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Pay your rent with a credit card Fee Free with Bilt
I had the pleasure of speaking with Richard Kerr, formerly of The Points Guy, about an exciting new product that facilitates fee free rent payments for over 2 million rentals across the country called Bilt Rewards. Rent is one of the biggest expenses most people face prior to home ownership and Bilt Rewards has an answer and a new credit card.
You can transfer your points to programs like American Advantage to fly business class like Miles ( 57.5k US to Europe )
Bilt Rewards
Bilt Rewards is one of the companies owned by FinTech Venture firm, Kairos, founded by Ankur Jain. They teamed up with some of the nation’s largest property owners ( they own over 2 million properties nationwide) to create Bilt Rewards and reward renters with points just for paying their rent.
If your property is owned by one of the following companies…you’re good go:
The Blackstone Group, The Related Companies, Equity Residential, AvalonBay Communities, Inc., Camden Property Trust, Cushman & Wakefield, Trammell Crow Residential, Highmark Residential, AMLI Residential, Morgan Properties, SL Green Realty Corp., Starwood Capital Group, LivCor, GID, The Moinian Group, Veritas Investments, and Artemis Real Estate Partners.
If you rent from one of the 2 million included properties, you can earn 250 points a month just by linking your bank account and paying your rent via the app. However…it’s far more lucrative to get the credit card + they will facilitate any rent payment via the Bilt Mastercard – not just those from the listed property owners.
Bilt Rewards Mastercard Elite
Bilt Rewards officially launched today and you can join the waitlist for their credit card here. You can gain access to your digital card as soon as your approved and pay your rent with it as well; however, you’ll need to wait a few days ( 2-4) to get the physical card.
As I mentioned above, Bilt Rewards Mastercard Elite facilitates all rent payments even if you’re not a part of the 2 million properties – you’ll just charge your rent to your credit card and Bilt will pay your rent for you.
In case you were wondering, your rent will be a part of your minimum payment due – you can’t go Into debt to pay your rent.
Welcome offer:
- 3x points on your first month’s rent, up to 10k points
- 2x on everything else you spend on besides rent for 30 days
How do you earn Bilt Rewards?
It’s all about your “non-rent” spend. Since there is no fee on your rent spend, you’re incentivized to put other purchases on your Bilt Rewards Mastercard to increase your earnings on rent. It’s broken down like this:
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- Up to $250…no points
- $250 in qualifying non-rent purchases per month – earn 0.5x on rent ( 1 point per $2 spent )
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- $1000 in qualifying non-rent purchases per month – earn 1x on rent ( 1 point per $1 spent )
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- Spend $2000 in qualifying non-rent purchases per month – earn 1.5x on rent ( 1.5 point per $1 spent on rent )
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- Spend $3500 in qualifying non-rent purchases in a calendar month ( 2x per $1 on rent payment)
Note that the most points you can earn in a month on rent is 4k, or 48k or the year. This means if you live in a high rent area of the country, you’ll need to crunch the numbers. For instance, I have a friend who just moved to NYC. Her building doesn’t allow rent payments via credit card, but the Bilt Rewards Mastercard could make this work.
I’m not 100% sure what her rent is, but let’s say it’s $4k a month. To fully max out the benefits of her spend, she ought to put $1k of non-rent on the Bilt Rewards card + her rent to net 5k points per month on a $1k non-rent spend. If she had a Citi Double Cash which earns 2x on every dollar, she’s earning 3k more points than she would have otherwise.
Boosting your credit score
This is a cool option that many renters miss out on…having your paid rent reported to credit agencies. It’s a huge expense that many people aren’t acknowledged for paying
What are the Bilt Rewards travel partners?
I’m VERY impressed with the list of partners. In fact, I’m quite stunned they pulled off securing American Airlines. They will be the only transferable partner that can transfer into AA at a 1:1 ratio ( Marriott is also a partner but transfers 60k to 25k )
Minimum transfer is 5k points.
- Airline:
- AAdvantage
- Aeroplan
- Emirates Skywards
- FlyingBlue
- Miles & Smiles
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
- HawaiianMiles
- Hotel:
- World of Hyatt
Shower on a plane by redeeming 85k Emirates Skywards miles between Europe and Dubai
Other ways to use your points:
You can redeem for fitness classes ( SoulCycle, Rumble, Y7), art, home decor, and apply points against future rent payments.
You can also redeem your points towards a future downpayment on a home purchase. 500k points can be used to offset $5k on a downpayment…a penny a point.
Mastercard World Elite benefits
Yep…no annual fee and you get all these benefits. Very similar to the Chase Freedom Flex offering these bennies without an annual fee
- Cell phone insurance
- Discounts with
- Lyft, DoorDash and ShopRunner
- Book Mastercard Luxury Hotels & Resorts portfolio to get
- upgrades, free breakfast & property credits
Overall
I’m all about FinTech, and think this is a super cool new product that solves a big issue for many people: How do I earn really good points on one of the biggest expenses I have? No you have a very cool solution and I don’t really see why you wouldn’t.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Increased 80k BONUS!!! Ends 5/31/22
A Monkey Miles favorite for beginners and point pros alike – a staple of our wallet that earns Premium transferrable Ultimate Rewards. $95 annual fee
♥ Earn 80k Bonus Points after $4k Spend in 3 months
♥Points are transferrable to over dozen partners, or redeemable for 1.25c in Chase travel
♥5x on travel purchased via Chase Travel and 2x everywhere else
♥3x on dining, including eligible delivery services, takeout and dining out
♥3x on select streaming
♥ 3x points on online grocery purchases (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs
♥ $50 Annual Credit on hotel stays purchased via Ultimate Rewards. *New cardmembers can get this credit immediately – existing cardmembers get it after anniversary
♥ 10% Anniversary Point Bonus. Spend $10k in a year, get 1k bonus points.
Learn more
Curious if along with paying my own rent, I can use this card to pay my friends rent as well (assuming they obviously pay me their rent money to do so).
Hey Miles, I rent from a friend and pay via Venmo. From reading this article there’s no benefit here for me, unless I missed something?
Hey Brad – are you earning points by paying your friend via venmo? essentially bilt rewards would facilitate you paying your friend via the bilt mastercard without a fee and the earn structure would be based on how much non-rent spend you put on the card. worth crunching the numbers since the card has no annual fee.