Yesterday, Bilt and Qatar announced that it is now possible to earn 3 Avios per dollar spent on rent when you use a Qatar credit card to pay rent through the Bilt app. This adds another program to Bilt’s rent payment options, which already include Atmos Rewards, United MileagePlus, and Air France/KLM Flying Blue.
Like the other options, you’ll pay a 3% fee on your Qatar card to pay rent this way, and it’s only valid for rent payments, not mortgages.
Bilt now offers multiple ways to earn points on rent
There are now several ways to earn points with Bilt on rent payments (consumer cards only):
- Air France/KLM Flying Blue: 3 miles per dollar; 3% fee, $50K annual max
- Atmos Rewards: 3 points per dollar; 3% fee, $50K annual max
- Qatar Privilege Club: 3 Avios per dollar; 3% fee, $50K annual max
- United MileagePlus: 2 miles per dollar; 3% fee, $50K annual max
- Rent payments made via other Visa, Mastercard, or Discover cards earn 1 Bilt point per $2 spent (in addition to credit card rewards); 3% fee
- Rent payments made via an American Express® credit card earn 1 Bilt Point per $2 spent (in addition to credit card rewards); 3% fee
- Bilt cardholders can earn 1 Bilt point per $1 spent on rent or mortgage payments with no fee by redeeming Bilt Cash at a value of $30 in Bilt Cash for every 1,000 points.
Quick Thoughts
First off, the boilerplate disclaimer: it’s always better to have more ways to earn points and miles. However, quite literally every transferable currency has at least one of the Avios programs as a partner (and often several). Once there, you can freely move them from one airline to another. Given that, and the relative frequency with which we see transfer bonuses to one or more of the Avios carriers, I have a hard time getting excited about buying them at 1 cent per point.
Now, the Qatar Infinite card does have some big spend bonuses that could be interesting. You can earn 2 elite-qualifying points (QPoints) for every 1,500 Avios you earn on the card, and, if you spend $15K on the card in the first year or $25K in subsequent years, you can also get rebates for the significant taxes and fees that Qatar charges on award flights – amounts that would be fairly easy for most folks to reach with rent. However, to take advantage of that, you have to hold (and pay rent with) a $495/year card and regularly book Qatar awards.
Personally, I’m much more interested in earning Bilt points at 1X with no transaction fees, or 3X Atmos Points per dollar spent for the same 3% fee, especially since the Atmos credit card spend can make a meaningful impact toward Atmos elite status, which is something that’s likely to be much more valuable for most US-based consumers.
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Seeing as this is your latest BILT post, I saw at OMAAT and VFTW (and on the BILT app) that they now have gone live with the BILT Cash redemptions for Blade (7 months after ‘Coming Soon’). Still waiting on Blacklane, but this is good update (even if delayed).
Anyone know the workaround for making this work through Bilt with your mortgage. I know it “officially” doesn’t work, but I’ve heard it does unofficially work. Thanks!
Yikes. That’s some Russian roulette, sir.
Compared to Alaska, this one is lame. At least with Summit, you can do $50K towards the $60K spend for 100K Global Companion Certificate, even if you’re paying for the points (and although devaluations do happen, Alaska points are often worth more, on-average 2cpp, than most of the corporate pseudo-currencies). For Avios, that’s a lot of fees for lesser value. Pass.
THIS DOES NOT WORK IF YOU PAY RENT VIA CHECK OR VENMO.
It really bugs me that bloggers/podcasters don’t mention this when they write/talk about these things. I got the Alaska Summit card intending to use it to pay my rent, only to realize after getting it that I couldn’t since I pay my rent by check.