Bilt Rewards Mastercard - Best credit card for renters?
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Update: As of 02/2023 Bilt has also partnered with Lyft to help you earn 5x points on all Lyft rides.
The Bilt Rewards card was opened to public in March of 2022 and this has to be one of the most unique offerings in the credit card world. While there are a lot of cards out there with great multipliers, great concierge services and sleek aesthetics, the Bilt Mastercard introduces a new category which is rent. Yes, you read that right. You can earn points on your rent. Let’s see what this partnership between Wells Fargo and Bilt can offer.
Overview of features and Perks
The Bilt Mastercard is issued by Wells Fargo and uses the MasterCard World Elite network for payments. If you want to know more about what’s the difference between an issuing bank and the payment network, feel free to read this article.
Here’s a brief overview of the card specs:
Fees and Rewards
The Bilt rewards card comes at a 0$ annual fee and also offers no foreign transaction fees. This is complimented by a point structure that’s pretty good for an everyday card. It offers 3x points on dining, 2x points on travel, and 1x on everything else. This 1x holds on rent payments as well and that’s alongside the fact you won’t be charged credit card transaction fee.
The only caveat to this point structure is that you need to do atleast 5 transactions every month if you want to earn these multipliers. If you fail to do so you just get 250 points that month for paying rent. Currently you also cannot use this card for business rent payments or mortgage payments.
You earn 5x points on all Lyft rides. Just link your account and you’re all set.
You earn 3x points on all dining purchases including, restaurants, food delivery services and food pickup purchases.
You earn 2x points on Travel purchases which comprise of any flights, hotels, rental cars, and cruises when booked directly with airlines, hotels, and car rental agencies.
Everywhere else.
Earning points on Rent
The most interesting perk is that you can earn 1x points on rent without paying the credit card transaction fee that comes with using services like Plastiq or even online portals for most properties. This is done in either of the two ways:
Bilt Rewards Alliance
If your property is a part of the Bilt Rewards Alliance, you can simply be a part of the program and earn points by paying rent however you want by signing up for the program. In case you do choose to pay the rent using your Bilt Rewards, the system would automatically reduce the transaction fee (usually 3% for using credit card) and you will earn 1x points on the rest of your rent.
What if your property is not a part of alliance?
Even if you are not a living in a property that has an alliance with Bilt, they will mail a physical check to your landlord if you authorize the rent on their app. If you don’t trust snail mail to be on time, they even provide a checking and routing number for paying rent online for portals using direct ACH transfer for properties that don’t participate in the program. This way, your portal just sees a new bank account which they charge while you can actually charge your credit card with that amount without paying the transaction fee. Pretty cool right?
You might be wondering, what if I don’t have enough credit limit or I don’t want to use up my limit for rent. Bilt has got you covered there as well. You can essentially choose to opt in to BiltProtect Debit service where they won’t use up the credit limit on your card and just charge your default bank account for that amount as a debit transaction. So, you earn points, don’t show a lot of utilization of your credit limit and don’t pay any transaction fees. To be honest, that’s a really nifty feature for a no annual fee card.
Other Perks
If you are already getting excited about earning a whole lot of points, you would be ecstatic to know that the list of offerings does not end here. This card also comes with the following perks:
- Cell phone protection: If you pay your monthly bill with your Bilt Rewards Mastercard, you are covered up to 800$ against theft or damage of your cell phone (with a 25$ deductible)
- Purchase Security : Purchases upto 10000$ made with your Bilt Rewards Mastercard are covered for 90 days against any damage or theft.
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver: Yes you read it right. Even after being a no annual fee card, the Bilt Rewards Mastercard offers coverage against theft, physical damage, loss of use charges from the rental company and any towing charges for your rental.
- Trip delay reimbursement: If your trip is delayed by more than six hours, you can
- Trip cancellation and interruption insurance: The Bilt Rewards Mastercard offers up to 1500$ reimbursement per incident for a non-refundable passenger fare if your trip is interrupted or canceled if you book tickets using this card.
- Lyft Credits: IF you take 3 Lyft rides each month, you can get a 5$ Lyft credit
- Doordash Pass: You can get 3 months of DashPass free along with 5$ off the first order each month as long as you hold the DashPass subscription
- Mastercard World Elite Perks: like Mastercard Airport Concierge®, Travel and Lifestyle services, Priceless Cities®, Priceless Golf®, ID theft protection™
Some maths for the deal seekers
In 2020, despite the pandemic, an average US household spent $7316 on food according to the US bureau of labour. Out of this $2375 were spent on eating out. If we only account for that spending you could essentially earn 7125 points from this card (3x of 2375). Rent/mortgage payments also make up a huge chunk of economics in the states. According to NHMC there are 44.1 million households in USA who are renters. What makes this number more interesting is the fact that in 2019, according to Experian, median monthly rents varied from $866-$2542 based on the state. This means that an average household among renters can spend anything from $10392 to $30504 annually. This means you could potentially save upto 30k points for just being a part of the Bilt Rewards program.Add in the 1x points from rent and assuming a rent of 1000$/month, you can easily earn 12000 points.
This means just in one year, you can at the very least earn 19k points by just paying rent on your card and using it for dining out. This number would only go up if you use the card for other expenses. Now you might be wondering what his might be worth. Well, if you just take a look at American Airlines, you can easily redeem 17k points for a 2-day round trip to Miami from New York which costs ~550$ in cash. This means you are earning a whooping 3 cent per point value from your Bilt rewards points.
Redeeming Points
While you earn more and more points, not only can you redeem them in various ways but you can also earn a status with Bilt. Higher the status, more are the perks associated with it. The four main tiers of status are – Blue, Silver, Gold and Platinum. There are 4 ways you can redeem your points
You can buy home decor and some really interesting art collaboration pieces from the Bilt collection. It features paintings from artists and other quirky decor pieces like geometric stones for your drinks ;P
This is the best redemption option by far. You can transfer your points to the following airline and hotel partners to redeem them for travel. Currently, Bilt has a partnership with American Airlines, Air Canada, United Airlines, Emirates, Air France, KLM, JetBlue, Delta, Hawaiian Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Air Asia, World of Hyatt and IHG Hotels.
Bilt has also partnered with some fitness classes if you are interested in redeeming your points that way. You can attend Rumble, Y7 Studio, Soulcycle or [solidcore] classes starting at 1600 points a class.
You can also redeem your points towards future rent payments however, currently they only value points at 0.5cents per point for rent redemption. Therefore, we highly recommend that you should not redeem points this way. You can also redeem points towards a future down payment towards a home. This is really interesting and does value points at 1cent per point but further details need to be disclosed.
User Experience
The Bilt Rewards app has a very clean and minimal design and also allows you to:
- View your card number and CVV and copy it directly from the app. We live in an online world and this feature comes in really handy to buy the Fortnite skins without getting up from the sofa.
- You can redeem your reward points directly from the app by linking your transfer partner. The app also allows you to look for flights and possible hotel stays. It also has the option to directly order stuff from the Bilt collection
- If you ever forget your benefits, there’s a summary page in the app to let you know all of them and if you tap on any of the perks, it also shows you the method to file a claim and talk to customer service.
- You can directly reach customer service from the app via a text message.
The Physical Card
You can take a look at the unboxing experience of this card on our channel. We must say that this was one of the best unboxing experiences for a credit card. This is a 16g solid piece of metal with a really nice cling to it. The sleek black look and minimalist font definitely make this card worth having just for it’s looks.
Credit Worthiness
Wells Fargo pulls TransUnion and Experian however the credit bureaus can vary based on your state. Here are two websites that keep tracks of the credit bureaus even for different states – doctorofcredit and helpmebuildcredit.
Wells Fargo is not known to be a very strict bank and is not sensitive to a few (<2) recent enquiries on your report however, there are a lot of data points suggesting that having a banking relationship with them in terms of another card or checking account can drastically help your approval. Wells Fargo can be stingy about initial credit limits however they do tend to increase your limit fairly quickly after 6 months if you handle your credit well. They also do a soft pull for credit limit increases which is an added advantage.
Pros And Cons
Since there is no annual fees, you do not have to worry about losing money just to keep the card and it’s perks active
The lack of foreign transaction fees and Mastercard payment network make this card a great option to carry while traveling abroad.
The 1x points on rent definitely make this an industry disrupting card. Apart from that, there are also multipliers that make this easily justifiable for everyday expenses.
Weighing in at around 16g this is one of the heaviest cards out there and definitely turns heads.
You cannot redeem your points for statement credit which might not be appealing to team cashback.
The only way it makes sense to use your points is for transfer partners or if you like shopping then spending points a the Bilt collection store.
The only caveat of having a heavy metal card is that there is no tap to pay feature on the card itself. You can however link it to Apple or Google Wallet.
Wells Fargo is notoriously known for it’s “amazing” (/sarcasm for all of you who take things literally) customer support so you know what to expect.
Final Verdict
There is no annual fees and you can earn points on rent payments. This makes it a very lucrative card for renters. Not only does it have great multipliers and transfer partners, it is the only card right now that can directly transfer points 1:1 to American Airline Miles. Moreover, the lack of foreign transaction fee make this card a must-have for international students/professionals.
If you already own a home or sub lease your dwelling from a friend, this card might not make sense for you. There are much better cards out there with better travel perks, more transfer partners and better multipliers for dining. You can easily check out the US Bank Altitude Go, Amex Gold or even credit cards from Chase.
