A sleuth was able to dig into Bilt’s website and uncover, what looks to be, but unconfirmed, details on the new Bilt 2.0 cards. You can read the full exchange here on Reddit, but it appears the days of “no fees on rent” are over. Instead, if you’d like to process your rent or mortgage with any of the Bilt cards you’ll have to pay a transaction fee. The caveat? You can wipe that transaction fee by using Bilt Cash – a new benefit of Bilt that just went into effect after being announced in October of 2025 as a replacement to Milestone rewards. Bilt Cash is AN ADDITIONAL currency you earn alongside Bilt Points. So…when you see all the cards below offering 4% Bilt Cash, this is an additional currency you’ll earn with your Bilt Points ( in fact you earn $50 of Bilt cash for every 25k Bilt Points you earn in a year whether you have these cards or not ).

Let’s take a look at the cards, my thinking, and why the $495 fee card is a no brainer to me. As an advisor, I wasn’t given any advanced knowledge of these details and haven’t received any official word that these are in fact real details. That said, I haven’t been told they aren’t the details, and the fact that they were from the Bilt site, and we haven’t seen any official pushback from Bilt on reddit makes me think they are over the target.

First off…what the heck is Bilt Cash?

All 3 of these cards earn 4% back on purchases in the form of Bilt Cash. But what exactly is it?

What is it?

Bilt Cash replaces the Milestone rewards that were earned after certain thresholds of Bilt Point accrual in a calendar year. Instead, you’ll just earn a flat $50 of Bilt Cash after every 25k Bilt Points you earn, regardless of how you earn them.

How can I use it?

$25 of Bilt Cash is worth a $25 redemption on qualifying Bilt Partners. My understanding is that this is the initial list but will expand. Right now those are:

• Hotel bookings: apply Bilt Cash toward hotel bookings made in the Bilt Travel Portal.
• Lyft credits: redeem for Lyft credits and get where you’re going for less. 
• Fitness Classes: use Bilt Cash toward bookings in the Bilt App and save on your favorite workouts.
• Dining: use Bilt Cash to pay your tab when you use Mobile Dining Checkout at select Bilt partner restaurants.
• Home Delivery: save on everyday essentials ordered through Home Delivery, powered by Gopuff.
• The Bilt Collection: redeem Bilt Cash for select items and limited drops from the Bilt Collection.

That means, if you want to spend $25 on a dining partner, you’ll have the option to apply it to your bill at checkout. Want to use it on a hotel…you’ll be able to do while booking in Bilt travel.

The two best uses IMO…hotels and dining with hotels being best. A ton of hotels within Bilt’s travel portal are effectively direct bookings. Not all, but a ton. Especially the hotels that are a part of the major loyalty programs. This means that you can use the Bilt Cash to book those hotels, earn hotel points, elite nights, and even the benefits of Home Away from Home.

Do I still earn Bilt Points

Yes… this is an additional reward currency alongside Bilt Points, not a replacement.

What we don’t know even if this information is true – transaction fee %

It’s clear from the information below that if you want to earn points on rent…you’ll have to offset a transaction fee.

What will the transaction fees be that you need to wipe with Bilt Cash. Is it 3%, 2%, 1%? Some iteration other than those? We just don’t know.

The easiest way to think about this tho… you’re effectively using Bilt Cash to buy Bilt Points. If you spend $1000 a month on rent, and the transaction fee is 3%, you’ll owe $30 a month to earn 1k points on all of the cards below. Well…that’s paying $0.03 per point. In addition to that you’d need to spend at least $750 on the card to earn that $30 ( at the 4% rate ). You’d end up earning 1750 Bilt points on your spend + Rent.

The New Cards

Bilt has made it very clear. They want to be your primary spend card, not a card that you pay your rent or mortgage on, hit 5 transactions of low value, pay no fee, and you earn points on your rent, but your spend is elsewhere.

In order to lure you into do so, they’re giving you an additional 4% Bilt Cash on every purchase. If you want to use that to offset your mortgage, rent, dining, hotels, etc…it’s your choice.

That’s a big pivot.

Bilt Blue Card $0

• Annual fee:
  • $0
• Welcome bonus:
  • $100 Bilt Cash
• Rewards:
  • 4% Bilt Cash on everyday spend
  • 1X points on rent, mortgage, and everyday spend
• Benefits:
  • No foreign transaction fees
• Neighborhood Benefits program
• Use Bilt Cash to waive rent and mortgage transaction fees

My take… the old Bilt card was the single most valuable card we’d ever seen. It’s gone. I don’t think this is a bad no fee card, but I don’t think it’s the no brainer that the old Bilt card was. If you live in an area with a ton of Bilt partners and you love dining, hotels, etc this could make sense because you’re earning that 4% kicker.

Bilt Obsidian Card $95

• Annual fee: $95
  • Welcome bonus: $200 Bilt Cash
• Rewards:
  • 4% Bilt Cash on everyday spend
  • 3X points on dining or grocery (choice of one; grocery up to $25K/year)
  • 2X points on travel
  • 1X points on rent, mortgage, and everyday spend
• Benefits:
  • $100 Bilt Travel hotel credit ($50 every six months)
• Cellular Telephone Protection
• Use Bilt Cash to waive rent and mortgage transaction fees

This is clearly a Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card competitor. While I’d rather it have the ability to earn 3x on both dining and grocery ( Citi Premier earns it on dining, groceries, travel, gas, and EV ), it does come with $100 of travel credit and the additional 4% Bilt Cash kicker. I already have both of those other cards and the benefits/category bonuses aren’t enough to push my spend to this card from those.

Bilt Palladium Card $495

• Annual fee:
  • $495
• Welcome bonus:
  • 50,000 Bilt Points + Gold Status (after $4,000 spend in first 3 months)
  • $300 Bilt Cash
• Rewards:
  • 4% Bilt Cash on everyday spend
  • 2X points on everyday spend
  • 1X points on rent and mortgage
• Benefits:
  • $400 Bilt Travel hotel credit ($200 every six months)
  • $200 Bilt Cash annually
• Priority Pass
• Use Bilt Cash to waive rent and mortgage transaction fees

Now…this is the real value prop IMO.

First Year value after hitting min spend:

• 50k Bilt points
• $900 of Bilt Cash/Travel credit
  • $300 from sign up, $400 travel, $200 benefit
• 2x everywhere
• 4% Bilt Cash

Let’s say you spend $3k a month.

• You’d earn 6k Bilt Points + $120 in Bilt Cash every month. At the end of a single year you’d have 72k Bilt points, $1440 Bilt Cash from spend + $500 from the bonus and benefits.
• If your mortgage was $4k and the transaction fee was 3% then you’d be earning enough Bilt Cash every month to offset the fee, and earn another 4k points per month.
• So it’d be your choice… do you want 120k Bilt points with a mortgage, or do you want the $1440 in Bilt Cash.

Personally, I’m not even looking at this card as a mortgage/rent card, but rather a double dip premium card. Earn unlimited 2x Bilt points + the Bilt Cash which I’ll likely use on hotels to earn hotel loyalty points or Home Away from Home benefits.

Don’t forget about Rent Day

Throughout the year we see 25-150% transfer bonuses with partners. Gold and Platinum usually have 75-100% bonuses. If you ONLY transfer during these big promos, you can factor that into the value prop of where to put your daily spend. Bilt has the best transfer partners and the list continues to grow.

Overall

Personally, I think the Palladium card is a winner. The other products are just fine, but the Palladium will win my spend especially because I think Bilt Points are the most valuable, and at least up until I hit Platinum status at $50k annual spend.

The downside is Rent and Mortgages won’t come without transactions fees and many people will be unhappy about this. It’s also takes a bit of education to understand Bilt Points vs Cash.

The upside. Every card is a double dip.