Back in January, I posted about the new Bilt cards and how Bilt Cash would work as a new pseudo-currency that you earn along with transferable points. When I wrote about it, it had yet to launch and seemed confusing. Now that we have had about four plus months of the new cards and earning structure, I wanted to provide a follow up on how things were progressing with Bilt.

Let’s start with the good stuff. It’s easy to earn a lot of points, particularly on non-bonused spend that otherwise doesn’t earn a lot of points. The Bilt Palladium card earns 2x points on all spend plus 4% Bilt Cash on that spend. So, for example, if you spend $5,000 over a period of time, you will earn $200 in Bilt Cash. Hang on to that thought.

The Bilt Obsidian card ($95 annual fee) earns 3x on either dining or groceries (up to $25,000 per year) and 2x on travel (air, hotel, rental cars). It also earns The current sign-up bonus is just $200 Bilt Cash though (no bonus points), so despite the extra earnings, I’m not as fond of this card (and you can’t hold more than one Bilt card currently). The Bilt Blue card has no annual fee and earns 1x on all spend, but only has a $100 Bilt cash signup bonus. I personally wouldn’t go with either of these cards unless and until Bilt allows you to hold multiple of their cards and they have a better sign-up bonus. The Palladium is the sweet spot.

If you got the Bilt Palladium card ($495 annual fee) and spent $5,000, you would earn 50,000 points plus $300 Bilt Cash for the sign up bonus, along with $200 Bilt Cash annually. Using that $500 Bilt Cash, you could earn Bilt points on $16,666 of rent/mortgage payments (at 3% Bilt Cash per dollar), whether that’s for your house or for your college kids’ rent, parents’ assisted living, etc. or some/all of those things. This card also comes with 2x$200 semi-annual hotel credit that can be used for any hotel on the Bilt portal. I was able to use my first credit toward a beach hotel for my wife in Venice, Florida that we otherwise would have had to pay cash for the whole stay. There is a two-night minimum for the stay credit, but you can also add on a $100 Bilt Cash redemption (available for use monthly) as well.

One of the other good uses of Bilt Cash is to activate the Points Accelerator, which earns an extra 1x on all spend up to $5,000 in exchange for $200 Bilt Cash. This can be done up to five times per calendar year. I’m on my fifth and final accelerator already and it’s only been a little over four months. When you do this, you earn back that $200 Bilt Cash when you spend the $5,000 so it’s kind of a no-brainer to do in addition to using Bilt Cash to earn points on mortgage/rent. This makes the card a 3x earning everyday card (plus whatever you spend on rent/mortgage to earn more points) and I’ve been using it for any spend where I don’t already earn at least 3x (in my case, groceries, drugstores, and dining are usually put on other cards that earn 3x or more).

Another use of Bilt Cash that I have found to be a good value is the $10 monthly Lyft credit. $10 Bilt Cash can be turned into a $10 Lyft credit but it must be used by the end of the calendar month, so I wait to activate this credit until I know for sure I need a rideshare and can take a Lyft during that month. In my opinion, the other uses of Bilt Cash have less obvious value and are more difficult to use.

Beyond the Bilt Cash, I have made great use of one of the monthly Rent Day transfer bonuses. As a Bilt Platinum member, I was eligible for a 100% transfer bonus to Japan Air Lines in April. I used $135 Bilt Cash to buy up that transfer bonus to 125% and turned 150,000 Bilt points into 338,500 JAL miles. I’ve already used most of those miles to book a first class seat to Japan in August and two round-trip business class tickets to Morocco next year. I only wish I had transferred more Bilt points with the bonus, but JAL miles do expire after three years so there is a risk there. Since February, there have also been other Rent Day transfer bonuses to Accor, Wyndham, IAG (BA, Aer Lingus, Iberia) and TAP Air Portugal.

Bilt Neighborhood spending also earns extra points even if you don’t use your Bilt card for the transaction as long as you load the other credit cards into your Bilt Wallet on the app. For example, I earn 3x at drugstores with my Chase Freedom Unlimited, but those transactions also earn 100 Bilt points. At Bilt Neighborhood Dining restaurants (there’s quite a lot of them), I often use my Citi Strata Elite and earn 3x or 6x Citi Thank You points, but I also earn 2-3x Bilt points on top of that.

So what about the not so good stuff? Well, initially, there were a lot of issues with paying mortgages through Bilt. I saw a lot of reports online about payments not going through or getting rejected by mortgage processors. I don’t currently have a mortgage so I didn’t have to deal with this personally. It seems that things have mostly got ironed out now and the processing seems to be going smoothly.

Another issue is Bilt’s very sensitive fraud alerts. I have had a few straightforward online purchases get kicked back with a fraud alert for no apparently good reason. I’m usually able to push the charge through by responding to the text or email, but it can be annoying, especially if we’re overseas.

Overall, Bilt 2.0 has been a very positive experience for me personally. While it can be complicated for those not used to “gamifying” credit card rewards, it can really pay off if you understand the earning potential and how best to use the card and other benefits. The Rent Day bonuses add another boost to the value of Bilt points as long as you know how to use the transferred points. Let’s see how Bilt evolves and maybe I’ll be back to post about Bilt 3.0 next year.

If you have questions about this post, let me know in the comments or send me an email at emptynestermiles@gmail.com. If you are thinking about opening a new credit card, please use one of my links. I also recommend using CardPointers to track your credit card spending discount offers.