Bilt recently updated the terms and conditions for its suite of credit cards. Among those changes there’s a positive update for two player households as it could now be much easier for someone to earn status and rack up points on their Bilt Rewards account.
On the negative side, it seems like they might be taking a Scrooge-link approach when it comes to using the hotel credits that are a benefit on the Obsidian and Palladium cards. Where you might have hoped to triple-dip that benefit early next year, you’re now at risk of having that clawed back. Even worse, the terms leave it open for your hotel credit in the second half of this year to be clawed back too.
Positive change: authorized users can earn points & Bilt Cash on their own Bilt Rewards account
Let’s start off with the positive change. With the vast majority of credit cards, rewards from purchases made by authorized users are credited to the primary cardholder’s account.
That’s the default setup on Bilt cards too, but there is now an alternative option. Per the addition to the terms and conditions:
Primary Cardholders can select whether Bilt Points and Bilt Cash earned in connection with Purchases made by Authorized Users will be credited to the Primary Cardholder’s Rewards Account or to the Authorized User’s Rewards Account. This selection must be made in the Bilt app or website and can be changed at any time. Only the Primary Cardholder can make or change this selection. If the Primary Cardholder changes this selection, that change will go into effect immediately and any purchases that have not yet been posted will issue rewards based on the new selection. In accordance with the Cardholder Agreement, the Primary Cardholder remains responsible for all activity on the Card Account, including activity by any Authorized User, regardless of such rewards selection.
As you can see, the primary cardholder can now opt to have the rewards earned by the authorized user’s spend credited to the Bilt Rewards account of the authorized user. That can open up some potentially great ways to maximize your Bilt earnings in a two player household.
For example, let’s say you have the Palladium card, so you’re earning 2X on all eligible spend, plus you have Gold status as part of the welcome bonus that’s available right now. Let’s also say that your partner has the Obsidian card which offers 3X on up to $25K of grocery spend each year (upon selection; the default 3X category is dining).
Previously, this scenario could’ve caused a dilemma. Ideally, you want all the Bilt points earned in your household credited to your own account seeing as you have Gold status. That’s because Gold status means you’re eligible for higher transfer bonuses on Rent Day whenever those are offered. However, any grocery spend would’ve been credited to your partner’s account, with each of you racking up Bilt Cash or Housing-Only Rewards on each of your accounts too.
That dilemma is solved with this new authorized user crediting feature. Now, you and your partner can be authorized users on each other’s cards and have all spend credited to your own account. For everyday spend, you use your Palladium card and your partner uses their Palladium authorized user card, with you defaulting to having all points (and Bilt Cash or Housing-Only Rewards) from that Palladium card accrue on your account.
With your partner’s Obsidian card, you’d want all grocery purchases (and any other purchases on the Obsidian card) to be made exclusively on your authorized user card and credited to your account.
With this setup, all Bilt points earned across both cards would be credited to your account, as would the Bilt Cash or Housing-Only Rewards. That means you’ll rack up points on your account even faster, which in turn means you’ll earn status even faster, plus the number of points available to be boosted by future transfer bonuses will be increased.
When taking into account this new feature, do bear in mind that authorized user cards on the Obsidian and Palladium cards have $50 and $95 fees respectively. For the increased earning potential though, you may well deem that to be worth it.
Negative change: Possibly no triple-dipped hotel credits (nor legitimate bookings in the second half of this year either)
Where one hand gives, another potentially takes away. The other main update to the terms and conditions relates to the Bilt Travel Hotel Credit.
As a reminder, one of the benefits on the Obsidian card is a $50 discount/credit you get twice per year (January-June for one and July-December for the other) which can be redeemed for a hotel reservation of two nights or more that’s booked via Bilt Travel. The Palladium card has a similar benefit, although that one gives up to $200 twice per year.
Bilt launched these cards in early February 2026. That means that cardholders who applied then (or transitioned from their Bilt 1.0 cards) get a $50 or $200 credit to redeem by June 30, 2026, another from July 1-December 31, 2026, and then a new one on January 1, 2027. Even if you didn’t renew your Bilt card next February, this would give you an opportunity to use those credits three times in the first year of card membership.
The thing is, it seems like Bilt doesn’t want you to do that, even though it’s a perfectly reasonable and legitimate thing to do.
That’s because they’ve added the following clause to the terms of the hotel benefit:
We may reverse credits if a Qualifying Booking is canceled, or modified or if you close your Account within 90 days of receiving a credit.
It’s that latter part which is most concerning. If you redeem your January-June 2027 hotel credit in January and subsequently cancel your Bilt card the following month, Bilt’s new terms – which weren’t there when you originally applied for the card – state that they’re well within their rights to claw back that $50 or $200 credit from you.
It gets worse though. Let’s say you also used your June-December hotel credit to make a reservation in much of November or December. If you cancel your card at renewal, Bilt says they might claw back that $50 or $200 credit too. That means Obsidian cardholders could have up to $100 clawed back, while Palladium cardholders could have a whopping $400 in credits clawed back – all of which were received completely legitimately.
Whether Bilt will claw back $50 and $200 credits is another matter. However, it’s concerning that they’ve added this clause because the Bilt Travel Hotel Credit is a benefit that cardholders should be able to use as described, without having to worry that Bilt will arbitrarily charge them a potentially hefty fee despite not doing anything wrong. Having Bilt retroactively say “Nah, we don’t like that you closed your card – we’re adding $400 of debt to your card for your hotel bookings in December and January” is awful if that’s how they choose to proceed. I get that they want to discourage gaming, but if they follow through with this, that’s incredibly miserly. It’s a cost of them doing business, so it’s a cost they should absorb, rather than charging its former cardholders.
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Guess what people, the CSR has the same claw back for statement credits received within the 90 (or 120) days immediately prior to account closure. And, Bilt didn’t invent the two-night stay requirement for the hotel credit. It would appear that the industry is moving to these types of restrictions. Deal with it.
The banks read Flyer Talk and Reddit and the blogs. They see strategy after strategy of how to game the banks regurgitated time and time again. Instead of keeping these subjects in private forums, some jerk braggart has to tell the world how clever he is . . . and tips off the banks. And, then, everyone is hosed.
Someone will complain “how will I learn about the strategies if not from a blog?” Cough up the membership fee and join a private forum.
I love my 3X Bilt Palladium card
Exactly. Plus the occasional transfer bonus. Plus the 4% Bilt Cash.
Idk, are people really entitled to double dip? At the end of the day you pay the AF for that years benefits
IMO double dipping in general is kind of a deliberate oversight that it’s nice the CC companies let you do but you’re absolutely not entitled to.
One needs to factor that into CC value – that with a CSR you can grab a few extra credits and with BILT you may not – but I don’t inherently have a problem with it
The idea you’d pay the 2026 AF and get the 2026 2nd half credit clawed back is absolute garbage though. That’s messed up. They need to adjust those terms.
If the an annual fee was charged for on a calendar year basis, then sure – I can understand no double-dipping. However, if an annual fee is charged on a cardmember year basis and the card issuer offers benefits on a calendar year basis rather than a cardmember year basis, they’re the ones who’ve knowingly set up the ability to double and/or triple dip.
If someone didn’t use their hotel credit in the first half of 2026, does that mean that if they use the credit in the first few weeks or 2027 that it’s a more legitimate use of the credit than someone who did use their Jan-Jun 2026 credit?
Ultimately, cardholders who use the hotel credit three times in their first cardmember year are playing entirely by the rules that Bilt themselves have created – there’s no gaming there whatsoever.
Yeah I didn’t mean to imply it’s gaming at all it’s entirely above board, more that I understand why issuers don’t want to fund extra benefits per AF paid and I don’t have a problem with that.
Agreed if you actually care the year should be cardholder year not calendar
Regardless the idea they can claw back a prior year, whether cardholder or anniversary, is pretty messed up. They need to add a caveat to this policy to exclude that.
I really hope that with all of these negative changes and complete crap of a program that you guys will stop advertising these people. I have begun to see you guys negatively with all of the advertisements that you all provide for their products as an extension of you guys. Thanks.
The only ads we ever had for Bilt were for a couple of months on the podcast, and that was only one ad per episode. We haven’t had any Bilt ads for several weeks now though and it’s unlikely that we’ll have them again anytime in the near future.
Lisa, I understand why you might have a negative reaction to this. Candidly, I was disappointed when FM’s first ads ever were for Bilt.
That said, I don’t see how they could have conducted themselves better in the aftermath of that decision.
First, and by far the most important, those ads did not stop FM, and especially Stephen, from publishing critical content about Bilt, based (IMO) on nothing more than their sincere attempts to “call it like they see it.” That is extremely unusual in the blogosphere, and almost unheard of from blogs that pay the bills largely by affiliate commissions.
Second, once the critical coverage started, they discontinued their advertising for Bilt without fanfare. I don’t know whether this was at their or Bilt’s instigation, but it was the right thing to do given all that came before.
Bilt’s evolution, and specifically its 2.0 version rollout, is easily the the most complex case I can recall in 25 years of studying this space. There are many commendable features of the Bilt ecosystem. There are also many problems with its rollout, its treatment of customers, and its ever-changing rule set.
So it stands to reason that coverage from FM should be ambivalent–and well, complicated. 🙂
FWIW.
Great catch and analysis on the T&C changes, Stephen.
Did we ever get clarity on exactly when the second year’s annual fee could be refunded? 30 days after the anniversary / fee billing (like Amex), or some other date?
I’m thinking that if that’s the case, now (late March) might be a good time to open the account, because you’d be able to claim the January 2027 hotel credit, not close the account for 90+ days, but still avoid that 2d annual fee.
No, I don’t believe they’ve clarified yet how things will work at renewal. In theory downgrades will also be an option, but they’ve not provided details on the mechanism for how that’ll work either. I imagine more information will be provided towards the end of this year, early next year.
Thank you Stephen.
This is one of many areas where Bilt has been less than clear.
I’m still on the fence RE opening a Palladium. And if I did, I’d likely not close the card after a year.
Even so, I and others would be more inclined to accept the card if we had some clarity and certainty on this and many similar points.
The clawback is a good thing for cardholders, since they will no longer have to bear the costs of funding benefits for ex-cardholders. The latter have also been given plenty of notice so that they can cancel without penalty. Best strategy with Bilt is to “spend, not whine” as it is the highest-earning in-first-year card out there.
Here is the title of the article that you meant to write: “FM’s First Year Valuation Measure Has Been Made Meaningless by Bilt’s Innovations. It is worth over $3,000 but we Value it Near Zero. Here is a Corrected Valuation”
man, you’re insufferable.
FM’s first year valuation does not take triple dipping into account, so this change by Bilt hasn’t affected anything.
This is a really convoluted workaround (it’s Bilt!) to the primary problems (as far as this is concerned) – you can only have one Bilt card and they charge for AUs. P1 should just be able to have both a Palladium and an Obsidian with $0 AUs and then everything goes to the “Gold Status” P1 account. And if you want an extra priority pass with an AU card you can pay the $95 or whatever. Even with this workaround P1 and P2 still need to share the one Obsidian AU card they’ll get – it’s just silly. And you’re paying $145 in AU fees.
The 90 day claw back language seems similar to other T&Cs out there – unfortunate but I think that is what it is.