Bilt Is Changing Its Credit Card Rewards—Experts Agree: Lock In This Strategy To Earn Points Faster

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Frequent Miler‘s latest ‘Ask Us Anything’ was a strong endorsement of Bilt. Their three Bilt Palladium Card (See rates and fees) cardholders plan to renew, and even the group’s Bilt skeptic plans to apply. They all want to keep earning 4% Bilt Cash. If you don’t have a Bilt card, I’d get one now. You need to apply, get approved and accept the card offer by December 31, 2026 to preserve the choice of earning 4% Bilt Cash. Existing cardmembers also need to actively choose to keep it before their first card anniversary in 2027. Doing nothing means moving into the new rewards structure. Nick Reyes calls renewing Palladium “pretty much a no-brainer.” It’s his “daily driver,” the card he uses most often. He’s happy earning two or three Bilt Points per dollar because they’re “very valuable,” with “plenty of great transfer partners” and continued good transfer bonuses. With a points accelerator active, he’ll often use it even for spending that another card would bonus. He’s approaching Platinum status (thanks to his card spend), but says the card’s earning makes sense even before transfer bonuses and status benefits. Tim Steinke says he expects all three Palladium holders—Greg Davis-Kean, Nick and himself—to renew and retain the current rewards structure. Stephen plans to get the card before the old earning option closes, despite having no intended use for Bilt housing payments. He calls the points “absolutely fantastic.” That’s also how I use the Bilt Palladium Card: it gets the majority of my spending. I pay my mortgage through Bilt, but the card would be valuable to me even without that. I’ve written that Palladium looks complicated, but it’s the best everyday rewards card. A $495 annual fee and 2 points per dollar on eligible everyday spending. An initial bonus of 50,000 Bilt Points and Gold status after $4,000 in everyday purchases within 90 days. Under the structure I’m keeping, $200 in annual Bilt Cash plus $400 in annual hotel credits: $200 in each half of the year for qualifying Bilt Travel hotel bookings of two nights or more. Priority Pass membership, plus the choice of earning 4% Bilt Cash on everyday purchases or earning up to 1.25 points per dollar on housing payments. I consider these the most valuable points. You can redeem them at 1.25 cents apiece through Bilt’s travel portal, but I usually want to transfer them. The transfer partner lineup gives me access to: Star Alliance: Air Canada Aeroplan, United Airlines MileagePlus, Avianca LifeMiles, Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles and TAP Air Portugal Miles&Go. oneworld: Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines Atmos Rewards, Japan Airlines Mileage Bank, Cathay Pacific Asia Miles, British Airways Club, Iberia Club and Qatar Airways Privilege Club. SkyTeam: Air France KLM Flying Blue and Virgin Atlantic Flying Club. Other airline programs: Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards, JetBlue TrueBlue, Emirates Skywards, Etihad Guest and Aer Lingus AerClub. Virgin Red is also a transfer option. Hotels: World of Hyatt, IHG One Rewards, Marriott Bonvoy, Hilton Honors, Accor ALL, Wyndham Rewards and Preferred Hotels I Prefer. Rail: Amtrak Guest Rewards. Most transfers are 1:1. Accor is 3:2, I Prefer is 1:2, and Amtrak is 2:1. Bilt also runs large Rent Day transfer bonuses, often with better offers for higher elite tiers. I’ve used bonuses for transfers to Japan Airlines, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and Air France KLM. Earning points quickly and then transferring with a bonus is why I want so much of my spending here. Bilt is changing the earning choice in 2027. Today, cardmembers can choose: Earn 4% Bilt Cash in addition to their card’s points. This can pay for accelerators, housing point earnings, hotel discounts and benefits with partners like BLADE, Lyft, Blacklane, Grubhub and Walgreens. For housing, $30 in Bilt Cash earns 1,000 points, up to one point per dollar of the eligible housing payment. Skip the 4% Bilt Cash and earn up to 1.25 points per dollar on housing. Your housing multiplier depends on how much everyday spending you put on the card relative to the housing payment. You still earn the card’s regular points on those everyday purchases. Most cardmembers already choose the second option. Palladium is still a great card that way. But for most people putting significant spending on the card, especially when they’re generating more Bilt Cash than their housing payments would consume, I think the 4% option is better. Once you’ve reached the highest housing multiplier, spending more doesn’t increase that multiplier. With Flexible Bilt Cash, more spending keeps producing more Bilt Cash to use. There are exceptions. I’ve explained how the housing option can produce an effective 4 points per dollar on everyday spending. At the 25% spending threshold, $1,000 of everyday spending and $4,000 of eligible housing payments earn 2,000 points from the purchases and 2,000 from housing. That’s 4,000 points against $1,000 of everyday spending. The relationship between your spending and housing payments determines which choice works best. For me, the accelerators alone are a reason to preserve Bilt Cash earning. Spend $200 in Bilt Cash to activate one and you earn an extra point per dollar on the next $5,000 in eligible spending. Palladium’s 2X becomes 3X. That $5,000 also generates another $200 Bilt Cash, which can fund the next accelerator. Each eligible cardholder can activate five per calendar year. My wife and I have both maxed out our accelerators this year: 3 points per dollar on $50,000 of combined spending. We’ve earned points on housing payments as well. She has an authorized user card on my Palladium account. It costs $95 annually and comes with her own Priority Pass membership. She doesn’t receive a second set of my annual hotel and Bilt Cash credits, but she can earn rewards in her own Bilt account (or I can switch it to mine). I’ve laid out how my wife and I use this. I directed the points and Bilt Cash from her spending into her account instead of mine. She earns her own status, funds her own accelerators, and can take advantage of transfer bonuses separately. When an offer bonuses transfers of up to 100,000 Bilt Points per member, two accounts give us room to bonus 200,000 points, with each person’s bonus determined by their own status. An authorized user’s spending doesn’t automatically get the primary cardholder’s active accelerator. They need to activate their own, using their own Bilt Cash. Bilt also gives the primary cardholder separate card numbers and controls over authorized user spending, including transaction and monthly limits. You can add an authorized user starting at age 13. But for my wife and me, the separate rewards accounts are the reason this has been so useful. And I’ve gotten far more out of Bilt Cash than just faster points earning. I’ve redeemed it for: Two $100 hotel discounts, each stacked with one of Palladium’s $200 hotel credits on a booking of at least two nights. That’s $300 off each of two hotel bookings. Two BLADE flights. That’s in addition to the BLADE trip I received as a Platinum member, earned mostly from card spend. A $150 Blacklane discount. My wife redeemed one as well. Monthly $10 Lyft and $10 Grubhub credits, plus some Walgreens credits. Transfer bonus top offs. You can buy a larger Rent Day transfer bonus. These are benefits I’ve actually used. For my everyday spending, Palladium earns the points I want faster than any other card, and the benefits have been incredible. The new structure still allows Palladium and Obsidian cardmembers to use accelerators. Palladium’s $400 annual hotel credit and $200 annual Bilt Cash become a $600 annual Bilt Cash deposit at the card anniversary. That can fund three accelerators. Members can also earn Bilt Cash from other activity, including $50 for each 25,000 qualifying points. But they won’t replenish it at 4% of everyday spending. Keeping the existing structure also preserves my separate $200 hotel credits, which I can stack with Bilt Cash hotel redemptions. The Bilt Cash hotel redemption allowance moves from monthly to twice yearly starting January 1 even for those keeping 4% earning, but I can still get the two $300 discounts this way. Plus, Bilt Cash now expires at the end of the month 12 months after it’s earned. Cash earned in February 2026 lasts through February 28, 2027. The old rule would have wiped out everything over $100 at year-end. Having more time to use what I earn makes the 4% option better for me. If you don’t have a card, I’d apply now and complete approval and acceptance before December 31. My choice is Bilt Palladium. The ability to preserve 4% Bilt Cash also applies to the Bilt Obsidian Card (See rates and fees) and no annual fee Bilt Blue Card (See rates and fees). And if you already have a card, don’t assume your current selection of Flexible Bilt Cash protects you from the change. You need to proactively choose to keep it. I’ve already done this: Go to your wallet and select your Bilt card. Under Your card rewards, select your current Bonus Rewards choice. Alternatively, go to Manage card and select Bonus Rewards at the bottom. Select Your rewards are updating at the top of the screen. The new rewards model is selected by default. Swipe right. Select Flexible Bilt Cash and hit save. You have until your first card anniversary in 2027 to make that election. Preserve it now and you can still move to the new structure later. Once that switch takes effect, you can’t move back. That’s why getting a Bilt Palladium Card makes so much sense – keeping the earning option. They’ll pry the 4% Bilt Cash earning option from my cold, dead hands, as they say. Topics on this page Editorial note: any opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any card issuer. Comments made in response to this post are not provided or commissioned nor have they been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any bank. It is not the responsibility of advertisers Citibank, Chase, American Express, Barclays, Capital One or any other advertiser to ensure that questions are answered, either. Terms and limitations apply to all offers.