While many rewards programs attract high-spending travelers with promises of access and premium status, Bilt came onto the scene in 2021 with a more basic appeal: earning rewards for paying rent.
Millions signed on, and now the company is ushering homeowners into its club. Starting Feb. 7, mortgage holders can earn points on their monthly payments. Bilt is also introducing three credit cards and has recently added a rewards currency.
It is the most complicated rewards system we’ve seen.
Our personal finance editor has the older Bilt card, and he and Ron are Bilt members. Even so, it took the three of us scores of Slack messages to sort out the details of what Bilt introduced on Wednesday. To top it off, Bilt is taking a page from lawmakers’ playbooks and capping interest rates at 10 percent on new purchases for the first year.
The buzz ahead of the big reveal, which the company previewed in recent weeks, had also prompted speculation. Some tech-savvy Bilt obsessives had managed to dig up the company’s plans — and rumors began flying.
The chatter reached Bilt’s New York headquarters, resulting in one executive going on Instagram to try to calm users’ concerns over possible transaction fees.
Loyalty rewards calculations are often mind-numbing, and Bilt’s are about to reach new heights. Ankur Jain, the billionaire founder who raised about $750 million from backers including Blackstone, General Catalyst and the Vanderbilt endowment, talked to us about what’s changing.
Here’s what we’ve learned.
Let’s take a step back. What is Bilt?
Bilt made its initial splash by allowing renters to accrue points through their rent payments.
But Bilt is different from the typical credit card rewards program in that it wants to be known as a loyalty and payments platform where you can earn points for everyday spending — even without a Bilt credit card. It also wants local merchants to see it as the most efficient way to micro-target customers on a block-by-block basis.
After joining as a member, you can earn points through spending at one of Bilt’s 45,000 participating partners, from neighborhood restaurants and gyms to Walgreens and Lyft. Users just need to link an existing credit or debit card, or do other things like connect their Venmo accounts.
Those who have one of Bilt’s credit cards have more opportunities to earn points. More on that in a minute.
How does the reward system work?
Bilt deals in two forms of currency: Bilt points and Bilt cash, which is new. Starting this year, members receive $50 in Bilt cash for every 25,000 Bilt points they earn. Bilt cash comes on top of your points — one does not replace the other.
And customers can redeem Bilt cash within the platform’s ecosystem; $10 in Bilt cash yields a $10 credit for a Lyft ride, for example, or maybe lunch at a neighborhood restaurant.
A maximum of $100 in Bilt cash — which comes with seven pages of fine print — can carry over at the end of each year.
Customers can generally earn points on everyday purchases using most non-Bilt-card forms of payment, and they’re largely redeemed for travel and experiences.
“We want to be a commerce platform for where you live, where you get all these benefits in and around your home,” said Mr. Jain, who in 2024 brought in American Express’ former chief, Ken Chenault, as chairman.
He said that the company tried to make the loyalty point conversions simple for travel: 1,000 Bilt points is typically equivalent to 1,000 United miles, for example.
How does the rent and mortgage point reward system work?
Before the changes, renters could rack up points on their monthly rent — one point for every dollar — when they used their Bilt card for five transactions. Plenty of users took advantage, and an inside joke emerged: Renters can buy a bunch of bananas, in five transactions, and meet the minimum threshold.
But now, Bilt cardholders need to reach a certain amount of spending before they can begin to earn points on housing via the card (up to one point for every $1 of on your monthly rent or mortgage).
This is where it gets complicated.
If you have a Bilt card, you receive 4 percent in Bilt cash back on everyday spend — for every $1 spent, for example, you get 4 cents in Bilt cash. And for every $30 in Bilt cash customers earn, they can redeem it for 1,000 points from their rent or mortgage payments.
Tell me more about the new cards.
There are three new cards, one named for a rare metal and another for volcanic glass. All cards earn 4 percent in Bilt cash on everyday spending, carry no foreign exchange fees and come with various sign-up bonuses and other perks.
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Bilt Palladium. With a $495 annual fee, this premium card will inevitably compete with the likes of Chase Sapphire Reserve and Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card.
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Bilt Obsidian. Cardholders pay a $95 annual fee and receive three points for every dollar spent on groceries (up to $25,000 per year) and dining, as well as two points on travel and one point on all other spending.
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Bilt Blue. This no-annual-fee card generates one point for every dollar spent.
Would I actually be “charging” my mortgage with the Bilt card — and potentially paying interest if I can’t pay my bill in full?
Not exactly. You can get as much as one point for every dollar of mortgage, rent or monthly condo or other similar maintenance fees, but the money you spend on those things will come out of your bank account quickly. So you won’t pay interest.
Think of Bilt as a bill-paying platform in this context, where the housing payment doesn’t count against your available credit on your card. The company is hoping that points-for-mortgage-payments will be enough to pull big spenders into its larger ecosystem — and keep them out of the clutches of rival companies like Chase and American Express.
Do I want to trust a start-up to remember to push my mortgage out to my mortgage servicer each month?
The company has been doing this with rent for a few years, including printing paper checks and sending them to landlords when necessary. But doing business with any start-up has risks. As with any new payment system that you switch to — including long-established ones — it’s prudent to check that your important bills are getting paid.
It seems this could be a pretty competitive entrant in the premium rewards card market. Can a relatively new company get the execution right?
Last year, some Citibank customers who signed up for its Strata Elite credit card experienced big problems. A Wall Street Journal report on its troubles is harrowing.
Mr. Jain was not dismissive of the idea that people might want to wait to see how Bilt handles its card launch. But he did note that landlords trust Bilt with their payments. And United Wholesale Mortgage doesn’t want people’s monthly payments disappearing into the ether if Bilt’s systems fails.
If big landlords and mortgage companies trust Bilt to help them collect payments, he said, consumers will probably trust the company with their monthly spending.
Can Bilt afford to offer these perks?
Maybe. Partner merchants pay for a decent fraction of the cost of the Bilt cash. And Bilt makes money from landlords and mortgage issuers, in addition to what it generates from the usual credit-card company revenue sources.
Still, loyalty programs are known to become less generous over time. Right now, Bilt is in the business of acquiring customers, fast, to try to justify and build on its $10.75 billion valuation.
As with any card company and minter of loyalty currency, higher annual fees and devalued points in the future are real possibilities.
Tara Siegel Bernard writes about personal finance for The Times, from saving for college to paying for retirement and everything in between.
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