The original Bilt 1.0 lets you use your credit card for rent with no transaction fee and gave you 1 point per dollar spent on rent. There is no catch really, so a lot of people liked it (I planned on getting it in the future too). But apparently this structure of Bilt just eating up the 3% transaction fee for rent payments wasn't profitable (what a surprise), and it was reported that Bilt's partner bank, Wells Fargo, lost 10 million dollars a month in this arrangement with Bilt. It was so bad that Wells Fargo decided to break their contract with Bilt early and that was the end of the original Bilt card.
After Wells Fargo exited their agreement early, Bilt announced Bilt 2.0. And the new card issuer would be a company called Cardless (the name is ironic since they're literally issuing cards). Bilt promised that Bilt 2.0 would be amazing, it would be the best credit card ever created and us mortals should be forever indebted to Bilt for issuing this amazing credit card. But no details were given about the new credit card at the time.
Bilt thinks they are dropping an album
Bilt then announced that they would announce all the details about their revolutionary world changing credit card on January 14th. I don't know who Bilt thinks they are but the marketing seems to all revolve around hype and waiting for this credit card drop like an artist dropping an album. They even added a count down on their website. Ok, I guess it's justified if the card is actually as good as Bilt makes it out to be.
The Leaks Are Not Looking Good
So a few days before the Bilt 2.0 dropped, somebody found leaks of the new cards in Bilt's website code. And it is definitely NOT good. Essentially Bilt is not going to just eat the 3% credit card transaction fee anymore, for every purchase you make with the Bilt card, you earn Bilt points like before but you would now also earn "Bilt Cash". What can Bilt Cash do? It can be used to pay the transaction fee! For every purchase excluding rent and mortgage, you earn 4% back as Bilt Cash. You need to redeem this Bilt cash to offset the 3% transaction fee on credit card rent payments.
This means that you need to spend 75% of your rent on regular purchases on your Bilt card in order to offset the 3% transaction fee. Nobody spends this much money on non-rent purchases, so people started hating and started calling the Bilt 2.0 trash (which it is, I won't disagree).
Bilt comes out and says the leaks are fake news!!
A few days after the leaks were posted, the CEO of Bilt came out and basically said the leaks aren't true. He says everybody can make rent and mortgage payments without a transaction fee, but he keeps intentionally using vague language and was not being clear about what he means by that specifically. And he was being very ambigious about earning points on rent. But the point is that the leaks are fake. Ok let's wait until 1/14 and see then.
The leaks were NOT fake news
Yeah everything about the leaks were real. Looking at their announcement post it's funny how hard they are trying to avoid saying the word "transaction fee". Instead of saying that you have to pay a 3% transaction fee, they say
for every $30 in Bilt Cash earned, unlock 1,000 Bilt Points on rent or mortgage payments
Maybe I'm stupid, but since rent gives 1 point per dollar, 1,000 Bilt points means $1,000 paid in rent. This is kind of a very obscure and convoluted way of saying that you are paying $30 on a $1000 rent payment, which means you are paying a 3% transaction fee. But since Bilt doesn't say the word transaction fee I guess it doesn't exist.
So yeah I don't think Bilt is worth it, let's even say that you spend $2000 on rent and $1500 on other stuff, meaning you have a perfect 75% ratio of non-rent spend. Let's say you spent $500 on dining, $500 on groceries, and $500 on other categories like Amazon or clothes or whatever.
If you get the Bilt Blue Card with the $0 annual fee, you would get 1500 points from the non-rent spend, and you can use the Bilt Cash earned from those transactions to "unlock" (this is still such a funny way to say that you have to pay a 3% transaction fee) 2000 points in rent spend rewards. So a total of 3500 points from all that. You would only get this "optimal" cash back if you spend exactly 75% of your rent in non-rent purchase, any more or any less would result in less rewards.
If you get a Capital One Savor card with $0 annual fee that gives 3% back on dining and groceries and then a 2% back card like the Fidelity credit card or the Apple Card if you use Apple Pay, then you would get a total of $40 back, which is basically like 4000 points back, and you also wouldn't have to go through all the hassle of putting your rent on your credit card and you don't have to spend exactly 75% of your rent on non-rent purchases. This is also not counting other no annual fee cards that gives even better rewards.
Conclusion
Bilt 2.0 over promised and under delivered, how surprising. Now Bilt is trying to compete against the "normal" credit cards, which is just a losing battle especially when your entire brand is built around being able to earn rewards for paying your rent.
