Bilt Mastercard Review: Pay Rent & Earn Rewards, Points Transferrable to Hyatt, UA, AA…(2024.3 Update: New Transfer Partner Alaska Airlines!)

2024.3 Update: New 1:1 transfer partner: Alaska Airlines (AS) Mileage Plan! AS does not have many transfer partners, so this makes Bilt even stronger! BTW, Bilt will lose AA as a transfer partner starting from Jun which is a huge loss.

2023.12 Update: New 1:1 transfer partner: Avianca (AV) LifeMiles.

Application Link

Benefits

1. No transaction fee if you pay rent with this credit card via the Bilt app. Even if your landlord is not a Bilt partner, you can still pay rent via the Bilt app: Bilt provides its credit card users a routing number & account number to pay rents; or you can choose to let Bilt send a check for small or private landlords.
2. Bilt points are worth about 1.6 cents/point, and we will talk about this more in the following section. Its 1:1 transfer partners include Hyatt, AA, and UA!
3. Earn 1x Bilt points on rent, up to 100k points per calendar year; earn 3x Bilt points on dining; earn 2x Bilt points on travel; and earn 1x Bilt point on other purchases. You must use the card 5 times each statement period to earn points.
4. [New] Earn double points (excluding rent), up to 10k bonus points each Rent Day (1st day of every month).
5. Trip delay insurance (6 hrs).
6. Primary car rental insurance.
7. Cellular Telephone Protection (subject to a $25 deductible).
8. No foreign currency conversion fee.

Disadvantages

1. No sign-up bonus now.
2. You can only earn points when you make 5 or more transactions that post each statement period. But it’s not a big deal, because you can always reach the goal by reloading Amazon Gift Cards.
3. Bilt does not allow you to pay mortgages, unfortunately. But it’s rumored that Bilt will support mortgages soon.
4. Although you will get a routing number & account number, you can’t use them to do things like paying mortgages or tuition fees, etc. If you do so, the transactions will be reversed and you will get warnings from Bilt.

Bilt Rewards Points

Bilt rewards points are surprising flexible and valuable. Its 1:1 transferrable partners are:

• Aer Lingus (EI) Avios
• Alaska Airlines (AS) Mileage Plan
• American Airlines (AA) AAdvantage
• Air Canada’s (AC) Aeroplan
• Avianca (AV) LifeMiles
• British Airways (BA) Avios
• Cathay Pacific (CX) Asia Miles
• Emirates (EK) Skywards
• Air France (AF) FlyingBlue
• Iberia (IB) Avios
• Marriott
• Turkish (TK) Miles & Smiles
• Virgin Atlantic (VS) Flying Club
• HawaiianMiles (HA)
• United Airlines (UA) MileagePlus
• World of Hyatt
• IHG

Note that Hyatt, AA, and UA points are quite valuable and not that easy to get.

Bilt points can also be redeemed towards Bilt travel portal, powered by Expedia, at a fixed ratio of 1.25 cents/point. Although this is not the best way to redeem Bilt points, it is a flexible way to redeem the points.

Bilt points can also be redeemed as statement credit at a fixed ratio of 0.55 cents/point. It is not recommended to redeem the points in this way because the ratio is too low.

Summary

Rent is usually a big expense that you can’t earn credit cards rewards from. With Bilt credit card now you can earn points! What’s more, Bilt points can be 1:1 transferred to Hyatt, AA, or UA, which is really nice. As a relatively new company, Bilt points are surprisingly strong. I hope they can provide more features over time such as allowing people to pay mortgages.

Historical Offers Chart

Application Link

See Rewards and Benefits and Rates and Fees for more details.

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