Bilt announced today that its lineup of three new credit cards issued by Cardless will be launched on February 7, 2026.
While it’s great to get a heads up three months in advance about that upcoming change, they’ve sadly decided to leave it until the literal last minute hour to simultaneously share that if you don’t already have a Bilt credit card and would like one before February 7, you need to apply by midday today (November 5), because after that there won’t be any applications taken for their cards for another three months.
New Bilt credit cards
We still have limited information about the three new Bilt cards being launched in February. We know that one will have a zero annual fee, one will have a $95 annual fee and the other will have a $495 annual fee, but details are scant beyond that. A bigger announcement is scheduled for “early January”, so it’ll likely still be a couple of months until we get more details, unless something leaks early.
Current Bilt cardholders
If you currently have a Bilt Mastercard issued by Wells Fargo, there’s not any change to that right now. You can continue using it for everyday use, earning points as normal through February 6, 2026.
After the aforementioned announcement of the new card lineup in early January, Bilt will give existing cardholders the option of whether they wish to move their card to Cardless, offering the choice of the three different cards to convert to. There will be a soft credit pull for doing this and the new card will be delivered to your home by February 7 to ensure there’s no interruption in your ability to use the card.
Your subscriptions, autopay, and saved payment methods will remain on your account, plus you’ll be able to move over any existing balance (which is subject to approval from Cardless).
If you don’t wish to have your card move over to Cardless, you can keep your card open with Wells Fargo, but it’ll be converted to an Autograph Visa with a different card number.
We reached out to Bilt and they confirmed that if an existing cardholder doesn’t make a proactive choice to convert to a Bilt card issued by Cardless, it’ll remain with Wells Fargo and will be automatically converted to an Autograph Visa.
We also asked whether credit limits for existing cardholders would remain the same with Cardless. Bilt stated that more details would be provided in January about how that will work. That may well mean that things will remain the same, but the fact that Cardless will be doing a soft pull and that maintained credit limits aren’t being confirmed outright at the moment makes me think that some people might see lower credit limits; that’s just pure speculation on my part though.
Mortgage payments
Bilt recently announced a partnership with United Wholesale Mortgage so that UWM’s customers could earn Bilt points for mortgage payments. That’s presumably regardless of whether you have a Bilt credit card or not.
They’ve also confirmed that those who get one of the new Bilt credit cards from Cardless will have the ability to pay their mortgage – regardless of who it’s issued by – and earn Bilt points on the payment. We already knew that was the plan, but it’s been confirmed again, so it’s good to see that it hasn’t fallen by the wayside in recent months.
There’s still no further information regarding earning rates, associated fees, etc. though, so the value proposition for paying your mortgage with one of the new Bilt credit cards is still to be confirmed.
Quick Thoughts
It’s nice to finally have a launch date for the new Bilt/Cardless cards, although it’s a shame that we have to wait another two months to get even further details about them.
What’s even more of a shame is that people who’d been interested in getting the existing Bilt Mastercard only have until midday today to apply. It would’ve been nice to have received the courtesy of an announcement more than a couple of hours ahead of the cutoff time as this was presumably decided on by Bilt since longer ago than their press release this morning.
It also looks like existing Bilt cardholders could have their Chase 5/24 status affected. That’s because if you move your card to Bilt, it’ll show up as a new card on your credit report. If you remain with Wells Fargo and get converted to an Autograph Visa it’ll get a new card number, but as Tonei pointed out in the comments below, that hopefully won’t show up as a new card on your report, despite it being a different type of card and a new number.
To determine your 5/24 status, see: Easy Ways to Count Your 5/24 Status. The easiest option is to track all of your cards for free with Travel Freely.
For people who are well over 5/24, this might not be any cause for concern. For someone who anticipated dropping below 5/24 next spring though – or for someone who’s currently at 4/24 – this conversion could have a big impact on their ability to get new Chase cards.
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Bilt has continued to be less valuable over the last few years with their silly program changes. I’m not a renter. If there is not a good incentive to switch over to Cardless, this will likely be the final reason to part ways with Bilt.
Bilt has kept the annoying unpredictability of a startup fintech long after it eliminated the upside and sweet spots usually associated with fintech startups.
Hi! Would you mind asking Bilt if we keep our account at Wells Fargo and get converted to the Autograph Visa if we’ll be eligible for the signup bonus? (Assume not)
Check out the Wells application “rules,” as we know them, here. Wells limits SUB eligibility based on the last time that you received a welcome bonus. Since you wouldn’t be receiving a welcome bonus with the conversion, you’d most likely still be eligible for one.
Bilt doesn’t offer an official signup bonus (other than a seemingly targeted 5x offer for a few days at activation), so there isn’t really anything to confirm right now. When Bilt launches their new cards with Cardless, it remains to be seen whether they’ll offer a more conventional welcome offer, continue with the same targeted 5x offer, or offer nothing at all. That presumably won’t be announced until January, so it’s another couple of months before we have any idea.
Soft pull could prevent you from getting the cardless version as well I’d imagine if you have too many new cards. So, for some the only option might be to product change to the autograph.
A broader question related to mortgages. We don’t have a Bilt card, but will consider getting one after the conversion, once we see what the mortgage payment benefits are, and what the new cards look like. We’d probably combine with Mesa to double-dip on the earnings from the mortgage.
Our monthly mortgage payment is quite low but we’ve recently taken some advice to accelerate our payments in order to pay off the mortgage in advance of retirement in a few years. Does anyone know if we were to double or triple our payments whether the full amount would earn points on Mesa (and hopefully Bilt) or only the base payment amount?
That’s a great question.
With Mesa, mortgage amount verification is based on submitting a statement, so my guess is that it would depend on whether or not you could have a statement issued by your lender that shows that additional amount on it.
With Bilt, my assumption (and it’s just that) is that you’ll be required to use Bilt in some way to pay for the mortgage, and it’s that amount that you’d earn points on. If that’s correct, my second assumption would be that a larger payment will earn more points, regardless of the statement amount.
We have asked Bilt for more clarification around the mechanics of points-earning on mortgage payments, but they’ve declined to provide more detail for now.
I’m at 4/24 with my next card dropping off in July 2026, so this would be kind of a bummer. I’ve been burned before by Cardless. I signed up for the Manchester United cardless card for some nominal bonus, because Gary Leff posted like 9 times that it would not count toward 5/24, but he was wrong. If a cardless conversion pushes me to 5/24 again, that would be a bummer, but I probably would still convert because getting Hyatt points for rent is too good a deal not to do it.
I love BILT, but I’m really tired of them continually screwing up my 5/24. Had the original product and was forced to change to WF in July of 2024. Now 18 months later in Feb 26 I’ll be getting another ding. Hope that the new card formats are worth it.
Agreed on the 5/24. I was a couple months away from getting under 5/24 last year when they made me switch to WF which kept me over. And now I’m scheduled to be under 5/24 in June 2026, but this will screw it up again.
Getting close to the point where they’ve caused me to miss out on more points through other SUBs than I’ve gotten from Bilt on my rent payments! 🙂
The 5/24 catch is very frustrating, especially since we’re not even getting a SUB for forfeiting this spot (and arguably missing out on two SUBs via the Autograph change). I may cancel the Autograph simply to preserve a 5/24 spot, which is just Bilt screwing WF one more time, I guess.
I wouldn’t expect the fact that the WF card number will change to affect 5/24 count any more than having a card number change due to a product change or a compromised card does…
True. I’d been thinking more in terms of both a card number change and a change of product affecting it, but thinking about it more I think you’re right.
What usually happens to one’s 5/24 count when a bank takes over another bank’s back book? What do you think will happen to my 5/24 count when Citi takes over my Barclay’s Aviator card?