You might not have believed it could happen, but Bilt somehow managed to make “Bilt 2.0” even more confusing.
The rewards company’s launch of its revamped portfolio of credit cards has been everywhere this week. Some Bilt members were thrilled with the new program; others were irate, but most people seemed flummoxed in trying to wrap their minds around it. Even the New York Times called it, “The most confusing rewards program we’ve ever seen.”
Little did we know, Bilt was just getting started.
In a Friday-afternoon email to members, Bilt founder Ankur Jain announced yet another layer of complexity to the board game-like rules. Now, Bilt cardholders can choose between two different ways to earn rewards on housing payments: by using Bilt Cash or by opting into a second track that depends on the proportion of your housing payment that you spend each month on the credit card.
And no, I’m not joking.
Jain says:
However, I’ve also seen real and reasonable confusion about the new value proposition—especially around rent and mortgage points. That’s on me, and we’re fixing it.
And here’s the fix:
With all that in mind, we are introducing a new, simpler option to earn fee-free rewards on rent and mortgage: now up to 1.25X on each payment.
You will now be able to choose one of the two options for how you want to be rewarded on housing payments with the new Bilt Card 2.0. The core benefits of each card are not changing. This is only an update to how you earn rewards on housing payments.
Option 1: A simple, fee-free way to earn rewards on housing.
Pay your full rent or mortgage every month with no transaction fee
Earn points on housing automatically in lieu of earning Bilt Cash
The more you use your card for everyday spend, the higher your points multiplier on housing, now up to 1.25x:
Points on Housing
Minimum everyday spend as a % of monthly rent / mortgage
Example of $2,000 rent
0.5x points
Spend at least 25% of monthly rent
$500 in everyday spend
0.75x points
Spend at least 50% of monthly rent
$1,000 in everyday spend
1x points
Spend at least 75% of monthly rent
$1,500 in everyday spend
1.25x points
Spend the same or more as your monthly rent
$2,000 in everyday spend
You’ll see your progress to each tier clearly in the app each month.
Just like today, if you don’t hit the minimum spend requirement, you still earn 250 points per month. Bilt Card 2.0 also removes the 100,000 rent point cap that existed with Card 1.0, so you can now earn unlimited points on housing payments.
Option 2:
If you prefer the original, fee-free structure we launched Card 2.0 with, it’s still available for you:
Earn 4% back in Bilt Cash on everyday purchases, in addition to base points. Think of Bilt Cash as “choose your own reward”.
Pay your full rent or mortgage every month with no transaction fee
You can use as little or as much of your Bilt Cash to increase the total points you earn on housing that month and you do not ever pay anything out of pocket.
You can also redeem Bilt Cash dollar-for-dollar for monthly credits across the Bilt ecosystem (with monthly, merchant-specific caps), or for exclusive benefits like higher transfer bonuses and special access to experiences.
The more you use your card for everyday spend, the more Bilt Cash you earn. We’ll continue adding new ways to spend Bilt Cash as the ecosystem grows.
You choose the option that works the best for you when you activate your card. You can change at any time, and your choice will take effect the following month.
Wow. I don’t know whether this makes things simpler.
Regardless, here’s what I glean:
Option 1 (aka “Simple”)
You choose to NOT earn Bilt Cash on credit card spend, at all. Instead, you can choose to earn points on your mortgage based on how your monthly credit card spending corresponds to your mortgage payment, with the rate of earning not fixed but depending on the multiple of your mortgage payment you spent (I actually laughed writing that).
Let’s say I had a $1,000 rent payment:
- If I spend 25% of my rent on my Bilt credit card ($250), I get a 0.5x multiplier on the $1,000 payment for a total of 500 points
- If I spend 50% of my rent on my Bilt credit card ($500), I get a 0.75x multiplier on the $1,000 payment for a total of 750 points
- If I spend 75% of my rent on my Bilt credit card ($750), I get a 1x multiplier on the $1,000 payment for a total of 1,000 points
- If I spend 100%+ of my rent on my Bilt credit card ($1000 or more), I get a 1.25x multiplier on the $1,000 payment for a total of 1,250 points
Ok, got that straight?
Option 2 (aka “Earn Bilt Cash”)
This is a modified version of the “old system,” which was put into place – checks notes – two days ago!
In this option, you choose to earn 4% Bilt Cash on all credit card spend:
- You can unlock up to 1x on rent by using Bilt Cash at a value of $30 in Bilt Cash for each 1,000 points (you can use more or less Bilt Cash depending on the total cost of your rent or mortgage)
- You can no longer choose to pay a 3% fee on the amount not covered by Bilt Cash. If you don’t have enough Bilt Cash to unlock the full rewards amount of your housing payment, will not earn 1x points on whatever the uncovered amount is.
For instance, if your rent costs $1,000 and you have $30 in Bilt Cash, you can use that $30 to unlock 1,000 points on that housing payment. If you only have $15 in Bilt cash, you can only unlock 500 points on your housing payment.
Quick Thoughts
Well, I’m pooped. I can’t imagine how you feel.
We’ve spent a good chunk of this week trying to metabolize the maze of Bilt 2.0, find answers to the numerous questions we have (we’re still in the dark about what Bilt Cash redemptions look like, hotel credits, and more), update guide and card pages, and write content. Now, we’re out of date again. After two days.
I honestly don’t understand who thought it would somehow be a good idea to add another significant layer of program complexity and change the initial terms within 48 hours of launch, but here we are.
There’s nothing about this change that makes things “simpler.” In option one, why have different levels of earning based on the percentage of your housing payment that you spend on the credit card? Why give people not only two earned reward currencies, but two options for earning rewards on housing payments to begin with?
I went from needing a piece of paper and a pen to be able to explain Bilt 2.0 to needing a PowerPoint…and there’s still so much we don’t know about the new program. To me, it increasingly feels like Bilt 2.0 was released not as a product, but more as a concept that we’re seeing fleshed out and beta-tested in real time.
For some folks, that might be exciting. But I’m already exhausted.
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I think the update is easy to understand and simple. I dont understand why the author of this article find it “exhausted”.
I don’t give a F about earning Bilt cash or Bilt points on my mortgage.
I just want to pay my mortgage with my Atmos Summit card and pay the 3% fee to get the 3x Atmos points.
Period.
That’s gone.
Do you do that to reach a specific status level, or do you need the miles for high value redemptions? Or something else.
I don’t know if this comment section is a commentary of the state of the math education in the US or on the state of social media.
It’s one thing to say you won’t participate in the program because it is not lucrative but I really hope most of you are exaggerating when you say you aren’t because you can’t figure it out.
Think of it this way: It’s a standard rewards program with the rent/mortgage portion as a gimmick for you to earn more points. They set aside a pool of bonus points up to your rent/mortgage payment. You can buy these points by spending on the CC. This is how they are trying to keep their program sustainable: They use the fees from your spend on the CC to pay for those points they are giving you for rent. If you spend a lot on the card, they make more credit card fees, you get rewarded with more points, with the upper limit being how much you pay in rent.
Choice #1 basically gives you ramping rewards up to 1.25x your rent. If you spend up to 25% of your rent on your BILT card, you get .5pts/$ on rent. If you spend over 100% of your rent on your BILT card, you get 1.25 pts/$ on rent. You actually come out ahead if you spend as much on your CC as you do on your rent/mortgage.
Choice #2 is the old program except they removed the confusion of having an option to essentially buy 1 BILT point for 3 cents. I’m glad they removed that because it’s a terrible deal. No one should even be thinking about that option. The rate of $30 to earn 1x on every $1000 you spend on rent/mortgage with earnings at 4 Bilt cash/$ spent on credit card is the same as before. (1.33 bonus pts/$).
I agree but I really don’t understand why they didn’t just go with the old Citi Thankyou Premier or Driver’s edge rewards setup. It is was so simple and people understood it. The way it worked on the premier was for every mile you flew you earned a flight point and these points were unlocked when you spent a corresponding amount on the card. So if you flew 10,000 miles and spent $1000 in month 1 you unlocked 1000 flight points.
So in this situation Built could have had you pay your rent and unlocked 1 rent point for every dollar spent. Say your rent is 2,000 a month, then you earn 2,000 rent points. Say you spend $500 on the card 1 month, $3000 on the card the next month, and $1000 on the card the 3rd month then you would have banked 6000 rent points and after 3 months you would have unlocked 4500 of them having a remaining Rent point balance of $1500.
This still makes the card sustainable and if anything encourages you to put more spend on the card since you can see how many points have been banked but not rewarded to you yet.
Anyone playing this game will be able to figure it out. Saying it’s “confusing” is more of a sentimental statement that this half-baked launch is so unprofessional that it does not induce credibility and confidence.
I think I will second what someone said earlier — at this point I will even question if Bilt has the ability to move my money to my mortgage servicer, and do it on time every month. Because if they fumble that as they fumbled this launch, the consequence is not merely “confusing” any more.
I didn’t really find the first proposal that difficult. This second proposal is also not that hard to follow.
I’ve seen people do enormous amounts of mental gymnastics to justify keeping a shiny $895 coupon card (“this benefit I’ll value at 65%, while this one is only worth 40%”). I have no doubt regular people are struggling (most people don’t do mental math at all), but this blog is full of drama queens right now.
I thought the Bilt Cash solution was sort of smart to create a moving threshold for benefits in a way that invited everyone to the table (even if you have no rent). It was a smart design. But the pitchforks are out and the pile-on will continue. Everyone loves staring at a car crash…
You are clearly a superior intellect. Proud of you.
For me the problem is with the exclusions of giftcards purchases in providing points.
If they are not going to provide points for giftcards.com or vanilla gift, then no use for me
Does anyone seriously trust a company this incompetent to pay your mortgage or rent on time?? Zero chance I risk damaging my credit score because they can’t send payments in time. I can’t wait for all of the Bilt induced foreclosures in a year when people’s mortgages never get paid.
I share this concern. As such, I’m out.
I thought they withdraw the $ directly out of your checking account? BILT is not sending a check. I’m missing something? I decided to wait it out before applying
I’m transferring out all my Bilt points. I don’t need this mental maelstrom in my life. Closing account entirely.
If rent is due on the 1st, when is “monthly” spend measured? Is it based on the previous month? The month in which the rent payment is made, since not all statements are cutoff at month-end? Is is based on “average monthly spend”? If it is “average monthly spend”, over what time period is the “average monthly spend” measured?
Really, I had that question based on versions 2.0 and 2.1 to calculate the monthly spend required to earn Bilt Cash or have no fee and determine bonus on housing payment.
That’s it. I’m out. Trying to simplify my life. This does not do that. Wells Fargo….I’m staying with you.
By the time the card launches, we’ll see 20 options or more.
They’re still working out how much Bilt Cash you have to pay to unlock options 3 through 20
They just keep showing me that I made the right decision to close my WF Bilt card and walk away from this mess.
Whatever the virtues (or not) of these cards, I am amazed by unprofessional launch.
These guys were supposedly working on this for months and completely botched it.
Leaked code, contradictory statements, obnoxious comments from Richard Kerr, significant changes 48 hours after launch, and little clarity on how to use Bilt Cash?
I’ll say this: If there really is no such thing as bad publicity, then they’re crushing it.
Could this be the 2026 Bonvoy award winner?
Why do we call it the Bonvoy award again for cards that crash and burn?
Bonvoy means anything that is consumer unfriendly. This solidly qualifies.
Once you have a chance to digest the new option, I’d love a breakdown from the FM team in which option is better: 1 or 2? Including scenarios where each might be best.
Get the blue card, spend 25% of your rent/mortgage and stop. You get your 3X everywhere card, no AF, no coupon 🙂
It isn’t a huge difference in points earning. There are some clustered thresholds where option 1 is better, and the option to earn up to 1.25x is new. But the value is capped at 100% of rent. Option 2 is more flexible and is going to be better for anyone spending more than 100% of their rent/mortgage. Of course, that assumes there is any meaningful value to Bilt Cash.
Please, please, please do not say they are going to throw in a Founders Card as an additional benefit.
I have a large mortgage payment. The Palladium card pays 2x points per dollar in spend (show me another card that earns 2x hyatt points everywhere) *and* I can turn some or all of my mortgage payment into points every month. And there’s this silly thing where I get 5x points in the first 7 days. And a weird app? Sounds good to me. Now there’s this weird option 1 that I can choose after I burn all of the Bilt Cash I get from the SUB? Sure.
I’ve been into travel hacking for over ten years at this point. So many things have come and gone. Bilt 2.0 will come and go. Crazily enough, the banks staunch the bleeding and kill whatever is too good to be true (for us). If you’re not willing to read the fine print and find the angles that work for you, that’s totally fine. Just get a 2% cash back card and never think about any of this ever again.