Points accelerators, helicopter rides, dining credits, and much more with BILT atop the fantastic 2x everywhere with the BILT Palladium card!

In this episode of the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast, host Justin Vacula is joined by James from the Churn & Burn podcast to explain what BILT Cash actually is, how redemptions work, and what the new Points Accelerator could mean for earning and using rewards.

We cover the best use cases, potential downsides (including redemption value and complexity), and how BILT’s evolving ecosystem might impact points and miles strategies going forward. We also talk travel plans, credit card strategy, and future collaboration ideas.

If you’re into credit card rewards, points and miles, and staying on top of program changes, this one’s for you.

Topics Covered

What BILT Cash is and why it matters

Points Accelerator: how it works and who benefits

BILT Cash redemption options and value considerations

Dining & grocery-related perks/credits

Travel and transportation benefits

Credit card strategy + upcoming plans BILT release

(BILT Cash redemptions, 1/21/26)
https://www.reddit.com/r/biltrewards/comments/1qjddrq/a_note_from_me_ankur_jain_your_2026_bilt_cash/

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction: Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast

00:13 What is BILT Cash? (initial details)

01:18 Guest Intro — James from Churn & Burn

02:32 Breaking news: BILT CEO update

04:39 BILT Cash redemptions explained

06:52 Points Accelerator + key benefits

15:05 Dining & grocery credits/perks

19:55 Travel & transportation perks

22:59 Announcements + upcoming plans

24:10 CardPointers tool for card optimization

26:17 More on BILT Cash redemption strategies

28:39 BILT’s strategy + market positioning

41:08 The future of credit cards + travel plans

43:25 Closing thoughts + where to find the show

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Rough Transcript:

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 next to no cost with credit card points, miles, benefits, and loyalty programs. Ask and you shall receive: about eight hours ago in my newest podcast episode, I asked for details on the new BILT cash currency.

Now we have more information from Ankur Jain, the CEO of BILT. In today’s episode, I discussed the new BILT cash news launched just hours ago before recording. I really like the options, especially the new Points Accelerator, and hopefully you will too. Visit meetup.com/philly miles and points 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 [00:01:00] 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 Hurdy Gurdy Travel.com. On with today’s episode recorded, January 21st, 2026. Welcome back to the show, special guest James of the Churn and Burn podcast. I appreciate you coming on with such short notice. Yeah, I appreciate you, Justin. It was funny.

Kind of asked me not that long ago if I would hop on and I thought I would be the perfect guest for this because I’m notoriously a BILT skeptic. So you could consider this episode sort of a hard sell. To me, you’ve been nice enough to come on my podcast, the Churn and Burn podcast. Also, no spoilers, but possibly coming on again sometime soon.

But yeah, I’m happy to be here to talk about this new credit card release. That anchor just dropped, but today we will chat [00:02:00] about BILT, and before we do that, can you plug yourself, how can people find you and your podcast online? Of course, so I’m on Spotify and Apple Podcast. It’s just the Churn and Burn podcast.

I also have an Instagram account if people just want to get updates and stuff like that. It’s just Churn and Burn podcast on Instagram. Yeah, check it out. If you like Justin’s stuff, I think you would definitely be into what I’m doing over there. Excellent. This is Breaking News BILT CEO Ankur Jain released new Reddit post in the BILT Rewards Reddit sub Reddit titled A Note from Me, parentheses Ankur Jain.

Your 2026 BILT cash redemptions are here he writes. I’m excited to share the first set of BILT Cash Redemptions for 2026. Over the years, BILT has evolved into a membership that rewards you across your [00:03:00] home and neighborhood. While we started with rewards on rent, your membership has grown into much more.

We introduced BILT cash to give you the richest value and the most flexibility on your everyday rewards, whether that’s on housing, at local restaurants, fitness studios, parking, rideshare pharmacies, hotels, and more. So nice to see from the start of this, a credit card can accomplish multiple things and offering flexibility.

We’ll get into that. Although are they trying to do too much? What do you think? I have to say on a meta level, I’m not really sure what BILTs target customer is because as we’ll get into this seems to be a card that’s targeted towards the optimizers, the credit card community that we’re umbrellaed under.

And yet, as I look at the card, I scratch my head. As I said, I’m sure we’ll get into that, but the fact that this was posted to Reddit, I think also fed into that. [00:04:00] Is it, Ankur Jain as the type of, uh, heel character here versus all the Reddit commenters because there’s a lot of negativity previously. And then they’re posting to Reddit again, and already in the comments we’re seeing the negativity.

They said in the comments, Hey, you guys are making this complicated, and now it seems that BILT is going more towards the complicated route, so they’re doubling down or tripling down perhaps. But I think there’s some good stuff in this. Absolutely. It’s, I’m excited about some things as a un-BILT card user, so maybe you can win me over here.

All right. We’ll see if you apply for the Palladium after today’s episode. He continues with the release. The Reddit post BILT cash is earned alongside BILT points, not in place of them. Every member automatically earns $50 in BILT cash for every 25,000 BILT points earned toward status. As always, you can earn points on housing and neighborhood spend in the BILT ecosystem, whether you pay through a bank [00:05:00] account, Venmo, debit card, a credit card, or a BILT card.

BILT cash can be redeemed directly within the BILT neighborhood network of partners enabling us to deliver true dollar for dollar value, far richer and more tangible than points alone. So you can choose how and where that value matters most to you. So he’s hyping it. He’s hyping it, but I think it’s a really good point.

You’re earning BILT cash in addition to the BILT points, the BILT palladium card, for instance. Earns two x that can be transferred to Atmos Rewards Hyatt and other partners. So if you like the two x, you’re getting something additional in the BILT cash, which may be thought of as gravy. You’re getting this four x or 4% in BILT cash atop the regular two x points.

You could use this BILT cash to pay rent or mortgage to earn points without a fee. We knew that, but now we have redemptions other than rent or mortgage. BILT cash is sounding more like a cash like utility earned a top. [00:06:00] The BILT points. I think the points multiplier is kind of the crown jewel of this card, not to knock the BILT cash.

‘Cause we’re gonna get into all the nuts and bolts and boy, are there many of those? Yes. Yes. It’s a long list, but we’re definitely gonna start with the better ones. Although I do give Anker some feedback here. He started with this post listing, the smaller or perhaps less impactful redemptions of BILT cash.

$10. GrubHub credits, goPuff credits and so on. We’ll discuss that later. But why not start with the stronger redemption items? I think the press release should probably start with the better redemptions rather than people see the first stuff they give up, they don’t continue scrolling the whole short attention span.

But I would think that yes, the more impactful things should be at the top of the release rather than buried in the middle. So let’s start with the better redemptions. He writes card holder exclusive bonus points, card holder, exclusive bonuses are available when card earning is [00:07:00] set to 4% back in BILT cash on everyday spend.

So that’s the original system. They introduced a second system where you don’t earn BILT cash, but then you get to pay your rent fee free. We won’t get into that. We’ll focus on this, but he writes Point accelerator on everyday spend. Enable one x bonus points on all everyday spend for the next $5,000 following activation exclusively available to obsidian and palladium Cardholders.

Cost $200. BILT cash up to five activations annually expires after 5,000 spend, or a calendar year end so you can trade in $200 of BILT cash. For 5,000 extra BILT points, assuming you spend that $5,000, I think that’s pretty strong. It is. When you do the calculator math, my fear is that people will get tired of counting all these palladium bananas in their sleep and

they’re [00:08:00] just gonna comes a point where you look at this and it’s just so daunting. I mean, you and me do this. Oh, I’m loving it. I’m loving it. And you know, America loves Math. We do. I’m struggling to digest all of it, and I’ve already read the press release twice. But yeah, it does look good to me. It’s the earn rates look good, so yeah, let’s go with that.

That’s the positive. Yes. Obsidian earnings, when enabled, he writes four x dining or grocery. That’s up to 25,000 in spend per calendar year, three x travel and two x everyday spend. That’s for the low annual fee card or the palladium or palladium. Earnings when enabled three x everyday spend. Unlock points on housing payments up to one x.

Unlock points on monthly rent or mortgage payments with no transaction fees. Every $30 BILT cash redeemed, earns 1000 points up to one X of your monthly rent or mortgage payment. [00:09:00] So we have some boosters here, three x everywhere. Sounds pretty strong. That’s the reason you get the card. Yeah. For everybody listening, if you wanna know why you’re getting this card, it’s this.

You’re getting the only card I’m aware of where you have a window of time to earn three X Hyatt points. I really do think it’s that simple. Uh, yeah, that’s really good. Now we could transfer ultimate rewards to Hyatt, but that’s capped on the Chase Ink Cashes. The Ink unlimited Freedom Unlimited, that’s gonna be 1.5 x.

But this to be three x on everyday spend, really strong, especially for the high spenders and the optimizers. I don’t know about you. My walking around card is a Venture X ’cause it’s two X everywhere, but it doesn’t transfer to Hyatt. And I would obviously prefer that it did. So, yes, if I could get, if I could get three x that is effectively just Hyatt that I’m banking, I’m gonna take that.

So that [00:10:00] would be what would convince me to get this card. Above any other perk or coupon. Alright, we’ve already moved you up a few percentage points perhaps. Yes. So how about that? We had these, some of these debates where they would poll the audience. Do you agree or disagree with this proposition? They do a pre-debate poll in the after debate poll, so we’ll see at the end of the episode.

Are you more likely to get the palladium or the obsidian card? So I think the Points Accelerator one of the strongest. Items in this release unlock points on housing payments up to one X. That’s pretty cool too. I’m confused about that. Is that, is that part of the Points Accelerator or is that something different?

I’m not too sure, but I think my BILT cash will go towards the Points Accelerator first and foremost. But the second thing they have here is unlock higher transfer bonuses. Use BILT cash to upgrade your rent day transfer bonus to the next status tier. So this is presumably the first of every month, you get bonus points on [00:11:00] spend, probably capped at a thousand dollars in spend.

We will find out platinum members receive an additional boost. Example Gold member can upgrade from 75% to 100% for $75. BILT cash availability is subject to change. I left there because it’s getting very mathy. Once again, this whole thing is mathy. This whole card is gonna be the Julia Roberts meme where she’s looking at all the arithmetic in the air and steering at it with open mouth.

That’s this whole card. As we get into these credits, I would challenge anyone to successfully redeem every credit on this. Anyone successfully burns all these credits. I think they should be sent a bag of palladium bananas. Yes, by Ankur. Ooh, that could be my BILT year in 2026. Here I am outside of the black lane.

You get up [00:12:00] to $150 toward a black lane ride per year. Redeem for Black Lane rides up to 50 a year for blue and silver status up to a hundred a year with gold status or up to $150 a year with platinum status. You said that this might be one of the stronger redemptions as well after the Points Accelerator.

It could be. I would say a black lane ride for an hour would run you between a hundred and $150, so I would consider that to be. So I go to New York a lot. I come to either JFK or LaGuardia. So this would basically be my ride to my hotel for $150. And instead of having to get in the Uber with the shady dude at midnight, I’m gonna do a black lane in luxury.

So yeah, I’m interested. I like it for Europe too, where you might not be able to use your Uber gift cards, Uber Cash, all those other things. I think a cool option. Again, not mandatory. [00:13:00] I think it’s nice to give options rather than saying, okay, here’s a $500 annual fee and you must use the Black lane credit.

No other choice. Use it or lose it. Yeah. That is an interesting play here is it’s not use it or lose it, it’s allocated of, in your own vision of what you want the card to be. Roll your D hundred and pick your benefit. Oh, here’s another one you’d like This one. Up to $700 of blade credit per year. Redeemed for Blade Airport flights, up to $350 per booking, up to two bookings per year.

Available 3 1 26. I actually think this is the most unique and interesting perk of this card because I’ve done a blade before. They have different subsets of offerings, but. The one they do to JFK airport is really cool. I actually would encourage people to do this as a one-time treat [00:14:00] because really you’re not just getting a fast transfer to the airport.

You actually get some pretty crazy views of New York City. I raised my eyebrows at this though, ’cause it says 350 per booking, up to two bookings per year. So that’s a couple rides, but it’s very bare bones with the information I. Think it’s almost too good to be true soon. More information coming soon.

The George RR Martin from South Park. Yeah. We’ll finally get those Games of Thrones out. Yeah, the dragons are coming. They’re coming soon. I wonder if there’s any catch, like you have to have two people on the booking and that’s how they’re gonna make it. ’cause presumably $350 would pretty much pay for the flight, I think.

Oh cool. So it’s a baller move to just fly a helicopter around. It is a really fun thing. I made fun of it until I did it, and then I shut up quickly. So you got humbled? Oh, a hundred percent. So yeah, that one is [00:15:00] exciting to me for sure. Okay, so not as much excitement now. I restructured the release on Reddit.

We went over the exciting credits first, and now we have the rest, dining and groceries. $120 per year towards grocery or restaurant delivery fulfilled via GrubHub. $10 a month, man, I have that on the Amex Gold card at the moment, and I’ve struggled recently because one Chinese restaurant I would use with GrubHub pickup, I don’t want to do the delivery and have extra fees in the tip.

The pickup was about $12 and I had a lot of success with that, but now it was taken off. I looked at other restaurants in the area while I was on the hydro massage bed at Planet Fitness, trying to multitask rather than just sitting at home looking at restaurants. A lot of stuff was 15, $20, so $10 a month, not so good.

With GrubHub, I ended up just using the Amex gold credits at Cheesecake Factory instead and just being done with it. So $10 for GrubHub, not that [00:16:00] exciting to me. You’re not really making any money there. You’re just getting your food that you could’ve gotten yourself with your own bare hands for the same price delivered, but you’re getting the $10 to offset the extra costs.

It says delivery. I wonder if it could be worked with pickup as well. True. Probably $60 a year of credits for BILT. 15 minute home delivery. Redeem. BILT cash towards BILT ultra fast home delivery orders on groceries, alcohol and essentials. Powered by goPuff, $5 credit each month. How much alcohol could you get per $5 to try to drink your way through this press release?

Yeah, $5. I mean, come on, have bigger caps on this. Now there might be some people that would’ve used the service anyway, and I don’t want to go to a store and yeah I’ve just been engaging in some smoky substances and I just want something now. So maybe, I guess the five, but are [00:17:00] they really gonna go through the BILT cash at that point?

So that’s a weak $5 cap as the GrubHub cap. Pretty low as well. How about this one? A hundred dollars per year towards goPuff fam free delivery and discounted groceries. Cover your goPuff FAM membership up to 12 months, up to $100 annually. Redeemable for monthly or annual membership, but you have to wait until March 1st, 2026.

It’s very bizarre. This March 1st date, I guess that’s gonna be the, this is clearly a soft launch. And this the hard launch where they probably push all this out hard to blogs is gonna be March 1st. I guess BILT already has them as a partner, so they’re just adding all these options in there. But it might backfire as people see all the options and then they say, no, man, I’m out.

But I’ll just pass on that. I almost certainly will not use goPuff. We have here $300 a year of restaurant credit at select BILT dining partners use BILT cash toward meals at select partner restaurants. Via [00:18:00] mobile dining checkout, one visit per month up to $25 rollout, expanding to thousands of restaurants nationwide throughout the year.

So $25 grab and go. It sounds like maybe that’s not too bad. I guess you’d have to pull up the BILT app and then see which restaurants are in your area. Yeah, and that’s really the point in this long list where I begin to wonder again, who is this card for? Because there’s parts of this card that make me think this is a.

Card for city dwelling up and coming, young affluent people, an Amex platinum killer. But then there’s other parts of this card that are clearly just targeted toward the degenerates, uh, like you and me, you know? Yep. The optimizers. The optimizers come on, the optimizers, sorry. Or irritable in our descriptions, but yeah, I, I don’t understand really.

It seems like the target market is very fractured as well. Continue to see. $600 a year to our [00:19:00] dining experience bookings, redeem BILT cash to book exclusive BILT dining experiences up to $50 a month, available 3 1 26 $50. Okay, but what’s a dining experience? Is that going to be some kind of masterclass thing that’s gonna cost a hundred or more so maybe not that interesting compared to the say $25 dining credit.

Yeah, it’s, it. It’s a hundred percent gonna be what you just said, right? It’s gonna be a $300. Some sort of experience that you’re gonna get a small percentage discount on. Yeah, so some of this stuff I think maybe BILT was paid to put it on here, right? Where companies wanted to make inroads with people and they knew that if they just gave us slight discount for some things, they would get customers onboarded by way of the card.

This probably is in that category. Travel and transportation up to $1,200. Hotel credit per year. Use BILT [00:20:00] cash in the BILT travel portal. Two night minimum. Not good to hear. That was one of the weaknesses of the Chase Edit program. Up to 50 a month for blue and silver members and a hundred dollars a month for gold and platinum members.

I imagine most people won’t use this because they would instead use Hyatt points, Hilton points, and so on. But it could be interesting for people that have work reimbursed travel. So if you could use the BILT cash to get that a hundred a month and somehow submit an invoice with the total price and get reimbursed, that would be pretty cool.

But I don’t see myself using this one. No. $120 Lyft ride share credits per year. Redeem $10 a month toward Lyft rides. This is a low cap, only $10 a month. I don’t think that’ll be very popular, but it could be. Okay if you have a short hop, maybe in Las Vegas from casino to casino. I ride a lot of Lyft and the, I think the way these cards sometimes work is they actually load the balance into your app.

I know. Oh, that’d be good. That’s how Amex does it with Uber. [00:21:00] And yeah, I do have to use Lyft and Uber from time to time, so I’m, that’s fine with me. That’s, I would call that actual bankable money. Okay. And it’s an option, so probably the points accelerator first, and maybe that would be somewhere towards the upper middle.

Unlock home away from home. Hotel benefits, blue and silver members can unlock luxury. Hotel Booking benefits usually reserved only for gold and platinum members for $95. BILT cash may include benefits such as room upgrades, a hundred dollars, hotel credits, early check-in, late checkout, and more. I imagine that almost no one is going to use that.

I just needed one more card in my wallet, Justin, that got me Hilton Gold status, I was worried that I wouldn’t be getting it. Yeah, not looking good. BILT. I don’t know. Why do you put some of these things in up to $768 of Priority Pass extra guest credits per year. So that’s another America Loves Math Moment.

Palladium only cover up to two [00:22:00] guest fees per month. $32 per guest up to $64 statement credit per month. Maybe for people that are using Priority Pass and have multiple travelers, perhaps kids, I’m not sure how that’s gonna work. You’re gonna go in the BILT app, enable BILT Cash, and then it. Syncs to Priority Pass.

Is there a gamification play here where it, anything that’s purchased at Priority Pass, just codes correctly. That tends to happen a lot with these kinds of programs, but even then, I’m not really sure what the what then it would still not have value. ’cause what are you gonna do? Just buy more priority passes.

It doesn’t, yeah, it doesn’t work. This one’s gonna hurt. $60 toward parking per year. Redeem $5 per month at participating BILT neighborhood parking locations Available 3 1 26. It hurts $5 a month in parking, guys. Oh, that’s at a BILT neighborhood parking location. Oh, that’s not good. That’s not good.

BILT. Who’s gonna use that? [00:23:00] We’ll take a break for some happier announcements. We did have some good things about the Points Accelerator though, and we also have a good thing coming. Frequent Traveler University Conference in Irving, Texas near the 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 and $249 for non-members. You can also grab an FTU annual membership for online courses, seminars, member perks, event discounts, and more. Please use my affiliate link in the show notes for membership and conference tickets.

James, will you be. I’ve heard about it from you, but I, I didn’t think about going until you just told me about it. It’s interesting. Okay. We might have upped your approval chances for the BILT palladium or likelihood to apply, and maybe we’ll see you at the las. You could use Hilton credits as he’s in the area.

Maybe [00:24:00] some. I always, it’s funny, I’m familiar with that property and I never think about it as being a Hilton. For some reason, okay, maybe that’s a good thing, probably is. I’m also an affiliate with CardPointers. If you have multiple credit cards like me, CardPointers automatically activates bank offers and knows which card to use

For maximum rewards CardPointers saves me time and money. Use my link HurdyGurdyTravel for a discount on annual and lifetime plans. James will CardPointers be able to figure out all these BILT redemptions. I hope they are because they would probably onboard so many potential customers.

Hmm. Brooke? Brooke, are you listening? Yeah, Emmanuel. Oh, come o come Emmanuel. And have you been using CardPointers? I was a very long time user of it for a while, and I actually decided to take a break from it this year, and it wasn’t even CardPointers is great. I just decided to [00:25:00] consciously take a step back from the coupon cutting and just focus more on raw spending to earn points.

That’s just been my philosophy this year, but I think they may get me back next year. Cool. So my counterpoint would be that CardPointers is automatically activating your Amex and other offers through the browser extension, and then you don’t even have to pay attention, you just accidentally. Get rewarded.

This has happened to me a few times. I flew with Southwest. I had to pay for a bag, unfortunately, but I was getting reimbursed, and then I also got reimbursed by CardPointers and I didn’t even know about it. That’s a good point. Yeah. Mm-hmm. It does take the headache out. Yes. Yeah. It makes things easier, but after making things easier, we’re gonna make things a little bit harder here.

Returning to the BILT cash conversation, I’m here tonight with James. James, can you remind listeners of your podcast and where to find you? Yes. The Churn and Burn podcast where we talk everything at [00:26:00] miles and points. Really not much is off limits. It’s an unfortunately two honest pod some of the time, but you can find it on Spotify and Apple Podcast, the Churn and Burn podcast, and I’m on Instagram as well.

You can look me up. Churn and Burn Podcast on there as well. Maybe some health and wellness, because that’s the next suite of BILT cash options. $480 fitness class credit per year. Redeem toward one group fitness class per month in the BILT app, including SoulCycle, berries and others up to $40 a month.

I imagine that not many people will redeem this one. You could probably just watch YouTube videos or do something else or save your BILT cash for other redemptions. I don’t even know what berries is. Ooh, that’s your BILT challenge. I use BILT cash, and here’s my berries experience. It looks like it’s a gym and Oh, we do have one in Atlanta.

And interestingly [00:27:00] enough, and maybe this will be interesting for listeners, I’m looking at this berries and there’s a merchandise here. Ooh. But this, no, the BILT app, fitness class, and the BILT app. Sorry, I’m denied. Good thing. BILT, blocked, BILT. BILT, blocked. $120 Walgreens credit per year. Redeemed $10 per month towards a Walgreens credit.

I have the CVS, formerly the care Pass now, the Extra Care plus, I have been using that and I’ve been getting dental picks. Usually they’re about two bucks a bag, so I end up walking out with many as I use these. The dental picks, the dental flossers. Maybe if some extra BILT cash at the end of the year, $10 at Walgreens, maybe get some colder cough medicine.

But I imagine too that probably won’t be too interesting. It’s something I I didn’t have before. Extra BILT cash maybe. Sure. We have the other category, $600 toward comedy experience bookings per year. [00:28:00] Redeem up to $50 a month for exclusive BILT comedy experiences. I’m only signing up for this if it’s an hour long standup set with Richard Kerr himself on the, Ooh, they could do a live podcast recording.

It’s true. Yeah. Why not? Roast Richard Kerr? Of Richard Kerr comedy experience. I think people pay, there’s a lot of roasting going on in the Reddit comments for sure. We have here a $120 BILT design collection credit per year. This one’s painful too. Redeem up to $10 per month toward BILT design collection purchases.

Since this is the last big meaningful coupon here, I just have to say, once again, I do not understand who this card is for because so many of these things seem like there’s four people in more metro areas, the quote unquote, the BILT coastal elites, right? Yet, there’s so many other parts of [00:29:00] this card that seem like they’re for the more nerdier, far-flung reaches of the community, and I just can’t square the circle.

I’m not sure even they have done it. Now I’m thinking you could redeem ultimate rewards with Chase or membership rewards with American Express for a lot of interesting things. Let’s say instead of using them for business class flights, you might. Some people might, you won’t. I know you won’t do something like, Hey, I’m going to redeem membership rewards for this overpriced catalog and buy a Bluetooth speaker for like 10,000 MR.

But there are people out there who do that and it’s probably best for BILT if they just didn’t include these things. I guess they are thinking, Hey, we wanna give people the options. But this might backfire because then people see these options and think that the BILT cash isn’t as worthwhile. Even though there are better options.

What benefit is it to have this BILT design purchase, the $5 [00:30:00] parking and so on? I think it’s missing the mark. We’ve already seen this strategy in the airline rewards community. American Airlines famously has done this for years where they give people. Opportunity to burn points on things like steak knives sets, and it’s every, right.

It’s everything you just said. Oh, you can get tickets to Hamilton, blah, blah, blah. And of course the cents per point on that is generally horrific. And yet there’s going to be people that do this thing where they hand wave away the good redemptions because they’re too complicated or I don’t like to fly or whatever.

They burn their points on this stuff, and it literally just exists, is a way to subsidize, uh, people’s baser instincts and into more worthless points, redemptions. And that’s when you look at this program that BILT has BILT, no pun intended, or did I? Oh, pun intended for sure. That’s what this [00:31:00] is. It’s a bunch of pretty meaningfully good stuff.

The blade rides and maybe the BlackLane credit and then there’s tons of options where you’re almost putting money back into someone’s pocket in a way, with some of these, like the comedy show and the neighborhood parking, I don’t know what you think about it, but that’s my overall impression. Yes, that’s fair.

It’s seeming to do what other programs do where they just give you options to redeem, although the options aren’t. Very good, although the optimizers probably won’t use these things, so I suppose people will get it to offset rent or earn points on rent in a way they’re at the end of the year or they just don’t care to use the other credits, or they’re not a big spender and, oh, my BILT cash is gonna expire, so I’ll go to Walgreens for $10 using the BILT cash.

And that’s one of the weaknesses I think still is that BILT cash earned in November and December. Will [00:32:00] expire at the end of the year above a small rollover cap. We have options to redeem now, but there’s still some pressure with that, some possible breakage, and the possibility that this backfires unBILT because if people know the BILT cash will be expiring, perhaps they don’t use the card in November and December is one of the busier seasons.

As my past podcast cohost Darren said in the previous episode, my current podcast host, although James here today. That could be a weakness with this expiration. So now if you’re giving all these redemption options, then people will probably be using the lesser redemptions in December. But that could backfire too, because, oh, if I’m gonna end up using the BILT cash at Walgreens, then maybe I just won’t spend on that card in December.

So I really hope that they can remove the expiration or have maybe a six month policy or a first in, first out policy. Yeah. As I look at this card on a macro level, I think it’s obvious to me that the answer to my previous question, who is this [00:33:00] card for BILT, is courting both markets I mentioned. It’s obvious that they’re now trying to cater to a newer, hopeful market of the more affluent.

The people who are vaguely interested in stuff like this, the points guy, readers of the world that really don’t dig much deeper than that. They maybe consider themselves to be savvy credit card people, but in reality, they just have a decent amount of income and they like having these perks. And yet I can see when I look between the seams of.

This card and the perks they’re trying to maintain the relationship with the optimizer community that kind of lifted them off the ground in the first place. It’s a solid effort. I think. My fear is that they may have become a jack of all trades master and none. Yeah. And they’re gonna piss off the optimizers with something like this and then also [00:34:00] fail to overtake.

The Amex platinums of the market, maybe they can add something to like a straight cash out for remaining BILT cash, especially an automatic thing like any remaining BILT cash after the rollover caps gets converted to BILT points at an even lower rate. Maybe that would be better than people using them for $5 off of parking, $10 at Walgreens and so on.

You could use the Points Accelerator. You can get the Boost, and you could maybe bribe the helicopter. But what about all the BILT cash at the end? The expiration is still a problem for me. I’m on board. I got approved for the Palladium a few days ago. I really like the signup bonus. I like the two X everywhere.

And now I’m liking potentially three x or actually three x everywhere. And some of the credits, even though some of them miss the mark, I’ve been asking myself over the course of this, would I get this card? ’cause I know that’s what you’re gonna ask me. Right. If I got one, I think it would [00:35:00] have to be the palladium.

And like I said before, I really could care all, not, I couldn’t care less about the BILT cash. It’s a value and it’s there and there’s some gold to be mined, but the show here is the three x palladium multiplier. Yes. Yep. That’s the main event. And for people who live at Hyatt and there’s a lot of people in the optimizer community, and you’re one of them.

And I’m one of them who are in Atmos to atmos certainly can’t be overlooked. That is the absolute headliner of this card. This thing is a leviathan rat’s nest of complexities. And if there’s one negative that I really have to underline here, it’s gotta be that. So maybe just focus on the higher points, like you’ll have those four times a year for the three X everywhere, two x everywhere.

Outside of that, using your BILT cash for the [00:36:00] more meaningful redemptions and just ignore the things like the $5 off of parking. I would actually offer a, maybe I can put a bow on the, who should get this card Question. Everybody listening probably has a person in their life where they can’t be bothered with.

The spending and the optimization, but they want to earn points and they ask you how to use their points, right? Everybody’s thinking of somebody. When I say that, I actually think the palladium with the two x and the three X is a strong contender for the get your cousin, aunt, uncle, mom, this card and just say, I’ll worry about the credits.

You just spend everything you’ve got on this card, right? Yeah, I think that’s strong. Although you might have to ask them to open the app or the browser, whatever, to activate those points, boosts. But I think really strong. And then of course you have competitors [00:37:00] like the Blue Business Plus with American Express, the Venture X, or the Venture with two X everywhere, or the more classic city, double cash for 2% cash back everywhere.

But for the more travel oriented with Hyatt, Alaska, and other partners. The flexibility of the BILT points, especially at three x everywhere is very strong. Yeah. And to their credit, I’m more likely to sign up for this now than I was, oh, there, it’s more likely. Justin, I’m not pulling up the application page right now, I promise.

No, that’s because you have your credit frozen, so you’d have to unfreeze it first and then apply later. It’s true, but yeah. No, I, I am, but more likely. More likely is fair and honestly, when we went into this. If you had asked me, I would’ve said that I thought I’d be less likely to get the card after we had gone through it, but I gotta say I’m a little more convinced now that I was an hour ago.

All right. Very good. Any other thoughts on the BILT cash or BILT? I think I’ve said it all. [00:38:00] I’ll be really interested to see in the next months to years how this card shifts, changes and performs. Really kinda how BILT as a company continues to grow, or hopefully, right? I don’t think anyone is, I’ll just say this.

I know there’s a lot of Sabre rattling on Reddit and people wishing for this company’s demon. Stop it. Okay. Stop it guys. This is at the end of the day. This is another option. And we should be thankful that someone is challenging the Amexes and the Capital Ones and the Chases to say, Hey, we have another product and we think our product can go toe to toe with you and I.

And to their credit, I think it does Calm down folks. And competition is good. Yes. ’cause it BILT puts pressure on the Amex to chases of the world. Then Amex and Chase will have to opt their game to compete with BILT. Oh look, BILT, you’re saying three x everywhere. All right, let’s increase the earn on the blue [00:39:00] business plus, oh, let’s opt the signup bonus on this card or that card or, oh, riding a helicopter.

Maybe we can do that too. That would be nice. Amex, if you’re listing platinum card blade credits, make it happen. Can you please also refresh the Plum Card? American Express? The Plum Card lived rent free in no one’s mind. The ultimate meme card for sure. Yeah. But I did get it years ago. $600 sign up bonus, 1.5% cash back everywhere.

They had a promotion where you had three additional months to hit the 30,000 spend. So I did it with high spend. It actually made sense, but very niche card for Oh yeah. Oh yes. Like Paul Bearer used to say, of course. And there is a little bit more on Kerr, the BILT CEO wrote. This is just the beginning.

As the BILT ecosystem continues to grow, so will the value of your membership and the ways you can use BILT cash where you live, [00:40:00] hopefully where you live. Yeah. That’s an odd ending to that. As long as you have a grammar teacher in me with the red pen, you could have just removed that part at the end.

Sure. Yeah. So feedback BILT, maybe have a focus group is what I mentioned in past episodes. You certainly have. People who’d be willing to chime in. If I or others were part of this, they would probably say, Hey, just don’t even offer these smaller things, like the $5 off of parking, the $10 BILT design collection.

Just focus on the big things because you’re gonna get feedback that’s negative when people focus on some of these redemptions that aren’t very good, and maybe just put this press release on a site rather than Reddit, at least from what I know, and I could be wrong. This was only on Reddit. People are linking to Reddit rather than BILT’s website and then put the more impactful redemptions at the top of the press release lead strong rather than putting it somewhere in the middle.

Conspiracy theory. James here, what if this was a soft [00:41:00] launch to gauge how they want the hard launch credits to look? Ooh it’s, it’s just the beginning. Right now as we wrap up, BILT, excluded, any new credit cards coming for you in 2026. Any applications coming soon, because of course the answer to everything is more credit cards.

Absolutely. I’ve really been focusing a lot more on volume of spend rather than signup bonuses. But I will say this, I’ll pivot. I am so ready. For this rumored luxury Marriott business card that Amex keeps poking rumors about into the blogs. It’s, it feels like it’s been a year now. Also, the Chase Hyatt luxury card.

How many teasers have we seen? Justin, what is Chase doing to me? I just, I want it now and I want it to get me globalist status with almost no spend and [00:42:00] just, let’s go. Come on. Ooh, that would be your wish of 2026. I don’t know about auto globalist. No, no Hilton Aspire card. Just giving Hilton Diamond, but maybe more qualifying nights for having the card.

Right. More on spend would be nice. I would be a buyer as well if Chase would approve me. I don’t think that’s gonna happen at this point, being well over the 5 24. For listeners who don’t know, you’ve been listening for a while, so you probably do know, but yes, after five approvals in the last 24 months, appearing on personal credit.

Long story short, some exclusions you can’t get Chase cards, although they could lessen that and allow people to get cards, but just not getting sign up bonuses or zero a PR, which would be interesting if that happened in 2026. Yeah, I know for a while there were a couple of co-brands that sometimes could slip past 5 24.

I haven’t really seen that much this year. It seems like they’ve really tightened up their approvals. Any travels coming for you in 2026? Oh, absolutely. [00:43:00] People who know me will tell you that I am always headed towards the New York area. I’ll be there in April. Uh, if anybody wants to meet up. And I have Disney annual passes this year.

It’s become a running joke on my podcast that I’ll be at Disney World a lot this year. But yeah, in terms of bigger trips, I think I’ll have a London trip in June and Paris in October. Yeah. Alright. Anything else to close out the episode? I know I already plugged my pod twice, but for anybody, oh, go first, sorry.

That’s okay. And it’s really involving you for anybody who loves Justin. He will at some point in the near future be doing a massive roundup of his cruises last year on my pod and as a non cruiser. I think I would be a pretty perfect host to, to interview him about this crazy adventure that you went on last year.

So yeah, look forward to that. Yes, and [00:44:00] I’ll be cruising out of China in April. I redeemed my MGM Platinum complimentary cruise benefit. And I get to go out of Shanghai. I didn’t anticipate that happening. As so far it’s been Caribbean, Alaska, Canada. Now China comes into play. That’s amazing. We’ll have to talk about that on my pod as well.

One of my favorite credit cards, of course, the MGM iconic credit card, allowing you to spend your way towards MGM Platinum status. It’s amazing, especially somebody like you who loves Vegas. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Churn and Burn podcast, right? And any social media or other places people can follow you.

Just the Instagram and it’s a churn and burn podcast. Thanks for coming on, especially with such short notice, this emergency breaking news episode. Yeah, happy to crack the glass on the fire extinguisher and appreciate you letting me on man. It was a good time. Thanks everyone for listening and stay tuned for future [00:45:00] episodes.

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