new cards in 24 months, you can’t get approved for many Chase cards. Do you want to dedicate a no-bonus card to one of those 5 slots?

The only time applying for the Bilt Rewards Credit Card makes sense, in my opinion, is if you meet several criteria:

• Really want/need to earn American/Turkish miles or Hyatt points
• Do not sign up for credit cards very often, so taking up a “slot” doesn’t matter
• Banned from one or more of the “big” banks
• Refuse to sign up with cards with annual fees

Summary

Here’s my bottom line: the Bilt Rewards Credit Card is for beginners and/or people that do not want to apply for credit cards regularly. You have to “remember” to use this card 5 times a month on non-rent purchases (and you’ll earn less points with this card on those 5 purchases than you would with other fee-free cards). If you follow this space and read this blog, you’re likely not a beginner and are actually willing to play the game and earn the bonuses.

If you already have the card, keep it. Like I said above, there’s not a whole lot of bad. If you can figure out how to deal with the 5 transaction limit to pay your rent, you absolutely should. If you already have the card, it’s free points for you when you pay rent.

If you don’t have the card and are willing to play the points game, you can likely do better.

The Future of the Bilt Rewards Credit Card

Let’s be frank: how long do you think a credit card company will just eat your payment fee and give you points for it? And at the same time give you decent benefits? All with no annual fee? I don’t think it can last forever unless they have tons of people that use the card regularly on everyday spend. And so I suspect they will eventually charge an annual fee or modify benefits in a negative way.

Until that day, it looks like they’re adding even more positive changes to build up their customer base. The promos can be gimmicky (earn 6x on restaurants on just one day per month), but still represents an improvement.

If the Bilt Rewards Credit card makes two changes, I’d be all-in for it:

• Pay mortgages
• Remove the 50k/year limit

In fact, I’d even be all-in if they added a large annual fee to do so. There are quite a few homeowners that would benefit from earning points on paying their mortgage. If they can figure this out, many people will be swimming in points…which is also when devaluations happen, by the way.

If they could just add a decent sign-up bonus of 25k points or something, the card would be worth it. (I’ll be very annoyed if they go with 10k).