BILT just rolled out BILT 2.0 with the card issuer Cardless, and the program looks very different compared to the past Wells Fargo version.
In this episode of the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast, Justin Vacula and frequent co-host Darren explain the new BILT credit cards, including Palladium, Obsidian, and BILT Blue with a focus on real-world value, rewards math, and the new BILT Cash system.
We cover what’s changing, what’s worth it, and what to watch out for: earning structures, annual fees, potential signup bonus value, and how these updates impact points-and-miles strategy for renters and non-renters.
We also dig into transfer partners, optimization ideas, and the biggest criticisms and risks people are discussing, including listener questions about the transition and potential issues.
If you’re trying to decide whether to keep BILT, upgrade, downgrade, or ignore the new lineup entirely, this episode is your BILT 2.0 guide, highlighting positives, negatives, and areas BILT can improve on.
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro – BILT 2.0 is here
00:44 What changed in the BILT 2.0 rollout
03:06 BILT Palladium card: perks, fees, and who it’s for
07:15 BILT Obsidian card: earning rates, benefits, value
12:59 BILT Blue card: no-fee option + basics
19:51 Announcements/sponsors
20:53 BILT Cash explained (what it is + why it matters)
27:07 Criticisms of the new BILT model
28:18 Complexity, ecosystem concerns, and fine print
29:55 Listener questions: worries, adjustments, and strategy
31:04 Card transition issues + what to expect
34:36 Rewards math: how to evaluate value & opportunity cost
42:11 Side-by-side comparison: Palladium vs Obsidian vs Blue
47:22 Final thoughts + what we’re watching next
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Rough Transcript:
[00:00:00] Travel at low cost with points and miles. Credit card rewards bring the smiles. Many adventures tales to be told, make and save money, the world will unfold.
Fight the war on happiness. Pick up the gold. Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast breaks the mold.
You’re listening to the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast. I’m your host, Justin Vacula, here to help you make money, save money, and travel the world in next to no cost with credit card points, miles, benefits, and loyalty programs. In today’s episode, frequent co-host Darren joins me to discuss the new BILT BILT credit card rollout.
We’ll discuss the positives, negatives, and areas BILT can continue to improve upon. Visit [00:01:00] Meetup.com/PhillyMilesAndPoints to RSVP for monthly Greater Philadelphia Travel Credit Miles and Points meetups I host in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. The next meetups in 2026 are February 22nd and March 22nd.
Find a link in the show notes for more content between shows. Follow Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast on Facebook and x. Follow Justin Vacula on Instagram. Subscribe to Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast on YouTube for daily content including travel videos, podcast clips, and posts. Find more information, including select episode transcripts at HurdyGurdyTravel.com.
On with today’s episode recorded January 19th, 2026. Welcome back to the show, Darren. Thanks, Justin. Feels like I was just here, but I know it’s been a couple weeks, so thanks for having me back. Excellent. We’ve often used the phrase, America loves math in the show, and we’re definitely gonna use it today with a new BILT program.
We said it’s okay for BILT to use it. Frequent Miler has commented on [00:02:00] the BILT program, lots of math involved. Justin, I want all our listeners to get their calculators ready. You may need a scientific calculator for this, so make sure you’re, you have that available. It’s gonna be a challenging day of math.
This BILT 2.0 rollout happened a few days ago. I was in Atlantis. We’re here to discuss, I believe it was supposed to happen in February. If I’m not mistaken, or maybe the card released, but then all of a sudden it was mid-January. Yeah. The BILT card, like you said, has been generating a lot of hype.
Seems like there was a lot of, there was a leaked, a bit of information which then was addressed by their vice president of rewards, Richard Kerr, and he talked about maybe there being some truth to those rumors, but. I think Justin, now that we have the actual information about these cards, at least as of January 19th, because there have been some updates since the initial rollout, and who’s to say there won’t be more updates, but as of today, January 19th, 7:00 PM [00:03:00] Eastern Time, we have a pretty good idea of what looks like and it looks a lot like the rumors that were previously circulated.
We have the Palladium Card, $495 annual fee, but a welcome bonus. 50,000 BILT points plus gold elite status after spending 4,000 in three months. Also earn an additional $300 in BILT cash after application approval and we’ll get into that. What is BILT cash, everyday earning structure. Earn unlimited two points per dollar spent on everyday spending.
Housing earning structure. Earn one point per dollar spent on mortgage and rent payments. Receive 4% back in BILT cash on everyday spending purchases. You can use BILT cash to unlock fee free points earning up to one point per dollar on your housing payments, or you can earn points on housing payments via a tiered spending system.
Receive a $400 annual [00:04:00] BILT travel portal, hotel credit, 200 available bi-annually. In the terms, it says that it has to be a minimum two night stay. Receive $200 in BILT cash annually and enjoy a Priority Pass membership. I do like the signup bonus on this card. 50,000 points. We have a 495 annual fee, but those 50,000 BILT points could be transferred to Atmos for rewards, formerly Alaska or World of Hyatt.
I think these BILT points are quite valuable and overtaking the annual fee. I like the two X earnings on everyday spending or other spending other than the one X on mortgage and rent. And this 4% back in BILT cash, I promise we will get into later. It seems like quite a strong card. Even if you don’t even use it on rent or mortgage.
I wish they would’ve called it BILT bucks or BILT bananas, even something with some alliteration. Justin, I think [00:05:00] that would’ve been better. Yeah, like you said, 4% in new currency. We’re not quite sure what that means yet, no matter what you call it. And I think there’s maybe a lot to decide here still on how valuable that is and how valuable that 4% is.
But like you said, upfront, we do like the signup bonus. We do like the gold elite status that comes along with it. I like that the BILT cash, it comes along. That helps you pay for your first month’s rent with BILT cash. We know at least that’s one thing that BILT cash or BILT bucks or BILT bananas will do for you.
And the hotel credits are fine, and I’m sure we can both find a way to use that somewhere along the line. Otherwise, there’s a 3% fee, at least with the initial release on paying your rent. You need to spend to get this BILT cash to offset the cost of your rent. Or mortgage. It can get a little bit mathy there.
And this is prohibitive, I think for people with higher rent. I saw some commenters in [00:06:00] different groups saying they pay for assisted living. They pay for houses where multiple people live. They have to pay a mortgage or rent on those. So for someone with a rent of somewhere around 1500 versus someone with rent or mortgage around 5,000 a month, they have to spend a lot more to earn the BILT cash, at least with the original model.
And we’ll get into the second model later, the original updated model, right, Justin? Because this is BILT 2.0, which is already 2.1. Now, I guess I’m not sure how they’re discussing that, but yeah, I think one nice thing about BILT 2.0 or 2.1, this next version is that the cap on the amount of rent that you pay and earn points is gone, right?
If you want to pay your own rent and your own mortgage and your parents or grandparents mortgage and your kids’ mortgage and your dog’s house mortgage, not that we have dogs that have credit cards, Justin, but hypothetically, if we did, we could pay for that too. Right? All of those things. So really, it just depends [00:07:00] on, I think it’s really only limited by your credit limit now because in order to get that fee free, you have to spend enough on your BILT card to generate BILT cash to then pay your mortgage or rent.
Good so far, but we also have the obsidian card. This is a $95 annual fee. The welcome bonus is only $200 in BILT cash. You get three x on dining or grocery, you have to pick, and from what I’m seeing, it locks you into that for the entire year, three x up to 25,000 per year.
This is similar to the Amex Gold card, giving you four X membership rewards up to 25,000 per year. Two on travel, one X everywhere else, one x on mortgage or rent. 4% BILT cash on everyday spending and a $100 annual BILT travel portal, hotel credit, $50 BI-annually per calendar year. It seems cool with the three X on grocery if you’re happening [00:08:00] to spend a lot at grocery and creative ways.
It doesn’t come with the 50,000 points and that three x is capped versus the two X everywhere, and there are a lot of grocery earning credit cards. So personally I don’t like the obsidian. I think the play is to just bite the bullet, pay the 4 95 annual fee to get the higher welcome bonus and the two x everywhere.
Yeah, we did some napkin math the other day, Justin, when we were talking about this show and different card options. I know you’ve already applied. I have not yet. I’ve been waiting to see if there’s any more changes before the January 30th deadline as a current BILT card holder, I think for someone that’s maybe not as an aggressive spender, maybe not doing a lot of the creative spend that we talk about Justin, this might be the card for them.
If they have a $25,000 cap on grocery and their rent or mortgage is in that same ballpark. They could, in theory, get close to that four points per dollar spend and we’ll work through the math later when they, if they’re [00:09:00] paying their mortgage through BILT platform. So very competitive.
I think with, like you said, the Amex Gold, personal gold at maybe a slight reduction in annual fee cost. More transfer partners potentially. It is a lot of competition in that grocery space, as you mentioned. But maybe it is an opportunity for for listeners or. BILT card holders that are the average Joe or Jane to get into the BILT card space without the big upfront fee.
One of the first episodes of the podcast I recorded several years ago was Don’t sweat the annual fees. This is a common thing I hear from people, oh, I don’t want to pay annual fees. But I think the proper perspective is to see annual fees as a good investment and this 4 95 annual fee for 50,000 BILT points and the two x everywhere, I think is really good and some people have been critical of this model of the BILT cash, oh, I’ll need to spend to get the BILT cash. And perhaps this was with the old system, it [00:10:00] was fee free with no catch that you needed to spend. People would make five small transactions every month, whether they be bananas as BILT, has been joking about Amazon loads, something else, and then they would just pay their rent and get those points for paying rent.
Now with the new system, people are saying, oh, well I don’t spend much, I don’t know if I can reach the spend goal. And that’s been a lot of criticism that there’s an if with this, with at least the initial release requiring the BILT cash to offset the cost of rent. And like you said, Justin, I think generally speaking, for those that are, I don’t know, I don’t wanna say more advanced, but more invested perhaps in this hobby and are planning to do some creative spending and will certainly all maximize the.
If the two x on the credit line they have. Yeah, the 4 95 is a good investment. If someone has been transitioning from the BILT no annual fee BILT card has really just been accumulating points by paying rent and maybe not all banana purchases, but a few purchases along the way. [00:11:00] Maybe they’re not ready.
They don’t have that spend yet. I think this is a reasonable card that there’s still a lot of value in. It’s just a matter of where you are in this in this hobby. Okay, so maybe beginners, but for people that are more intermediate to advanced, I think they should just pull the trigger and get the palladium if they’re to get anything.
And from my understanding, you only get to pick one, at least that’s the current rule, or at least in the first year you get one and you can’t get another card. You can only have one card at a time. Is that right? Is that your understanding? That is my understanding as well. There was a frequently asked questions.
One of the questions was, can you have more than one card? And it said no. Another question that you and I have, Justin, I don’t think we know the answer to either, is, can you upgrade or downgrade these cards with cardless? With BILT, it’s not clear yet. Again, one potential strategy would be for folks to sign up for the large annual fee card, get the large signup bonus the gold status, maybe increase their ability to [00:12:00] transfer at a higher multiplier to partners.
After the first year, if it’s didn’t work out for them, they didn’t spend as much money as they would like, they could downgrade to the obsidian or the blue card, which we’re gonna talk about here in a minute. We don’t know the answer to that yet, if that’s a possibility. I know, Justin, you do have another Cardless card, correct?
I do have the Qatar card with Cardless, which was the first year high annual fee. It gave me a signup bonus, and Privilege Club Gold status, which got me into many American Airlines lounges because unfortunately Citi doesn’t like me. War On Happiness. I’m not sure what the rules are with that card either if I’m able to downgrade, but we’ll find out.
Yeah, it’s not yet a year. That’d be a great listener question if you are in it for life. It would be frustrating, right? If you wanted to downgrade your card and you had to cancel your card and then reapply. How would that go? What would cardless think about that?
Sounds challenging. Ooh, yes. That’s, and it would be another podcast for 2027, but, listeners don’t get the year wrong. Yeah. Yes. I [00:13:00] do have the blue though, as promised here, blue is zero annual fee. Welcome bonus, $100 in BILT cash, one x on everyday spending, one x on rent, 4% BILT cash on everyday spending.
So not much going on with the blue. It’s a similar version of the Wells Fargo, I imagine, is what they were going for. But then of course, there’s the catch of the BILT cash to offset the cost of rent. At least with the initial release I got approved for the Palladium card. I think again, that was a very easy decision.
Justin, I have no doubt for you the Palladium card is the right card. You will certainly take advantage of the credit limit. Take advantage, maybe be since a little pejorative but not intended to be. You will maximize. How about that? The credit limit that Cardless has provided to you, you’ll make cardless money for sure through the transaction fees, and I know that you will ensure that you’re maximizing your BILT rewards along the way as well.
Yes. This is the system they put out. We’re just [00:14:00] simply understanding the terms and conditions and using credit to our advantage. And of course, the banks are still making money from those transaction fees. Yeah, I think what’s clear with this update. Updated card is they’re looking for a way to make this card more sustainable.
If you listen to Richard Kerr, if you listen to anyone from BILT, they’ll tell you, BILT is not a credit card first program, right? It’s a rent, it’s a lifestyle platform. It just so happens that credit cards are a common way in the United States that we link rewards with our spending and a whole host of things.
It’s to attract new users into the program. The first version prior to Wells Fargo was what? Evolve Bank, Justin, is that right? Ooh, yes. They got caught up in a lot of, yeah, so that didn’t work out. And then they trans transitioned to Wells Fargo and I, geez, I don’t have any data on this. I didn’t look up the spending reports or financial reports, but [00:15:00] it sounds like it wasn’t a good match.
Wells Fargo expected more than what apparently BILT, was able to provide. Or for some reason it didn’t work out. And now they’ve trans transitioned over to Cardless who’s maybe looking to make a little bigger splash in the US market. And now they’ve tiered these cards to try to attract different people at different levels while also making sure that the program on the credit card side at least, is sustainable.
It’s an interesting approach. It makes sense. It certainly builds on. What Richard Kerr has been doing since he surfaced in the Points and Miles world 15 years ago with some of the Facebook groups and some of the other gigs he’s had he sees it from both ways.
I certainly could imagine that he’s trying to find something that enthusiasts like ourselves, Justin will find attractive Palladium card and folks that are just looking for a no annual fee way to benefit from their rent can still use the blue card and get [00:16:00] that. That’s a good synopsis. And Wells Fargo lost a lot of money from what I saw.
So maybe the future can be nothing or a new model that’s sustainable, as you were saying. And BILT cash is part of this model, but we don’t have much information about it. It’s January 19th, the release was about a week ago. We don’t have many details on this BILT cash other than you can earn and redeem.
But how much can you use per month BILT? Says Lyft rides will be an option for BILT cash, but how much per month can it reduce the ride cost to zero? The details would be great to know, especially in the rollout, to encourage people to get the cards. Is it in BILT We Trust in Ankur Jain we trust? In Richard Kerr
we trust. Yeah. A little bit right now. Yes. Right. Richard Kerr and team are basically saying, Hey, we’ve provided a exceptionally valuable platform. Trust us, that we’ll continue to [00:17:00] maximize how you can earn and redeem rewards. Whether those are BILT rewards or BILT cash. I think at a minimum, the one thing that is concerning to me about BILT cash is it expires.
You can only roll over a hundred dollars in BILT cash. There’s no FreshPass like Acme here, Justin. You’re gonna have to burn ’em. I could see someone who’s trying to maximize credit lines, maximize that two x with the palladium card getting to Jan, or excuse me, getting to November or December and trying to figure out how am I gonna be able to burn all this BILT cash before the end of the year?
Because otherwise you’ve reduced the value of the card because you’re not able to redeem those. Essentially cash those out through mortgage or through rent, or maybe through Lyft, maybe through, it’d be great if you could book through BILT travel portal, right? That would be ideal. Or buy BILT points.
Even at 2 cents a point, you could get what? 4% you [00:18:00] could get another two BILT rewards points. And so now it becomes a 4x card. Who wouldn’t be excited about a 4x Alaska or four X Hyatt card? Yes, I think home delivery also an option. Restaurant’s also an option, but those might be quite limited.
Maybe there aren’t many restaurants in your area or they put a cap, something like $10 off your order, but you have to make a minimum order, $20 or even higher than that. But the BILT cash might be considered as gravy if you’re getting two X everywhere and the 4%. At least you’re still getting the two X everywhere, so hopefully the BILT cash will be worth at least another 1%.
I will take that. I really do think they should change that. Maybe they can do, I believe a FIFO model first in, first out, that if you were to earn in December, then those December rewards would be good for maybe six months, and then the rewards earned earlier in the year would be [00:19:00] used first rather than expiring.
I think that would be fair because otherwise what’s gonna happen November, December, people don’t put spend on the card ’cause they don’t want the BILT cash to expire. Yeah. It doesn’t make sense. Right. Because that’s gonna be a two typically high spend months with black Friday and then going into the holidays.
Those are where I would think a lot of credit cards are making their money. You don’t wanna have your customers shift their spending away from your card towards a different card because they can’t use all the rewards. I’m with you, Justin. I think the two x card, if you’re using it to pay rent and or your rent, someone else’s rent, I think it’s an effective three three, not quite 3.5% card.
That’s, again, very attractive. It’s not quite the old altitude reserve and it’s not the, some of the Chase ink cards where you get five x, but those are capped more than what this card would be capped at, which essentially would just be your credit limit.
Alright, we’ll take a short break for announcements.
I’ll be speaking at and helping organize frequent Traveler University conference in Irving, Texas near the [00:20:00] DFW airport. Join me from May 1st through the third 2026 at the NYLO Las Colinas Hotel by Hilton for social events and educational sessions. Ticket sales are live $200 for FTU members in $249 for non-members.
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Use my link HurdyGurdyTravel for a discount on annual and lifetime plans. We’ll get back into it, talking about the BILT 2.0 rollout and BILT cash.
One confirmed part about BILT cash is that you can use it to pay fees associated with rent. Fees you say? [00:21:00] The older BILT system was no fee and you only needed five transactions in one month.
BILT joked about this many times during the launch and throughout this process, but now you have to earn BILT cash through ongoing spending on the card and the BILT cash is also earned from signup, bonuses and annual credits. Some people aren’t liking this change, especially some saying they’re low spenders and they want to prioritize category bonuses on other cards.
I think though they’re missing the larger picture, especially since the Palladium card earns two x on everything, plus the four X BILT cash. That’s really strong, especially in year one, getting the welcome bonus. Obsidian, we have the three x grocery plus the 4% BILT cash. What do you think? They’re just looking to make their five transactions, pay their rent, and that was it.
But I think BILT wants more out of cardholders, and I think that those low spenders are missing a lot of opportunity as well, especially with the new system. I don’t know that there’s gonna be any system that you can buy five bananas Right? Anymore, or five [00:22:00] very low transactions. You’re right. I don’t think that’s a model that’s gonna work for BILT anymore.
And clearly that’s a model that BILT is trying to move against that. They want you to be a genuine credit card user and probably spread your payments out over a variety of things. I don’t know what they’ll think if, hypothetically, Justin, you spent. You got the obsidian card and spent all $25,000 just at the grocery store in 500, $500 and 95 cents increment.
I would never do that. I would, of course, split, split tenders. There’s some things here the model shifted again. I think we all want, I won’t say we all, I certainly want the BILT model to succeed. I think like everything else, the more opportunities we have for various reward
partners out there. That’s good. That drives more competition, more transfer bonuses, more folks that have airlines or hotels that other folks don’t have. Right. So you can see it with Alaska, with BILT, you can see it with Citi and American. You can see it with Rove and, Lufthans a. [00:23:00] Right.
That was a new one. The more we have, the more transfer partners we have, the better off. I think we are in this game as we’re trying to put our flights together, put our hotel stays together. It’s nice to have options. I wish this was a little more straightforward in how they rolled this out, especially when they came back and said, oh wait, lemme clear this up for everybody.
And then Justin, they did not clear it up for anybody. It was as far as I can tell. I think it added more math and more confusion. It made it more complicated, and some people aren’t looking for the complex they’re looking for the simpler. They said BILT cardholders will never be charged a fee to earn rewards on housing payments, but many argue that this still is a fee since BILT cash has to be used to offset the rent.
Then they introduced a new model for no BILT cash needed, but then everyday spend won’t earn BILT cash. Thus was born a BILT 2.0 0.1, or maybe BILT three, where America really loves math. They say if your monthly rent is [00:24:00] $2,000, this is definitely an America Loves Math moment. You earn 0.5 x points. If you spend 25% of your rent, which would be $500, earn 0.75 x points, if you spend at least 50% of your monthly rent, which would be $1,000.
Earn one x. If you spend at least 75% of your monthly rent, 1500, earn 1.25 x if you spend the same or more than your monthly rent, 2000. It’s interesting, you can earn better than one X on the rent, but then you’re giving up the 4% in BILT cash and is that extra 0.25 x really worth it when you could just spend more on then use the BILT cash to offset.
That got into many calculators, simulations, spreadsheets. Ironic how that happened, by the way, is this is a program that I think was supposed to make life simpler for people, but then made it [00:25:00] more complex and math. Essentially what I see they have done here is converted BILT cash to a multiplier on your rent.
I think one of the problems with BILT cash is we don’t know what it’s worth. We don’t know how valuable it is because we don’t know what else you can use it to redeem. So we definitely know rent. That’s great, but what else can we use it for? Because otherwise there’s really not a lot of incentive to spend much more money than your rent.
What else are you gonna use it for? It expires at the end of the year. Maybe it’s Lyft. Maybe it’s Uber Eats. Maybe it’s Panera sip. Panera Sip Club would be great. Acne Fresh Pass. Please BILT. Please BILT. What else can we throw in there? If we’re gonna put GoPuff came in, we already told them to go puff themselves that they’re gonna bring that.
Oh, that’s back to GameStop, maybe. Yeah, right. On the one hand, we don’t want more I’ll say I don’t want more coupons to try to redeem and capture on the other hand. What can we, it seems like this BILT cash is probably gonna be capped in [00:26:00] some way. Limited in how you do it. It’d be great if it wasn’t and we just don’t know.
And that’s like you said, where the trust me part comes in. So for me, again, I’m hoping that by the end of this month, they’ll have more information on BILT cash and they’ll be able to share what other ways that we can redeem that. And that would give me an idea of what its value is to me. Help me decide where we’re going with this.
I know, Richard Kerr has also said he’ll come on the Hurdy Gurdy Travel podcast. Justin, so listeners and I have some questions as well about upgrading and downgrading. What about rent day? If you get the Palladium card and it’s normally two x, will it be four x everywhere on rent day and will that still have a thousand dollars cap?
That’s still a pretty good, again, where else can you get four X Atmos or Alaska miles? There’s some things there that certainly could be valuable. We just don’t have the whole picture yet, is the challenge. Yes, we’re showing the positives and the areas for [00:27:00] improvement or the criticisms we have, so hopefully Richard would come on and discuss that.
We’ll see how that pans out. We have another criticism. The original BILT model shifted. Previously you would charge rent directly to the BILT credit card, which gives you additional time to pay if you want it. In one case, you could say, I pay my rent on the first of the month, but I have my statement close, maybe week three of the previous month.
You charge your rent to the card and you aim to zero the balance on the card before the statement closed so you don’t tank your credit. Some people appreciate the float. One podcast listener said, I collect money from roommates. It takes a little bit to get paid. My suggestion was they should just pay on time.
But maybe that’s not realistic in all scenarios. I also said, Hey, have more money behind so you’re not in a bad spot if they just pay a few days late. Not ideal, but some people liked the charging directly to credit, but now the only option is direct to [00:28:00] ACH. The checking account attached to your BILT card BILT says the upside is that you have more spending power and you don’t pay interest on rent.
The downside though, many say, is that they don’t pay interest. They pay everything in full. They just want the extra time to pay. I think that’s a fair criticism. Justin. It’s interesting, this whole new BILT ecosystem. Is complicated enough that it almost is a deterrent for people that aren’t as invested maybe as you or I are in the system.
Right? Ooh, what if that were intentional? They just wanted more intentional people who are spending more, so maybe. I don’t know. That’s a feature. I think it’s a bug. I think when you’re a rewards enthusiast and have been for many years, even if you say you’re trying to attract the common average, Joe or Jane, there are some things that seem simpler to you.
Than most people who are accustomed to maybe to a straight 2% cash back card. Right? The Citi DoubleCash is the great example, and all [00:29:00] of a sudden you layer on top this extra currency and people don’t know what to do with it or how they’re gonna use it. Maybe you and I like we’re okay with that.
We’ve been in some of those uncomfortable positions before where we’re signing up for bonuses. It’s transferrable currency or maybe it’s an avios currency that we’re gonna transfer out of that specific airline to a different avios. And we have some ideas on how we can use it, but we don’t a hundred percent know how to redeem it yet.
For the average Joe or Jane, I don’t know are they interested in this? Are they gonna get out their scientific calculators? And I think it’s almost like the El Camino as a classic example of someone that had good intentions and wanted to try to combine things and make it useful. But in the end, Justin is not a good car and it’s not a good truck.
And that’s wonder if I’m a little bit, that’s where we are with this BILT card or BILT cards. We have different options, but the overall ecosystem is complicated. It’ll be interesting to see what happens. As an aside, there, there are a lot [00:30:00] of people that, for whatever reason, don’t like Richard Kerr and the haters come out of the woodwork when something like this, even a perceived negative change, they are right there and they’re predicting not only you know that this is not gonna go well and they’ll have to do this and that and the other.
But they’re even reporting or even predicting the downfall of the BILT platform altogether. And they still are a startup company, right? They’ve just gone through another round of funding. I don’t think there’s a big risk of that, but that’s something to keep in mind that all points like we learned with the Mesa card, Justin, all points can be taken away just as easily as they can be given, and they’re not always redeemable in the way we wanna redeem them.
Just keep that in mind as folks are signing up and planning to earn. Make sure you have a burn strategy as well. Burn that BILT cash, and if you were already a BILT cardholder with Wells Fargo. It appears to be the case that it’s not a hard pull, not a new open account appearing on your [00:31:00] credit report, so it doesn’t seem like you have too much to lose.
Moving from Wells Fargo to cardless, although some people were saying they got denied for the new cardless card and even lower credit limits Ankur Jain BILT CEO. He sent out an email apologizing for this and saying that he’s working on following up for people who were declined. Again, I think it’s a little bumpier transition than most folks anticipated.
I’m trying to think back. When BILT transition from Evolve to Wells Fargo, I think that did require a different application, separate application, and a hard pull. So for those folks that are sensitive to your 5 24 and Chase card status. Maybe that’s a thing, but I think the idea was no hard pull, but whether a new card appearing on your credit counts as a new card, whether it’s a hard pull or not.
Still to be determined with Chase, right? I think [00:32:00] that was a no, but people in the comments could say if they saw something, if they transitioned and then they saw a new account opened and this impacted their chase status. That’s some more questions that people have and it’s some uncertainty that people don’t like.
It also could be some psychological pressure of, if I get this card, I’m going to have to spend this amount per month, and what happens if I don’t do that? And they’re hesitant to sign up. I wonder if there was some kind of focus group if they said Hey, we want to have this beta test. Don’t share this information with others, but we’re gonna get people in miles and points to say, what do you think about this system?
And if I were included in this, and I think if many other content creators were, they would say, okay, you need to at least spell out what this BILT Cash does and how you redeem it, rather than just promising redemptions. But then people don’t know what’s going to happen with that. Yeah, a hundred percent have seen Richard Kerr in a variety of places over the last 15 years.
He has the [00:33:00] connections in the industry, right? I know there’s a BILT advisory team. He talks with Ed Pizza commonly on their podcast, so it’s not like he lacks for input from that group. Again, it’s a group of people that are very invested in the reward space, right? Like you and me. BILT cash.
Sure. That sounds like we could figure that out on how to make it valuable. Just more creative and smart people. But for someone that is just signing up for a new card, maybe they only have one other card, or maybe they had one out the card for their daily spending and then they had the BILT card for their rent.
Are they gonna pay $500 I don’t know. It seems unlikely. Hopefully they would level up or they can get the BILT blue or the obsidian. Yeah, but some interesting psychological things going on. I think people really were invested in the old product.
They really liked it. And when something changed requiring more spend or just a general change to the system or more effort, people abandon ship rather than adjusting. Taking advantage of new opportunities. [00:34:00] We’ve seen many changes, but we’ve adjusted. Negative changes are common in miles and points. We can’t change, that’s for sure, but we can
adjust to it. I think it was a few weeks ago, a common gift card spot stopped accepting credit cards for certain gift cards, and that’s going to put a damper in my plans. And another gift card spot started charging activation fees in certain cards that used to be fee free. We can’t change this. There are always going to be negative things that happen, but the question is how do we adjust?
Absolutely. Again, that’s for folks who are fairly invested in the credit card space. When you have, call it more than three credit cards, right? Maybe you have an everyday spend card, a BILT card, and a store card. But the answer to everything for you and me, Justin, that seems to be the case. Certainly, we just exchanged referrals on some American Express cards, right?
Looking for ways to earn some more membership reward points. [00:35:00] I don’t know. That’s the case for everybody and maybe it’s the case for our listeners, and so I, I should focus more on that, that, geez, if they’re listening to the podcast, if they found this podcast, certainly they’re very interested in travel and if they’re interested in travel, certainly we know Justin, the answer to most ways to travel more cheaply every way that’s say everybody is more credit cards.
Yeah. So adjusting when the negative changes happen, and then when there’s some upside, like two x everywhere or three x grocery. Whatever the case might be, these could be things to be happy about, and I’ll certainly be happy if I could redeem that. Lyft Cash. Ooh, ooh, I said the Lyft Cash, the BILT cash for Lyft, for airport rides, for quick transfers from airports to hotels.
That would be pretty nice, but we’ll see how that pans out. But at least I’m getting my two x and for me, this will be a good way to get Atmos or Alaska, because I recently got denied for a BOA card. Earning Atmos or Alaska, I have a lot of [00:36:00] opportunities to fly out of Philadelphia with these AA code shared flights, so I can be appreciative of getting these BILT points and transferring it to Atmos.
I’m really happy about that. And Wells Fargo doesn’t like me, just like Citi doesn’t like me, so I wasn’t able to get the old Wells Fargo BILT card. In my circumstance, cardless is an enhancement. Definitely a feature, not a bug for you. Justin, welcome to the BILT portfolio. Earning BILT cash with your BILT rewards, maybe paying your rent.
What do you think about that change? They’re charging this BILT cash, or they have the new model where they say that there’s no fee. So BILT has changed from being a credit card that allows you to pay rent to a credit card to more of a middleman between an a CH. Would that be an apt description? Yeah, I think so.
So now to your point, there is no fee to pay your rent through the BILT system. You’re not paying your rent or mortgage with the credit card at all. You’re paying an ACH. So why would there [00:37:00] be a fee? Right? The only caveat there is whether you earn points on rent, which was always the thing that set them apart.
I feel like it’s like the Southwest, will always let you fly with two bags free, but now we’re gonna charge you something for them. If there’s not exactly a charge, I guess maybe the question is, will there still be, if you wanna use something other than, and this, I don’t know if this exists anymore, if you wanna use something other than ACH, right?
It used to be if you wanted to use something other than the BILT card, if you want to use your Alaska card, for example, and pay your rent with that through the BILT system, can you do that? And can you use BILT cash for that? Or do you have to pay a 3% processing fee? Right? So I think those are some of the questions I still have.
I don’t know that it matters to me, and I hope it doesn’t matter to most folks that they’re able to pay through ACH instead of their card and still earn money. I think it’s probably a lower risk endeavor for most folks because heaven forbid you forget to pay or it’s a day late and you end up with a late [00:38:00] fee or an interest charge.
This would reduce risk for that. Other than that, I don’t know that it makes a difference to me. Justin, does it make a difference to you? Not to me, no. But a listener was concerned about that because he is paying about $5,000 a month in rent, and he wanted the extra time to pay rather than having it directly going to ACH.
But I told him it’s just important to have extra money behind. And all will be well, especially when you’re using other credit cards that you have to generate money that you’re engaged in reselling, that you’re engaged in online gambling, so you have these extra funds that you could use to pay for the rent.
If the roommates take a little bit longer to pay or you have to pay immediately, versus zeroing the balance in two or three weeks, I don’t think it should make that much of a difference. I agree with that. And did some quick calculator math here, trying to figure out. What is that really worth a month?
If you say, every month I could keep an extra $5,000 in the bank for an extra month [00:39:00] instead of paying my mortgage or my rent directly. Okay. That’s another consideration I like. That would be one way to think about it. So what’s the opportunity cost? I know Justin, you are banking at the Bank of Verizon lately, right?
Yes, and this is a good tip for listeners. If you’re a Verizon customer, you really, really should consider the open bank account with them. That’s serviced by Santander, or Santander. It’s 4.2% APY, and if you have a thousand dollars, you save $5 a month on your phone bill. So the APY alone is very good, and an extra $5 in savings is really nice.
So if your rent is $5,000 and you’re getting 4.2 APY, that would be $210 a year. Divided by 12 months is about $17 and 50 cents. If you had that money parked for the entire month, America loves math. I was thinking about this today, right? ’cause we had just talked about banking at Verizon, but I think you could get an effective 4.8% on a thousand dollars, 4.2% plus your $60 a [00:40:00] year.
That’s $5 times 12 months. 60 and 60 divided by a thousand is 0.6%. So an effective 4.8% at current rates, call it 5%. So 5% a year, you’re talking about on $5,000, right? That’s $250 a year. Perhaps you’re giving up if that was the alternative you’re keeping that money in your Verizon account for a little longer or some other high APY account, Laurel Road or some other thing like that.
Wealth Front Wealth, another one. Yep. There’s a few like that. So it’s not, nothing. $250 is not nothing. Certainly we have done more for less. Justin, we have done more for less than for sure. But that’s in the grand scheme of things, I hope you’re able to get more out of these cards and out of paying your rent through BILT than the $250.
I’m sure the extra month does help. But it should hopefully be just a one-time pain point and like you say if you really want to keep that money in there. There’s probably ways to rearrange some of your other cards to ensure that shoot your BILT card, [00:41:00] maybe you can charge some expenses there and have a little bit of a miniature infinite money loop in order to push your expenses off a month.
Yes. And also business cards aren’t reporting to personal credit. If using business cards to generate spend getting that money back, and then you could simply use that money and you have additional float. And the float isn’t as quantifiable. 5,000 isn’t the smallest number in the world versus someone that only has rent of maybe 1500 a month.
But I think this is also a problem of living in New York. I’ve been encouraging many people to leave New York and just move to an area where rent isn’t so high. You can have a car and you have a lot of stores for our purposes with great grocery programs, fuel programs, and much more. Having a car is probably the most liberating thing of my life that I can just choose to go where I want, when I want and not have to rely on public transit.
Absolutely. I think you’re right. I think what you said earlier about change is challenging [00:42:00] and especially if you figured out how to maximize the value of something for yourself and your situation and now you have some changes and some of those changes. We don’t even know the value of the change yet.
The BILT cash as the example, I’m curious here in theory I could apply for my wife, Justin and I could both get a BILT card if we wanted to. There’s no household limit that you’re aware of. Is there for BILT or for regardless? Correct. You could get palladium. She can get obsidian, for example.
Yeah, I’m wondering if that’s the thing that we consider here and that way we have a three x option. Try to figure out whose rent we can pay. I guess along the way, thankfully we only have one housing payment at this time. I said even if you don’t use it to pay rent or mortgage, I still think that the cards are quite strong.
I think they are strong. I think they’re stronger still. Right? It’s an extra, if I pay rent with a palladium card, it’s somewhere between an extra 50% increase in the [00:43:00] value that I get on every dollar spent. It goes from two x to three point something x. If I max that out, depending on what credit line I get, it probably reduces the value the more I spend.
And that’s another interesting thing about this, right? The more money I spend, the less valuable that spend becomes. And so it, again, it’s one of those things that almost deters some of the creative spending that, that we may be accustomed to doing. I don’t know, Justin, there, there’s still some things to think about.
I think kerr and his team have prevented us, presented us, I should say maybe prevented us too, but presented us with a little puzzle here to figure out and I’m eager to learn more and figure out how we can do it. Yes, we’ll still get the two x or three X everywhere, two x on the palladium card, three x grocery on the obsidian if you choose grocery.
The BILT cash is just this X factor we don’t know about. At the moment with a $10,000 credit line on the Palladium, if I max out that [00:44:00] credit line, that’s $400 in BILT cash per month. But we’re to see what that will be worth. And I suppose that can be another podcast episode. If I’m not in China, that’s an upcoming trip.
Just trying to figure that one out, or Australia coming up as well. But we have one more listener question. They’re wondering, is the palladium card worth a 5 24 slot? This person is a high spender. Or should you save the spot for a different card? What do you think? I think it’s a classic example of, it depends.
What do you have already? Is this card better than the Chase Sapphire Reserve? They have Amex business cards, from what I remember, Citi Strata Elite and the Venture X, I believe. This is competitive with the Venture X, giving two X everywhere, but not the 4% BILT cash. But the transfer partners are different.
Particularly with Hyatt and Atmos being transfer partners, they also have a bunch of Chase cards as [00:45:00] well. So they do have the option to transfer Chase points to Hyatt probably. So Justin? Yeah, it probably is. I think it depends on what other cards they have and what other ecosystems they’re in and when they’re thinking of spending money and how much money could they spend.
Right. So like I’d probably pick the Chase Sapphire Reserve business over this card. It’s a lot more spend, but you get a lot moreUR. And while the benefits aren’t maybe as great, it’s a card that I won’t really miss downgrading or closing after the first year. I’d love to be able to downgrade, of course, to a ink, but we’ll see if that happens.
Unlikely. Unlikely. But yeah, it never hurts to ask. And that’s the other we gotta get that figured out for this card too. Can we downgrade? We know some bad news, right? We can’t I dunno if you already mentioned this, but no, no points on tax payments and no points on eBay Facebook marketplace.
Right? So online, but I guess peer-to-peer type stuff. Etsy, I don’t know if that would also be the case. Some shenanigans going [00:46:00] on with we don’t give away too many secrets. No, that’s definitely staying in. Definitely it is a PG podcast. Online, peer to peer payments. We’ll just say, anyway, all that to say. I think that some of the creative spend that we have historically done in the past, I don’t know how long that will last and what we’re able to do here.
I’m cautiously optimistic. I was just looking up what the BILT most recent comments were about BILT cash, and this is from the BILT website. BILT cash gives you even richer rewards across the BILT ecosystem. Rich rewards, I don’t know, richer rewards. Use it. Dollar for Richard Ker. Yeah, that’s correct.
Use it dollar for dollar for monthly credits or to unlock access to housing rewards, transfer bonuses and more. That would be one interesting thing. Could you, if you’re gold, ’cause you have the palladium card, Justin, and there’s a, and you’re at 75% transfer bonus, but there’s a hundred percent transfer bonus at what’s the top level?
Platinum, can you pay up to do it [00:47:00] with your BILT cash? And maybe that’s worth it. Some other things there that we did not previously mention, but may be worth it. Yeah, the status could be valuable. Yeah. Although if you can get status through spend, then maybe not as much, but at least you start with the status.
Yeah. I think it’s a hundred thousand spend right? To, we don’t know. Historically it’s been a hundred thousand spend I think to get platinum. Something like that. Alright, any other thoughts on BILT as we’re coming towards the end of the show? I’ll be signing up for one of the cards. Justin and I am. I’m leaning towards the palladium.
I sign up bonus, a potential two x plus rewards that I can use to, to capitalize on housing payments. I wonder if, my wife and I might do, split that up one, one palladium, one obsidian, and be able to try to maximize things into the BILT ecosystem. Yes. And we know your destiny is to get the MGM iconic credit grocery.
Two x free play or comps and 2x MGM tier. [00:48:00] That’ll be the next candidate for bonus grocery spend for the, yeah, that, that’s possible. We were just chatting, we off camera, off podcast, I don’t know, off mic, and talked about a recent Atlantic City trip that my wife and I took that were able to use a bunch of the Caesars Diamond Plus status and free show and free hotel.
Celebration dinners, that free food. That was nice. Yeah. I enjoyed that quite a bit. So my kids were just talking about cruises the other day. So maybe I need to get into the MGM platform as well. Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah. Just a matter of time. Right. The problem is, of course, I would need two rooms, probably, because there’s five of us, and so it’d be challenging, I think, to get all five into the same.
That’s your wife for the Iconic as well. That’s right. Yeah. Like you said, what’s the solution to problems like this, Justin? More credit cards. All right. Appreciate you having me again, and I guess stay tuned In a future episode, I’ll reveal what BILT card I applied for.
Thanks for coming on today. Thanks, Justin. Always enjoy speaking with you. This is a fun topic. Looking forward to learning more [00:49:00] about the BILT ecosystem and how the new cards play into it.
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