With most ultra-premium cards it’s possible to simply add up how much you value each perk and see if it meets or exceeds the annual fee, but this card is mostly valuable for its high earning rate from spend… It’s definitely worth $495 in the first year due to the welcome bonus, but what about after that?
Is the Bilt Palladium card worth its $495 annual fee?
Watch here:
Or listen here (or click “Follow” on the player below to select your preferred podcast app instead):
(01:38) – Palladium Card details
Learn more about the Bilt Palladium card here
(02:37) – Bilt Cash
(06:03) – Is the Palladium card worth $495 in exchange for…
(06:35) – Consider other cards
(07:14) – Our take
Visit https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe to get updated on in-depth points and miles content like this, and don’t forget to like and follow us on social media.
Music Credit – Annie Yoder
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
It’s been worth the annual fee for me. I don’t use it for housing payments so I use Bilt cash to have the 1pt accelerator. It’s replaced the venture card as my everything else card. I also somehow didn’t have priority pass so that benefit has been nice. I also use the walgreens and grubhub credits monthly, though I’m hoping they add more stuff for Bilt cash, nothing else is that appealing currently and I will end up with more than $100 left at the end of the year. I will likely keep the card as long as they don’t remove the accelerator.
I’m a fan although there should be a discount due to the growing pains.
Also want to note in case others were confused like me, the hotel credit is valid Jan-Jun/Jul-Dec based on booking date, not reservation date. I think I was told wrong info by Bilt back in Feb, and just clarified with them again this past week.
I might be becoming a Bilt fan boy, but I think the value is there for me for sure. So much so my wife also has the card. The mortgage points to me is the equivalent of a SUB every year.
The little Bilt cash redemptions are like the AMEX gold to me. Annoying, but they get the job done. We use Lyft more so the credit is better then Uber, and I prefer $10 at Walgreens over $7 a Dunkin.
On the hotel credit I’m getting value and a great price on a home away stay. Yes you defienitely need to price check and shop around. However Bilt shows you the all in price with tax and fees from the start. When I’ve factored that in on searches it was either the same, less, or at least not as drastic a difference.
The guys alluded to it, but the flexibility of not needing to be high end is nice. One way we may use my wifes credit in the next month is for a road trip stay. We only need one night, but we’ll book a two night stay and only stay one. Will we get full value out of the $200 bilt credit and $100 bilt cash? No, but it’s $150 we were going to spend that we won’t come out of pocket.
If they expand the $25 dining credit beyond NYC and major metros that could help too. Along with the $100 black lane credit.
Also priority pass which I value at $0. If the world elite addition of resturants turns out to be true it definitely makes it more valuable.
Like your “Bonvoy Award,” maybe you should have an annual “Breakfast Award.” In honor of Marriott’s breakfast chart, this award goes to the program with the newest most complicated program feature. The new Bilt wins. I could not listen to this episode without taking notes.
It’d be great to see a spreadsheet detailing the variations of Bilt benefits, earning rates, and different cards to calculate whether it’s worth it for a given individual. Maybe you’d need multiple sheets, since even the mortgage/rent calculation depends on the size of those payments and how you use Bilt cash.
I wonder if Bilt employees have an internal spreadsheet like this to evaluate the program. They must or else how did they decide on all of this?
Could any employee there recite the entire program and its nuances without cheating? If I ask an AI to produce this sheet, will it cause an internet crash, or could I even trust the answer?
so L3 is really the Tim Dunn of Bilt huh? except hes not unintentionally funny like TD is. sad!
As each person has different circumstances, each person will have to answer the question for themselves. Do your own math. Ignore what everyone else says. There will be many cards people swear by that aren’t a fit for you. Then, there will be many cards people swear at that are a perfect fit for you. Their circumstances are different from yours. (This is not to say you don’t look for tips and tricks. You do.)
Unless you have a great grocery spend (obsidian might make sense). Just get the Bilt blue and if you have rent (Alaska card – btw which is what Kerr is doing!) and you will come out way ahead than Palladium. It is true of all issuers – 95-150$ is where best point earners are. BILT palladium girl math by most other YouTubers is comical. Frequent miler probably is the most level headed regarding bilt.
Here’s a bit of an alternate view for the FM team to consider. Get the Bilt no annual fee card. Use Grubhub and Walgreens and your annual fee is now minus $240. Put $1000 on the no annual fee card on Rent Day to earn 2x–do it at least 10 times per year to get Bilt Silver, which gives you Rakuten transfers. End of story, with no mental gymnastics. Also, I know there have been some issues with Bilt customer support and fraud on Bilt cards in the past (I have been told Bilt does not even have a fraud department), and the rollout was a mess, so I really don’t want to make this my primary ecosystem unless or until they get their act together.
Rent day bonus is limited to 1,000 pts, which is $500 of spend, btw.
On Bilt Blue, you earn 1x on everyday spend. On Rent Day, you earn 2x with the Rent Day bonus. So, if you spend $1,000 on Rent Day, you earn the Rent Day bonus of 1000 points. If you have Bilt Blue, you need to spend $1000 to get 1000 bonus points on Rent Day, not $500. Believe I am actually correct.
Incorrect. The maximum number of Rent Day bonus points is 1,000 which is generated by $500 in spend.
No. I do this every month. Just no. The maximum number of Rent Day BONUS points is 1000. Not the maximum number of points. Please stop misleading FM readers.
I also do this every month, and only the first $500 gets double rent day bonus points of 1,000 bonus points (4X total of 2,000 points for $500 spend). Any spend above $500 does not get rent day bonus points and only gets my normal 2X everyday points (plus multiplier if I have it on). I have Bilt Palladium. Bilt support also confirms this is true.
Yes, that is correct because you weren’t reading what I wrote. As I wrote above, I have Bilt Blue, which gets 1x points on everyday spend. You have Bilt Palladium which gets 2x points on everyday spend. So I need to spend $1000 on Bilt Blue and you need to spend $500 on Bilt Palladium to get the full Rent Day bonus. Bilt Blue has no annual fee. Bilt Palladium has a $495 annual fee. I hope this clears up any confusion.
This is true because you have the Palladium, and not the Blue. It’s 1000 extra points, which is $1000 (Blue) or $500 (Palladium).
How interesting that you don’t use your own first year valuation method, the one you use for all other cards, to value Bilt. If you did you would see that Bilt is worth $3,000+, and is far and away the highest-value travel card.
Google ‘Using Frequent Miler’s Valuation Method, The Bilt Palladium Card Is The Most Valuable Card They Have Ever Seen, Even With Zero Housing Spend’ to see the calculations.
All: Greg and Nick completely missed the value of Bilt 2.0. Now, like 12-year olds bickering with you in the school playground, they refuse to admit their error, and that outsiders caught them out, impressively using their own valuation formula to show their error.
How embarrassing for them.
You are insufferable
You are irrelevant.
Psh. No. Dan is the man!
I finally read it, and the only response I can come up with is:
“What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
Not after the first year… without a sizable retention offer, gonna be a lot of downsizing and/or cancellations in February 2027… (oh, L3, how will ye shill…)
Google ‘Using Frequent Miler’s Valuation Method, The Bilt Palladium Card Is The Most Valuable Card They Have Ever Seen, Even With Zero Housing Spend’ to see the calculations.Please let us know of any errors.
There you go again… (whining about FM on FM and elsewhere; see VFTW.)