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If you’re a renter, Bilt Rewards makes it super easy for you to pay rent with a credit card – fee free. Yes, you read that right. Ordinarily, you’d have to pay a transaction fee to earn points on your rent. Bilt changed the game when they offered a no annual fee card that allows you to earn points when you rent ( so long as you make 5 other transactions per month ). Heck, they will even mail your landlord a check if your landlord isn’t in the Bilt Alliance, and Bilt works if your landlord accepts Venmo, PayPal, or ACH . I’m a senior advisor with the company and they have been steadily adding more and more benefits and partners ever since I partnered up. June 30th, they announced their new Bilt Rewards Travel Portal which allows you to redeem your Bilt Rewards at 1.25c per point – the same as the Chase Sapphire Preferred.
Bilt Rewards Transfer Partners
Up until June 30th, the only way to redeem points was to transfer.
Now you can use the Bilt Rewards Travel Portal – powered by Expedia to redeem and earn points.
The Bilt Rewards Travel Portal is powered by Expedia meaning, if you see a flight, hotel, activity – heck even Disney or Universal tickets for sale on Expedia… you will see them here as well.
Here’s an example of what a search looks like in NYC…
Earning and burning points in the portal
- Bilt Rewards Mastercard members will earn 2x on all transactions in portal
- Bilt Rewards members ( non credit card holders ) earn 1x
You can use your points at a fixed 1.25c valuation on anything you find in the portal
Bilt Travel Comparison Feature
There is a new function that will allow you to compare the Bilt Travel Portal with 3 transfer partners: American, Aeroplan, and United. This way you can choose which is the best use of your points.
Recap
I think the Bilt Rewards Mastercard is a great card for those who want a straight forward seamless way to earn points that can be redeemed at a competitive rate and transferred to partners. Are there other ways to pay rent with a credit card? Sure… you could buy gift cards, money orders, blah blah blah. Most people won’t do this, and Bilt has found an innovative way to capture a massive market segment that currently most people don’t earn points on.
- New Bilt Travel Portal powered by Expedia with 1.25c redemption rate
- Earn at 2x if you have the credit card, 1x as a member
- New Toggle feature introduced for comparisons.
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
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