Bilt Backtracks: Two Ways To Earn Rewards, Up To 1.25x Points On Housing

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A few days ago, Bilt announced massive changes, including details of three new credit cards, plus a complete overhaul to how rewards can be earned for housing payments. One complaint that people had was that the new housing rewards system was incredibly complex. So Bilt has acted quickly to address that, and I think many people will come out ahead here.

The note to members from Bilt Founder & CEO Ankur Jain

Bilt has just sent the following email to members, explaining changes that are already being made to the new system for rewarding housing payments:

Over the past few days, I’ve spent a lot of time reading our members’ emails, DMs, and notes. Many were thoughtful and passionate. Some were frustrated. All were fair.

I feel incredibly lucky to lead a company with members who care this deeply.

On one hand, there have been record applications for the cards, and I’m excited for members to get them. However, I’ve also seen real and reasonable confusion about the new value proposition—especially around rent and mortgage points. That’s on me, and we’re fixing it.

Let me be clear and upfront: Bilt cardholders will never be charged a fee to earn rewards on housing payments.

There’s also an important reality behind how we deliver the richest rewards possible. The more members use the card for everyday spend, the more unique value we can sustainably provide across the Bilt ecosystem. It is probably not a surprise to any of you, but if members only purchase four bananas and earn free rent points, it doesn’t allow us to sustain such a rich value proposition for everyone.

With all that in mind, we are introducing a new, simpler option to earn fee-free rewards on rent and mortgage: now up to 1.25X on each payment.

You will now be able to choose one of the two options for how you want to be rewarded on housing payments with the new Bilt Card 2.0. The core benefits of each card are not changing. This is only an update to how you earn rewards on housing payments.

Option 1:

A simple, fee-free way to earn rewards on housing.

• Pay your full rent or mortgage every month with no transaction fee
• Earn points on housing automatically in lieu of earning Bilt Cash
• The more you use your card for everyday spend, the higher your points multiplier on housing, now up to 1.25x:

Points on Housing	Minimum everyday spend as a % of monthly rent / mortgage (Example of $2,000 rent)
0.5x points	Spend at least 25% of monthly rent ($500)
0.75x points	Spend at least 50% of monthly rent ($1,000)
1x points	Spend at least 75% of monthly rent ($1,500)
1.25x points	Spend the same or more as your monthly rent ($2,000)

You’ll see your progress to each tier clearly in the app each month.

Just like today, if you don’t hit the minimum spend requirement, you still earn 250 points per month. Bilt Card 2.0 also removes the 100,000 rent point cap that existed with Card 1.0, so you can now earn unlimited points on housing payments.

Option 2:

If you prefer the original, fee-free structure we launched Card 2.0 with, it’s still available for you:

• Earn 4% back in Bilt Cash on everyday purchases, in addition to base points. Think of Bilt Cash as “choose your own reward”.
• Pay your full rent or mortgage every month with no transaction fee
• You can use as little or as much of your Bilt Cash to increase the total points you earn on housing that month and you do not ever pay anything out of pocket.
• You can also redeem Bilt Cash dollar-for-dollar for monthly credits across the Bilt ecosystem (with monthly, merchant-specific caps), or for exclusive benefits like higher transfer bonuses and special access to experiences.

The more you use your card for everyday spend, the more Bilt Cash you earn. We’ll continue adding new ways to spend Bilt Cash as the ecosystem grows.

You choose the option that works the best for you when you activate your card. You can change at any time, and your choice will take effect the following month. And, both options come with the same rich everyday point earnings and premium card benefits you saw at Card 2.0 launch.

We move fast at Bilt. That means we won’t always get everything right the first time, but I read all of your feedback and we will adjust quickly when we miss. I know that for some of you, no explanation of change will fully replace what you loved about the card 1.0 model–I understand that. At the same time, I’m genuinely excited about what this model sustainably enables going forward: giving you the richest rewards on rent, mortgages and everything else.

I’ve also included an FAQ below to answer some of the other questions I’ve been hearing.

We’re grateful to keep building this with you. Thank you for being a Bilt Member.

Ankur

There are still many unknowns, but these are positive updates!

I commend Bilt for making changes to its new program so quickly. I’m a little confused how they didn’t find the new system confusing internally prior to launching the whole thing, but that’s a different story. For that matter, I worry that giving people two choices (one of which is rather complex) doesn’t necessarily simplify things that much.

That being said, this is unarguably great news, as I see it. As I’ve explained, I’ve picked up the Bilt Palladium Card, which offers 2x points on everyday spending. As I see it, that potentially makes this one of the most rewarding cards out there for non-bonused, everyday spending. With the Bilt Cash concept, you could earn up to 1x points on housing payments.

So the good news is that if you were planning on putting a significant amount of spending on the card (which can make sense independently), you can now earn up to 1.25x points on your housing payment, rather than 1x points. That’s 25% more rewards on housing, and that’s great.

Now, the big wild card here is still which of the two earnings options is better, since we don’t know the full details of how Bilt Cash can be redeemed. The idea is that you earn 4% back on all credit card spending in the form of Bilt Cash, and that Bilt Cash can be used to offset fees on housing rewards, or otherwise “dollar-for-dollar” for other rewards. That latter option sounds too good to be true, which is why there are so many questions.

Bottom line

Bilt recently announced major changes, which are based on the concept of redeeming Bilt Cash for rewards on housing payments. The new system was no doubt complex and left many confused, which is why we’re already seeing Bilt backtrack somewhat.

Bilt is now offering a second option for earning rewards for housing payments, where the multiplier of housing rewards that you earn is based on how much you spend on the card. The good news is that if you spend as much as your housing payment, you could earn 1.25x points, which is quite lucrative. I think many of us will likely wait on the details of Bilt Cash redemption options to decide which makes the most sense.

What do you make of these Bilt changes?