Bilt is a loyalty program that’s fairly new (it began in 2021) but offers some interesting features that could appeal to you if you’re in their target demographic: renters. And even if you’re not a renter, their loyalty program is worth joining just for the ability to a few extra thousand easy points every now and then through their app. In this post, I’ll break down who might benefit from having the Bilt credit card and why for the rest of us, it might make more sense to just stick to other cards.

What Bilt offers

Bilt’s program has two main parts to it: a credit card and an app/loyalty program. You don’t have to have the credit card to make a free loyalty account and use the app.

The credit card

The Bilt Mastercard is a personal card issued by Wells Fargo. It has no annual fee, which seems appealing, but it also has no official welcome bonus. I’ve read that sometimes Bilt will offer a decent spending multiplier right after you open a card (e.g., 5x on purchases for the next 30 days), but because there’s nothing advertised before you apply, whether they offer something or what that offer is is unpredictable.

So what does the Bilt card actually offer? If you make at least 5 transactions on your card in a month, you’ll earn 2x on travel spending, 3x on dining, and 1x on rent. The rent spending is the most notable difference between this card and other cards—the norm is that you can’t pay your rent with a credit card, but with Bilt, you can. I think the way it actually breaks down is that Bilt sends a check or ACH payment to your landlord after you initiate the transaction in your card’s account within the Bilt app, so it’s not actually you putting rent on your card, though effectively it’s kind of the same. Bilt has a network of landlords that actually take the Bilt card as payment, and for renters who don’t have a landlord in that network, there’s a roundabout way for your rent to get paid via the app, as I understand it. You can also choose to have Bilt report your rent payments to credit bureaus to help improve your credit history.

So if you’re eager to earn points and miles but rent payments make up a large part of your spending, you may lament not being able to earn points for those rent payments. But if you get the Bilt card and handle rent payments through Bilt, now your rent earns you 1 point per dollar spent, up to $100k per year. So in a given year, if your rent is, say, $3,000 per month, you might earn 36,000 points by paying rent through Bilt than you would if you didn’t have a way to pay rent with a credit card that earns reward points.

Bilt also has a special Rent Day promotion where on the first of each month, all the spending category multipliers are doubled (except rent): dining earns 6x, travel earns 4x, and everything else earns 2x (up to a total of 10,000 points total among all the categories). (And remember that every month, you have to make at least 5 transactions to earn these points.)

So if you do the math and you’d benefit from being able to earn points from rent payments and the Rent Day and regular multipliers, this card might be a good fit for you! The card also offers some consumer protections like trip cancellation insurance and cell phone protection insurance.

The loyalty program apart from the credit card

Bilt allows you to join its loyalty program for free and use its app even if you don’t have a Bilt card. I’ve done this just because it’s an easy way to earn a few hundred (or thousand) points over time that might turn out to be useful sometime if I’m short on a particular program’s points and need to use these to top up for a particular redemption.

You can earn points through the Bilt app by participating in the monthly Rent Day trivia quiz. That’s basically all I’ve used it for so far, and I’ve earned a smattering of points that I can transfer to my favorite loyalty programs at some point.

Transfer partners

Bilt’s list of transfer partners is interesting because they include some partners who don’t partner with many banks: Hyatt, IHG, and Marriott on the hotel side; Flying Blue, Cathay Pacific, Aeroplan, United, Virgin Atlantic, Avianca, Turkish, Iberia, British Airways, Aerclub, Emirates, and Hawaiian on the airline side. And American Airlines was one notable transfer partner up until recently, but American is on its way out as a transfer partner and Alaska is on its way in. So the bad news is that Bilt isn’t going to be a way to get more American miles anymore, but the good news is that it is going to be a way to get more Alaska miles.

Another notable thing about Bilt points: high transfer bonuses

One great thing about Bilt is that they sometimes offer incredibly high transfer bonuses on the first of the month. One recent Rent Day transfer bonus to the Air Canada Aeroplan program was 150%! In the past, they’ve also had high transfer bonuses to Flying Blue, Virgin Red, and other valuable transfer partners that make the more typical 20-30% transfer bonuses you see from other banks look small by comparison.

My take on Bilt

Who should get the Bilt card: I think the only real reason to get the Bilt credit card is if you pay fairly high rent. If you don’t rent, or if your rent would only earn you maybe 24,000 points total per year, it probably makes way more sense to focus on applying for other cards that actually have welcome bonuses, so you get more bang for your 5/24 slot, so to speak. The Bilt card is a personal card, so it counts towards your 5/24 status just like any other credit card. Whether it makes sense to you to choose the Bilt card for a slot compared to some other card that could potentially earn you a much larger welcome bonus than the rent points you’d get is up to you.

Who should get the Bilt app: It makes sense for basically everyone to get the Bilt app and create a free account so you can earn a few hundred points here and there through their promotions or trivia quizzes. It’s free and those points could always come in handy if there’s ever a redemption you’re a little short on and they can’t hurt to have in reserve. And whenever Bilt has one of their generous transfer bonuses, they could be worth even more.

If Bilt were to offer a welcome bonus, enable points to be earned for mortgage payments, or both, I’d be more enthusiastic about this card in general, but if it works for your specific situation, it can be a great option.