Bilt’s Three Cards: Points on Your Mortgage, Your Rent, and Everything Else

You can now pay mortgage and rent with any of the 3 Bilt cards and earn points.

Here’s what you need to know and my effort to make a complex system easier to understand:

Two currencies

• Bilt Points — the transferable currency. Moves to airline and hotel partners, or goes toward rent, student loans, or a down payment on a home. Value depends entirely on how you redeem.
• Bilt Cash — new, and it works nothing like points. A dollar is a dollar, but only inside Bilt’s own network of partners and credits. Every member earns $50 for each 25,000 points toward status; cardholders on the right structure earn 4% back on everyday spend as well.
• Bilt Cash expires. The balance is wiped December 31 with only $100 rolling over, so anything unspent is value you gave back. Plan to use it across the year, not in December.

The choice that sets your earn rate

TLDR: I opened the Bilt Palladium and use Bilt Cash towards earning points on my mortgage. I find it worthwhile for now. All the details below.

Pick one. This matters more than which card you hold.

Housing-only — automatic, scaled to your other spending that cycle:

• Everyday spend of 25% of your housing payment → 0.5X (on $2,000 rent, that’s $500 of other purchases)
• 50% → 0.75X ($1,000)
• 75% → 1X ($1,500)
• 100% or more → 1.25X ($2,000)
• Below 25% → a flat 250 points for the month, whatever the payment size
• Authorized user spending counts toward the same ratio, which is how couples realistically clear the top tier

Flexible Bilt Cash — 4% back in Bilt Cash on everyday spend, converted to housing points at $30 per 1,000, up to 1X. A $2,000 payment costs $60 to cover.

Which to take:

• Housing payment bigger than your realistic card spending → Flexible Bilt Cash. The 4% accrues on whatever you actually spend, with no ratio to clear.
• Small mortgage and heavy spending → Housing-only. 1.25X beats the 1X ceiling that Bilt Cash conversion buys, so the tiers win outright.
• The math, concretely. A $3,500 mortgage needs $3,500 on the card every month — $42,000 a year — to reach 1.25X. Most households don’t get there and land at 0.5X or the floor. By comparison, $2,000 a month of spending generates $80 in Bilt Cash, enough to fully cover a $2,600 payment.
• The trade-off. Bilt Cash spent on housing points isn’t spent on the monthly credits, which carry dollar-for-dollar value. Each month you’re deciding which use returns more.
• Defaults and switching. Make no choice and you’re in Housing-only. You get one free switch during your first statement period; after that, changes take effect the following billing cycle.
• Points accelerator. Obsidian and Palladium holders on Bilt Cash can spend $200 for +1X on their next $5,000 of everyday purchases, up to five times a year.

The three cards-Learn how to Apply Here

	Blue	Obsidian	Palladium
Annual fee	$0	$95	$495
Everyday earning	1X	3X dining or grocery, 2X travel, 1X rest	2X on everything
Hotel credit	—	$100/yr	$400/yr
Other perks	—	—	$200 Bilt Cash/yr, Priority Pass
Authorized user fee	$0	$50	$95
Welcome offer	$100 Bilt Cash	$200 Bilt Cash	50,000 pts + Gold + $300 Bilt Cash after $4,000 in 90 days

• Obsidian’s category. Dining is assigned by default at approval and you have 30 days to switch to grocery, then one change a year each January. Grocery earns 3X up to $25,000, then falls to 1X for the rest of the year. Dining has no cap.
• Hotel credits are paid semi-annually on both Obsidian and Palladium, and every booking needs a minimum two-night stay through Bilt’s travel portal. Pre-paid bookings take the credit at checkout; post-pay bookings get it as a statement credit after you check out.
• One card, and no moving between them. Each member can hold only one Bilt card, and upgrades and downgrades aren’t supported. Switching later means closing the account and reapplying.
• Shared terms. No foreign transaction fees on any of the three, and a 10% intro APR for the first 12 billing cycles, then a variable 26.74%–34.74%. The annual fee hits at the close of your first statement, then each anniversary.

Who should get which

• Homeowner — take Flexible Bilt Cash, then choose the card on everyday spending alone. Your mortgage earns the same on all three, so an annual fee has to be justified by categories and credits, never by housing.
• Renter with modest rent and heavy card spending — Housing-only at 1.25X is the best housing rate on offer, and clearing the ratio on $1,500 rent is realistic.
• Blue — nothing to earn back at $0, which makes it the obvious default if you’re mainly here for housing points and don’t want to think about it.
• Obsidian — the $100 hotel credit already covers most of the $95 if you’ll book a two-night stay, so the 3X category is upside rather than the thing carrying the fee.
• Palladium — year one is covered by the welcome bonus alone. After that it rests on 2X everywhere plus $400 of hotel credit, $200 of Bilt Cash, and Priority Pass, which only works if you actually use lounges.

Terms and offers shift. Verify current details at bilt.com/card before applying.

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My Humble Opinion

I think Bilt is trying to capture all your extra spending and wants to be the main card you use.

I think this will make the most sense for people who are not always trying to work on a sign up bonus for a new card and like to stick with one card.

This could also be a really great card for in between sign up bonuses. The Palladium has 2x on everything ( this is when I usually default to Capital One for 2x). The Obsidian has the 3x on groceries which is awesome if you don’t have the American Express® Gold Card for 4x.

I opened the Palladium and so far am really happy with it. I have enough Bilt Cash to cover several months of earning points on the mortgage. And it’s been a great default card-I used Bilt Cash to upgrade to the points accelterator to get 3x points earning on spending up to $5,000.

See the 3 options here

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Why I Care About Bilt Status

Rakuten to Bilt to Hyatt! Rakuten is a shopping portal where you can really earn tons of points from multipliers on brands you already plan to buy like Nike, Adidas, Sephora, Viator etc.

If you sign up with my Rakuten link right now, you will get $50 back after spending $50 in your first 90 days. This will be 5,000 points you can send to Bilt, once you link those accounts. Then you can transfer those to Hyatt!

This has become the latest way we are earning Hyatt points!

Note: Even without Bilt status, you can still transfer Bilt Points to partners like Hyatt.

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