April 2026 Bilt Bulletin | Palladium Card, Points Accelerator, Bilt Cash Credits & Wyndham Update
Justin Vacula and co-host Darren return with the April 2026 Bilt Bulletin on the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast, explaining the latest developments with Bilt Rewards, including the new Bilt Palladium card, Points Accelerator, Bilt Cash credits, and the addition of Wyndham as a transfer partner.
In this episode, Justin shares his real-world experience with the Bilt Palladium card, including how it can earn 2x everywhere and up to 3x everywhere through Points Accelerator on qualifying spend.
He also explains how Bilt members can transfer points to programs like Hyatt and Alaska Airlines, pay rent fee-free using Bilt’s account and routing number system, and stack monthly benefits for even more value.
Justin and Darren also discuss Bilt Cash redemptions for dining, pharmacy, rideshare, and hotel credits, along with Bilt status levels, Rent Day bonuses, the new Wyndham Rewards partnership, the $200 two-night hotel credit, and the “Bilt Close Friends” invite program.
They also respond to listener feedback, including criticism that Bilt may be too complicated compared with cards like the Capital One Venture X.
If you are interested in points and miles, Bilt Rewards, travel credit cards, monthly perks, and maximizing the value of your everyday spending, this episode offers a detailed look at one of the most talked-about programs in the hobby.
Subscribe to the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast for more coverage of points and miles, credit card strategy, loyalty programs, travel perks, and low-cost travel.
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro and setup
01:17 Bilt Palladium card basics
02:08 Early results and paying rent with Bilt
04:16 Elite status thresholds and Rent Day bonuses
06:11 Using Bilt Cash credits
09:34 Bilt Close Friends and events
11:22 Wyndham added as a Bilt transfer partner
12:46 Show support and ads
15:01 Stacking the $200 hotel credit
19:23 Listener feedback: Is Bilt too complicated?
25:17 New cards and family strategy
28:37 Wrap-up and outro
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Rough Transcript:
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 at low cost with credit card points, miles, benefits, and loyalty programs. Frequent co-host Darren joins me today to discuss the Bilt palladium card, Bilt cash redemptions, and some recent news with Bilt.
It’s the April, 2026 Bilt bulletin. [00:01:00] On with today’s episode recorded, April 22nd, 2026. Welcome back to the show, Darren. Thanks Justin. Love that. Bilt bulletin alliteration. If only we could get the folks that Bilt to embrace Bilt bucks. Justin. The Bilt Palladium card, for those who don’t know, this is a card that earns two times points on everywhere spend, and with a Points Accelerator feature, another benefit of the card or the Bilt program, you can earn three X points everywhere on up to $25,000 of spend in a calendar year.
These points transfer to partners like Hyatt, Atmos, many others, and you also get what’s called Bilt cash on your spending. If you activate that feature, getting 4% back in Bilt cash, which can be redeemed for various dining credits, wellness credits, travel credits, and much more. We’re very excited about the card.
A lot [00:02:00] of the feedback from listeners is that it is complicated, so we’re here to demystify it and talk about what we’ve been doing with Bilt. Happy to do it. Justin. I know we both have the palladium card and it was an earlier episode that we talked about the different card offerings, the blue card, the obsidian, the palladium, and we both landed on the palladium as the card we thought was going to be maximum value for us, at least the first year.
It’s been great so far. I know you started off as a new applicant taking advantage of the Cardless Bank and moving away from Wells Fargo.
With Cardless and my third statement recently closed with Bilt. This closed on April 18th. Recording here on the 22nd, I’m now at 93,000 Bilt points I’ve been spending using my $10,000 credit limit. After all my redemptions, I still have $258 in Bilt cash. This is the secondary currency used for various credits and I’m continuing with the Points [00:03:00] Accelerator earning three x on all my spend.
I paid rent for the first time and it was very easy Bilt, provided account and routing numbers. I used this information in my landlord payment portal, and it drew from the connected bank. I used to pay the Bilt credit card. Previously the rent would just charge to the Bilt credit card, but that’s no longer the case.
I was also previously paying my rent with a very small fee. It was like a five or $6 fee, but now the payment portal went up to more than 3%, so I’m using Bilt to pay my rent fee free and earning some points on my rent payment.
I’ve had similar experience with the Palladium card. Justin. At first I was stuck in the old model of getting some multiplier back on my mortgage payment. After my first statement closed, I was able to switch to the 4% Bilt cash benefit, which was certainly in, in my mind, at least with the palladium card, the preferred way to earn points [00:04:00] and benefits.
This also allowed me to use my Bilt cash to not only pay mortgage, but also select the accelerator option, Justin. How many accelerators have you already done Justin? I believe I’m on my third accelerator at the moment.
I’m planning on using five of them throughout the year and possibly spending more on the card beyond the $25,000 spend because you can get platinum status. If you earn 200,000 points in a calendar year or you spend 50,000 on the card, you get this platinum status. The main perks are a comp flight with Blade.
This is a helicopter ride, 12 months of flying blue elite status benefits including lounge access, and you get rent day transfer bonuses.
You sure do. I’m not sure whether I’m gonna make it to platinum. I’ve been a Bilt member essentially since the evolve, the initial card came out, [00:05:00] and have jumped through all the hoops to stay there. Gold has been my sweet spot for this card. I’ve gotten a little closer to platinum some years, but oftentimes I found other spend to be as valuable or more valuable.
The platinum status is nice, although I also like the opportunity to buy up from gold to platinum transfer status. I think most everyone knows one of Bilt’s big benefits is on rent day, which is the first day of every month.
You can transfer your points or redeem them with some bonus. We’ve seen up to a hundred percent bonus if you are platinum status. And now with Bilt bucks, I mean Bilt cash, Justin we can buy up to platinum status for that extra 25 or 50% depending on what the rent day promotion is.
That can be a good way to exhaust the Bilt cash as it mostly expires at the end of the year. If we’re gonna spend 25,000 with the accelerator, maybe another [00:06:00] 25,000 could make sense. And it’s also still giving that two x everywhere, which is really competitive, so we’ll see as the year gets closer to an end.
But let’s go back to April. I used various credits, a $10 Walgreens credit. I used a $25 Bilt dining credit in Vegas. There was a place called Bar Centro in the shops at Crystals near Aria, they had a happy hour and I was able to get discounted food with the $25 Bilt dining credit. This isn’t available at many places, but there are a few options in Vegas.
I went to Washington, DC also had a place. I used the $10 GrubHub credit for a GrubHub gift card. And again, I’m working on a Points accelerator. Next week I’m going to use a $10 Lyft credit. So that’s looking because America loves Math, $55 in total credits this month and then the bonus points from the Points Accelerator, so getting good value out of that.
Bilt cash, [00:07:00] definitely offsetting that annual fee. And in previous months, I used Bilt cash for hotel credits and the $200 Palladium hotel credit as well.
How have you been using the Bilt Cash? I’ve been doing very similar things to you. Probably not as many. Turns out the little town of West Grove does not have a lot of Bilt dining credit options.
I was traveling for work. I did just look around to see what was available in Boston. There was one taco place some distance for me. I decided not to travel all the way over there. But that’s something we’ll keep an eye on. My wife and I are gonna be heading to DC. Oh, that’s the one.
Oyamel, that’s another taco place. Yeah. My wife and I are gonna be heading to DC second weekend in May, little birthday trip. We’ll have to check that out, see what we can come up with. Other things that I’ve done. Some Bilt accelerator or the points accelerator, like we talked about, redeemed for some Walgreens credits.
We spend money at Walgreens, so that’s an easy thing to work on. And then rent, or excuse me, mortgage, [00:08:00] I should say. I think that’s really been my spend at this point. I’ve been waiting. Justin, you know what I’m gonna say? I’ve been waiting for the BlackLane, but I don’t know, I don’t think it’s gonna happen.
BlackLane in crisis. Uber allegedly buying them out or merging with BlackLane. That’s the rumor on the street, right? So Uber buys BlackLane. Maybe they stay a luxury brand, maybe Bilt, still finds a way to work with ’em, but I don’t see any other Uber credits here. That seems to be an Amex thing. They have the GrubHub credit and you gotta think that the Uber Eats competition with GrubHub is maybe be going to be difficult.
Oh, And the Lyft credit, right? Lyft to Lyft, yeah. The direct competition. I don’t know I love that opportunity to use a BlackLane. Credit. Upcoming travel and some things. If not, I guess listeners, let me know how best to book travel ahead of time in Singapore.
I guess I could always arrange it with the hotel. We’re staying at the Ritz. Justin gotta burn those FHR credits, [00:09:00] baby. Oh, nice. I like it. Lots of credits. And there was a new tab. It says credits in the tab when you look at the Bilt cash option. It says, I have no credits. I assume these are the hotel credits.
Have you been seeing that in your app? Yes. I see that I have a $200 hotel credit to use on two nights. Unfortunately we’re only staying one night in DC here in a couple weekends. We decided to use one of our Hilton free night certificates to stay close to them all and a couple of museums that we’ll plan to visit.
Yeah I don’t know when we’re gonna be able to use that. But that’s the other credit, the other tab, I don’t know if everyone sees this, but there’s another tab called Bilt Close Friends. Justin. Ooh you’re a close friend. I’m happy to you got that email. I’m happy to say I’m a close friend.
I’m pretty excited about it. Bilt has been doing some innovative things. Richard Kerr is an innovator, has been in the other side of the awards, miles and points hobby as we like to say. Get in the game Justin. He’s been in the game [00:10:00] and so now he’s looking at things from a little different perspective and folks get a little cranky about that sometimes, but I think what he brings is understanding what value folks like you and I are looking for and doing a fairly good job of providing some of that whether that’s in transfer partners or some of these travel credits. Looking forward to seeing what that involves. I have been invited to a couple happy hours.
They’re in big cities, New York City, San Francisco, et cetera, so not easy for me to get to New York. We occasionally get up there for a weekend or even a night, but on a Wednesday night. Eh, it’s a little bit of a challenge, so hoping that maybe they get down to Philly or even dc although that would also be challenging.
I will let you know. I’ll keep you updated on what close friend things I can, I don’t even know what I can talk about publicly, Justin. Oh, it’s exclusive. It’s exclusive. If they had it in Philadelphia, could they at least call it a Bilt bash or a Bilt bonanza to keep the Bs going?
Yeah, I hope so. Justin, at least for me knowing they’re coming [00:11:00] to Philly, got a call it something Bilt bash Bilt Bonanza. I like both of those options. I’m trying to think about what could also be incorporated into Philly, but I’m struggling. Readers and listeners you’ll have to let us know what works there.
Yes. Chime in the YouTube comments with your thoughts on that and how you’ve been using Bilt Cash. Thoughts on the Bilt program. We have a new transfer partner. They added Wyndham. No more vacation rentals, no more Vacasa, but there could still be some good uses for Wyndham, especially on weekends in Las Vegas at the Desert Rose and Desert Blue.
I’ve stayed at both of those properties before. I was just gonna ask you about those two properties. I remember Desert Blue, but I did not remember the Desert Rose. Which one do you prefer, Justin? Which one should folks think about if they have the opportunity to accrue some Wyndham points either by transfer, there’s another transfer partner in town right with Wyndham.
For me, it’s the location. Desert Blue is [00:12:00] out the backside of Rio and Desert rose is close to the strip, close to MGM grand, Luxor, and Excalibur. I stayed based on where else I was staying. I didn’t just stay with Wyndham. I would stay a few nights at Rio, I would stay a few nights with MGM, then I’d pop over to Wyndham rather than taking a huge rideshare to the other side of the strip, I would try to be located in the same section.
Gotta gin up those Hyat t nights at the Rio. I know that initial luster has worn off there for you. But still seems like a couple good options for you to stay at low cost or no cost in Las Vegas as the theme song goes.
I was gonna say, yeah, I try to be a podcasting pro. Justin, tie it all together for you.
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Back to today’s episode, the Bilt Bulletin for the month of April. Thanks again, Darren for joining me on the show. Yeah, [00:15:00] happy to talk about Bilt. We talked about using the hotel credits.
The Palladium card gets the $200 hotel credit twice a year through the end of June, and then July through December, I found a hotel in Miami close to the Virgin Voyages Cruise Port. I’ll be taking a cruise with Virgin Voyages, So I’ll stay two nights in Miami and then head to the cruise. You must stay two nights in order to use the credit.
Very little out of pocket in my case, but now there is a new development. The website next card.com has a list of the Bilt partners and a list of these partnering hotels that can help you maximize the credit. In particular, they have a list of the home away from home properties. These are participating hotels that when booked with Bilt give you dining credits, complimentary breakfast, possible room upgrades, possible late checkout and more.
Some of these are even around [00:16:00] $150 a night, so this can work really well with the $200 hotel credit, and you can activate a hundred dollars in Bilt cash on the same booking to save $300.
We’d love to stack Justin. We’d love to stack these deals. I think this is an easy one to stack. Just gotta find like you did the right hotel for a couple nights in that 150 to $200 range and voila, you can earn a couple credits pretty easy. It can be difficult because some of the hotels are more expensive, especially on the home away from home list, but it’s still worth checking out.
If it’s close to your destination, or maybe even make a trip of it for a Bilt excursion. Yeah. Oftentimes we say, you go where the points will take you, right? You weren’t necessarily planning on flying to China and taking a cruise a couple weeks ago, Justin, but that’s where the points took you.
So it was a fun adventure to do that. And maybe that’s the same idea here, right? We don’t necessarily have to plan a trip to here, there, [00:17:00] or anywhere specific, but if that’s where the points will take us, and that’s where we can go. Definitely offsetting the annual fee on the card if you’re able to get good use of these hotel credits.
Although, as I believe you said, the first year, it’s a clear winner with the signup bonus. But then we have the annual fee going forward to use these credits, the hotel credits to use the Bilt cash, so a big win in year one and potentially keeping this card in year two or maybe downgrading it if they allow you to do that.
Time will tell. But so far it’s been pretty good with the palladium card. An interesting question whether we can downgrade to the obsidian and that’s what, three x groceries and three x dining. You have to choose.
It’s either, either dining. Oh yeah. Thanks for that reminder. Yeah. Or the blue card, which I think is just one X everywhere. So not as exciting there. if you can use the $200 biannual hotel credits, right? That takes a big chunk out of the annual fee and if [00:18:00] there’s value there for you, then all of a sudden it’s a $95 card for two x everywhere Bilt points.
And I think Bilt points are still some of the most valuable around. I’ve been transferred them to Hyatt, to Alaska. For those that do not recall, I’m persona non grata on American Airlines advantage. Alaska has been a great opportunity for me to still fly American metal when needed, especially out of the Philly airport.
And of course they have a whole host of, partners both domestic, international, that are still pretty good pricewise. And this was a low month for me, $55 in total credits outta the Bilt cash, but using the other hundred for the hotel credit. It’d be interesting to see how it goes throughout the year about how much value I got back in the Bilt cash.
Maybe it’s not exactly $55 because I could have sourced these rewards in other ways, but still getting some bang for my buck with the Bilt cash.
Just looking at my Bilt app here, [00:19:00] I see a special referral offer. 5,000 points when you refer your friends to any Bilt card. So I, that’s
Something to consider and I was trying to see where I might find how much Bilt cash I earned the last statement, but you’ll have to talk about that for a minute because I can’t find it on my app at this very moment.
That’s more math. But it’s okay. And that leads us into a listener comment. This is from Michael Trager, supporter of the show from Travel Zork. He got the Bilt Palladium card and he wrote in, he says: I completed the Bilt palladium bonus. I still think Bilt is way too complicated.
I think the travel credit is lousy. I do not like that they lack a premium lounge. I’m positive about their transfer partners, but they also lost American Airlines, which was a huge differentiator. I like and highly recommend and feel the simplicity of Capital One [00:20:00] venture X is what people want.
This does not make Bilt bad, but Bilt failed to achieve the goal of simple is better and they totally shed their DNA, which was earning points for rent easily and seamlessly. Your thoughts? I would partially agree, Justin.
It is a complicated card and if you’re looking for simplicity the Venture X is a great card for you. I would argue that Bilt points are more valuable than Capital One points. And I think it’s not a difficult argument to make based on both transfer partners and the tremendous bonus opportunities that Bilt offers, once a month for every month of the year.
12 good bonus offers and probably of those, four or five or six are just fantastic. If you’re planning on flying on points and miles or using points and miles real opportunity there. As far as seamlessly paying rent I think it’s still pretty seamless. The downside is you don’t put it on your card, but you’re still earning points and I don’t know any other way [00:21:00] to do that except for a service like plastic, or excuse me, Plastiq or maybe Melio to pay, and that’s a 3% fee. You’re still getting something for close to nothing as long as you’re putting a reasonable amount of spend on the card.
I think most folks with a reasonable amount of organic spend can easily get to the right number, to easily and seamlessly pay their rent or mortgage. What do you think, Justin? Yes, there are some complications. There was an initial learning curve for sure about figuring out what the Bilt cash is, figuring out how the points work.
But now I’m more confident and I think the points accelerator is the main Bilt cash redemption for most people. If you’re not going to use the small credits or if you think it’s too much going on, you could focus on the Points Accelerator and get that three x. I think that’s pretty good. It’s going to do better than the Capital One Venture X that’s giving the two x and one sad reality for many listeners is [00:22:00] Capital One is very difficult with approvals if you have a long sheet of approved cards, inquiries, good credit score and so on.
Maybe you can get the Capital One Venture X early on in your points and miles career, but later on it’s very difficult from much of what I have heard from people.
The travel credit, $200 plus the 100 in Bilt cash, so to get $300 off twice a year, I found use of it next to the cruise port.
Maybe we could have a world where the annual fee is something like 95 and then you just get rid of the travel credit. But unfortunately, the model of many credit cards has gone to the higher annual fee and the more benefits, and this is definitely part of that. We’re not getting lounge access so we can get lounge access with other cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve.
I use the Sapphire Lounge often in Philadelphia, Boston, other locations. Michael Trigger laments the lack of American Airlines, but you’ve been able to book [00:23:00] American Airlines often with Alaska. I have. Low, redemption prices. 4,500 in economy or I think 7,000 in economy.
I went down to Nashville a couple years back. My kids are flying to Phoenix, so that was 25,000 round trip per ticket which would’ve been a 650 to $900 ticket. Looking at them traveling to Florida to see grandparents and Michigan, to see grandparents.
Certainly Alaska is one of my first go-tos still a great opportunity. Of course, as a close friend, I want to encourage Bilt to make an Alaska bonus. I think if they’re ever looking to empty out the Points Bank, if they did that or Hyatt, I think people would just absolutely empty them.
So we’ll see what happens, but even at one-to-One Transfer has been fantastic. And I think this would be more tailored to the high spenders, more [00:24:00] tailored to the advanced users, unfortunately Bilt, even though you made Darren a close friend, it’s gonna be difficult for me to recommend this as a starter card for most people because of the complex nature of it.
But I think for the more intermediate to advanced listeners, they can definitely appreciate all the value they can get from this card. It’s nice that you could use the Bilt cash to pick what you would like rather than being forced into things that you don’t quite want, like maybe Lululemon credits, or you have to make three purchases, three months in a row with rideshare in order to get a statement credit, and you have to do that to offset the annual fee.
There are a lot of these benefits that aren’t so good or people don’t like, but on this you get to choose your own destiny with the Bilt cash. I like the Bilt bucks and the opportunity to do that. Could it have been rolled out smoother?
I would be surprised if anyone at Bilt thinks it was the smoothest rollout. And sometimes Justin when [00:25:00] people get frustrated and throw their hands up in the air, it’s an opportunity for those of us that are more accustomed to the different rules that banks and cards put together to to find value.
And I think that’s what happened here. At least that’s how I’ve been thinking about it. Very good. Any upcoming cards for you? We’ve both talked about our upcoming travels. Any applications coming in the near future? I did just apply and was approved for a PayPal credit card issued by Synchrony Bank for those that enjoy banking with Synchrony and have been able to use that for a variety of different PayPal purchases and and get 3% cash back on purchases made through PayPal. A nice little cash back play there that I can add to my portfolio. Other than that not much. I’m still waiting. Justin, I feel like this could be an episode of its own. My oldest daughter is [00:26:00] 19.
Justin, I think it’s time for her first credit card, and I haven’t done that yet. So maybe this summer that’ll be a good summer project. We can get her own card where she’s been an authorized user for both my wife and I card. And so she should have interesting credit history, lengthy credit history, which may be longer than her 19 years of life.
My hope is that she’ll be easy to approve. I’m just not sure whether I need to start with something like a discover it card or I can jump right into say the Chase portfolio or even like we just talked about venture cards. I would like the option of getting a Chase checking account in her name and then getting a Chase, maybe Freedom Flex, a Chase Hyatt card, something similar to that.
Yeah. I’ll be begging her for guest of honors if she gets to globalist before I do. I don’t know. Yeah, that’s a good thought. We actually have a Chase branch that just opened 15 or 20 minutes here from the house, [00:27:00] so it might be an opportunity for her to move some of her banking over there.
Very good. Anything else happening? The only other thing I was gonna say on that topic, I’ve always been a little leery of opening both a credit card and a checking account at Chase.
But maybe for the short term to get in the door, it’s a reasonable plan. She doesn’t have to actively use the account. That’s fine. Yeah. I get the feeling that, or I’ve heard information that would suggest that it’s a different kind of credit evaluation for banking compared to credit card usage.
I think for someone new to the hobby, it can be okay. Get a new account, get your foot in the doors, and establish customer, get verified, and then hopefully the credit card approval
will be easier. Not to actively use the account, not to link it to online gambling when she turns 21 and have all these transactions going on they might not like. Yeah. But just at least having the account and then [00:28:00] minimal activity with it, I think is okay to get that journey going and hey, eventually she can get Citi cards, then get those American airlines miles that you and I can’t get.
Yeah I think she’s gonna need an address that is not my address in order to avoid any adverse action. UPS store, maybe. Yeah. Have thought about her college address even. Oh, that’s maybe not a bad idea either. She has an American Airlines account.
It’s still in good standing as far as I know. That’s the goal. Give us a shot, Citi. Give us a shot. That’s right. Give us a shot. Mets not doing too well. I see the Phils is doing well either. Very good. Listeners, feel free to comment in the YouTube section, your thoughts on Bilt, questions you might have, and feel free to email info@HurdyGurdyTravelPodcast.com. Anything else, Darren?
Nothing else from me, Justin. Appreciate the opportunity to talk to you about the Bilt bulletin and look forward to doing again next [00:29:00] month. Hopefully no skipping months for the May Bilt Bulletin coming up. Thanks for coming on the show with me and thanks everyone for listening.
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