Bilt Bulletin July 2026 | Palladium Card Value, Alaska Transfers, Bilt Cash Expiration & More
Justin Vacula of the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast is joined by returning co-host Darren covering the latest Bilt Rewards updates, Bilt Palladium Card strategy, Alaska Airlines transfers, Bilt Cash expiration concerns, and tools from NextCard that help Bilt users.
Justin and Darren explain how Bilt Rewards works as a loyalty program with credit cards, transfer partners, and ways to earn rewards on rent and mortgage payments. They focus on the Bilt Palladium Card, including its 2X earning structure, value from Bilt Cash redemptions, hotel credits, and the ability to earn points paying rent or mortgage.
Justin shares his first transfer from Bilt to Alaska Airlines Atmos Rewards, using points to book Philadelphia to Savannah flights for 7,500 points each way. Darren also discusses heavy Alaska mileage usage for family travel and a business-class redemption, showing how valuable Alaska transfers can be.
They also review progress toward Bilt Platinum status, spending stats, points interest, and whether Bilt Cash expiration at year-end may reduce late-year card spend. Justin and Darren discuss why cardholders may want to redeem Bilt Cash aggressively before expiration rather than letting value go unused.
The episode also highlights NextCard.com calculators and maps for understanding Bilt card value, earning rates, transfer strategies, and card comparisons. Justin and Darren discuss current limitations around holding multiple Bilt cards, pending upgrade and downgrade functionality, and how these changes may affect Bilt users in 2027. Finally, Justin talks about his new Rakuten credit card, including how he is using the Rakuten card to earn Bilt points on uncapped 2X grocery spend.
Timestamps
00:00 Podcast Intro
01:25 Bilt Program Basics
02:37 Palladium Card Highlights
05:27 Earn Points on Rent And Mortgage Payments
06:37 Real Redemptions: Alaska Flights
09:28 Spend Stats And Status Progress
13:49 Bilt Cash Expiration Concerns
19:33 Support The Show
22:13 NextCard.com Tools For Bilt
25:43 Upgrade And Downgrade Questions
30:00 Rakuten Card Earns Bilt Points
33:01 Wrap Up And Listener Feedback
34:00 Outro And Credits
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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. Bilt Rewards continues to offer great value. Learn how to maximize rewards with Bilt and the Bilt credit cards. We’re using credits and benefits.
We’ll talk about what we’ve been up to with Bilt. Returning co-host Darren joins me today recorded July 22nd, 2026. [00:01:00] Welcome back to the show, Darren. Thanks, Justin. Always happy to be back and talking about Bilt. Always lots of developments. Hopefully, we can keep this going.
We’ve been doing it for a few months so far. If listeners have missed the previous Bilt Bulletins, you can go back in the archive on the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast YouTube channel, or listen in podcast players for past episodes beautiful Bilt Bulletins, Justin. That’s what we’re all about here today All the Bs, and let’s start with a brief explanation for Bilt for those who might be unfamiliar.
Bilt is a loyalty program that has a credit card component. Both Darren and I have the Bilt Palladium credit card. This gives a base two times points on spending, and the option I and Darren eventually chose 4% in a second currency, Bilt Cash. You’re getting the 2X and the 4% Bilt Cash on all spending with the Palladium card.
You can use Bilt points to transfer to travel partners, airline programs [00:02:00] including Atmos Rewards for Alaska Airlines booked flights, also sharing with American Airlines, and hotel programs including World of Hyatt. Bilt Cash can be used with rent and mortgage payments, letting you earn some Bilt points.
Bilt Cash can also be used to boost your 2X spending on the Palladium credit card to 3X up to $25,000 in spending per calendar year with the Point Accelerator feature. Great earnings there. You can also redeem Bilt Cash for $100 hotel credits, monthly dining credits, we’ll talk about that a little later, and much more.
The Bilt Palladium card also gave us a 50,000 point welcome bonus. It looks like that’s still the case in July of 2026 with a 50k sign-up bonus or a welcome offer, and you get Bilt Gold status, which gives various benefits including bonus points transfers to these travel programs on the special rent day promotions at the start of each month.
You [00:03:00] also get $300 in Bilt Cash as part of the Palladium credit card welcome bonus and an annual $200 in Bilt Cash, which should post with card approval. You get two $200 hotel credits per calendar year that can stack with the $100 hotel credits, America Loves Math twice a year, $300 off hotel stays with Bilt.
Lots of value to be had, and we’re breaking it down today. Absolutely, Justin. A couple comments here on Bilt. Bilt of course made its name by offering the opportunity to earn points on initially rent, but now any housing payments, so the first really in class to do that.
And I’ll just say the $200 hotel credits Justin said per calendar year, that’s $200 in the first half, so January through June, and $200 in the second half, July through December. They are two-night minimum. We were both able to utilize those in the first half, and we hope that we will be able to do so in [00:04:00] the second half of the year here as well I looked in Las Vegas for Bilt, but a lot of the places had resort fees or were far away from where I wanted to stay.
So I’m passing on the Bilt in Las Vegas, but I will be able to use Bilt Cash once again for the $25 dining credit at Zatinya. This is a Mediterranean restaurant in Las Vegas. I can use the $10 a month Lyft credit, the $10 a month Grubhub credit, and much more with the Bilt Cash. Really generous as they’re offering that 2X on all spending, plus the extra Bilt Cash for more redemptions.
It’s a lot going on. There’s also the Obsidian credit card, which is the mid-tier credit card that earns 3X on dining or grocery, not both, up to 25,000 spend. But I think Palladium is the better choice for frequent travelers and certainly those looking to use the Bilt card a lot, getting a lot of spend in, and maximizing [00:05:00] benefits and redemptions.
Yeah. If you’re gonna capitalize on both housing payments and spend more than $25,000 in a year, I think the Palladium is an easy one for that. You get that bonus $200 Bilt Bucks or Bilt Cash, and that allows you to step right into an accelerator and make that a 3X card pretty much from the beginning.
To clarify, you still only earn 1X on housing payments, but 3X on regular card spend. And I have a lot of Bilt Cash now. It’s nice to pay my rent with Bilt. They issue an account number, routing number, and I use my landlord-provided portal to pay, and I’m just getting extra points from paying rent. I previously paid rent using a credit card, and there was a slight four or $5 fee, but now it changed and it’s a 3% fee to pay rent.
Womp, womp. So the checking account payment and using Bilt is a good way to go to get extra points each month on rent. Yeah. I have also been paying [00:06:00] my housing payment, and mine is a mortgage and same situation. So my understanding, Justin, is if you have a mortgage payment and maybe you’re paying for a kid’s college rent, you could pay both of those as long as you had enough Bilt Bucks or Bilt Cash in your Bilt wallet.
There are a number of earning opportunities here. This is a unique card. I think that word maybe gets overutilized, but I think in this instance it’s correct and it offers a number of great transfer partners some of which are also I think fairly, if not entirely exclusive to the Bilt program.
Very good. Let’s talk about our actual uses with Bilt. I made my first Bilt points transfer to Alaska Airlines. I booked flights from Philadelphia to Savannah, Georgia, and then Savannah back to Philadelphia. Alaska was a clear winner for only 7,500 points one way, 15,000 total. The process to transfer points was [00:07:00] very easy.
I just had to link my Atmos rewards account, then the transfer was fast and I booked the flights the same day. I used Roame, R-O-A-M-E, to check on rates to go from Philly to Savannah and back, and Alaska Airlines was the clear winner. I could have also flown with booking points through American, but it was a lot more.
Even though this is an Alaska partner with American, for whatever reason, booking it through Alaska is a lot cheaper. And then Savannah, Georgia, I’ll perhaps use my various Bilt credits when I’m there, the Lyft, the GrubHub, and more. But I’ll also be going to Vegas later in August, so first world problems, lots of travel, few credits.
Yeah, that’s why we like to have a lot of different programs with different options here. As you indicated, Justin, Bilt transfer to Alaska is a fantastic option. I’ve also transferred and built a lot of my no pun intended, built up my point balance in Alaska mileage Atmos.
I [00:08:00] am no longer able to accrue American Airlines Advantage miles with Philadelphia as a home base, having Alaska available to book fairly inexpensive like you, one-way or even round-trip tickets spent some time in Nashville, did a one-way ticket or one-way there for 7,500.
Have also booked the return from our big trip this year from Bangkok to Frankfurt and then on to Toronto, where we’ll book a separate flight to get home with Condor. In business class those 85k had enough seats for my entire family of five.
That’s always the challenge when you’re flying families around, if you’re trying to fly up front and you wanna make sure everybody’s up front like we sometimes do having open business space and being able to transfer around. Speaking of my kids, it seems like they’re doing as much or more traveling than I am these days.
They’re flying out to Phoenix this year to see Noah Kahan this fall, so that was also an Alaska trip, or Alaska book trip on American Airlines. This weekend coming [00:09:00] up, they’re going down to see their grandfather in Florida, also American Airlines with Alaska miles. So we get a lot of use out of those Alaska miles.
I’m very grateful that Bilt allows me to transfer points there. I also have a couple of Alaska credit cards that help me build up balances. But as much as we use Alaskan miles having a lot of different options are really important. Bilt points being versatile, a big bonus, more Bs for the audience there.
Let’s talk about some stats and a little bit of math . At the time of recording, July 22nd, 2026, I’ve spent about $37,000 on my Bilt Palladium card in 2026 and am close to getting to 50,000 in spend for Bilt Platinum status. I’m not super rushing it. I have all year to get the status. For July, I used $10 in Bilt Cash for a $10 Walgreens gift card, and $10 in Bilt Cash for a $10 Grubhub credit.
I maxed out my [00:10:00] five-point accelerator features earlier in the year, so no more Bilt Cash redemptions there. And I haven’t been near Bilt Mobile Dining this July, so no Bilt Dining, although again, I will be in Vegas in August for more Bilt Dining, $25 off Yeah, I think you’ve got it figured out there in Vegas, Justin, and I don’t blame you for not using a Bilt hotel as many other good options you have there with comps and free nights and even Wyndham points, Justin.
Yes, I got the new Wyndham credit card, and even on the weekend, it’s very cheap to stay at the Wyndham Desert Rose that’s near MGM Grand. For sure. So far my spend as of recording today at 26,000 spend in 2026. I previously had the Wells Fargo backed Bilt card, and so some of that 26,000 includes spend on that previous card.
I’m on my fourth accelerator. And Justin, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but the other nice thing about being Bilt Gold is you [00:11:00] earn points interest, Justin. I don’t think anybody else does that. Ooh, how much, how many points do you get through the interest? 120, 20, 122 points. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. So that’s- we’re rich now.
Yeah. Dave Ramsey was talking about how no one got rich through airline miles, but we’re working on it here. Although, of course, it’s not just credit card earning, it’s all kinds of things combined together that he neglects to say, of course. Yeah. Couple years of that, compounding interest, I might have enough for a one-way flight on American, Justin.
You never know. There you go. And you’re also doing the Walgreens redemptions, the GrubHub redemptions? For sure. Walgreens has been great. GrubHub also is been good. I, of course, am sad, Justin, that there’s been no Blacklane benefit. That was one of my goals for our upcoming Asia trip to get airport transfers.
But no worries. I’m still waiting, and hopefully Bilt is able to pull that out. Blacklane and Bilt together, what a beautiful- And Blade … and Blade. Yeah The other B. We’re waiting on that. Someone had a screenshot [00:12:00] of FIFA, the World Cup, where a Blade helicopter was on the screen, and they were wondering if they had Bilt platinum status or not.
Probably not. Probably they’re just rich, but that’s okay.
I continue to use Bilt to earn points on my mortgage and try to make sure I spend the $1,000 on rent day to max out that promotion as well. So that’s quite a good deal, right? 2x on the Platinum, plus rent day is 4x, plus one more is for Accelerator makes it a 5X card for $1,000 spend 12 days out of the year.
America still loves math. Indeed, Justin, indeed we do. So you’re at 26,000 spend. You’re on your fourth Accelerator. So are you going to stop when you max out the five Accelerators? Or do you think you’re going to go to 50k for Platinum status? I was just looking at that. I’d be at what 34, 35.
That’s- Ooh … it’s getting close, and I’m kinda halfway there, halfway through the year, so I’ll probably take a look [00:13:00] at it . I think there’s some good options for me to get across 50k and get to platinum, which would be the first time. I’ve been kinda hanging out in that gold sweet spot historically, but maybe this is the year for platinum, Justin.
What do you think? Are you going to platinum? Oh, yes, I think so. And I’m taking it slowly too, and it’s a common thing in this space that it’s a marathon, not a sprint, so no need to super rush things. If we have all year to hit a spending goal and we know we can do it, there’s no need to rush super early and then get adverse action for spending too much, using too much of our $50,000 credit limit that we recently got, another feature of Bilt.
And you know around November, December, there’s gonna be more spending with holidays, with a lot of deals and promotions. And this leads us into another topic. View from the Wing, Gary Leff, had an article about Bilt Cash: Use It or Lose It. I was interested in the comments, including a commenter, [00:14:00] 1990, that was iconic from the Bob Saget roast.
Gilbert Gottfried was up at the podium. He kept saying, “1990.” We won’t say exactly what it was, but if you YouTube Bob Saget 1990 or Gilbert Gottfried 1990, you can find the very not safe for work clip. And the commenter, 1990, wrote, “We got a real problem on the horizon with relatively unusable gluts of Bilt cash.
Ankur,” that’s Ankur Jain, the Bilt founder or CEO, “really should waive the 5X max on the accelerator or just remove the annual expiration. Otherwise, folks are gonna be livid when they lose hundreds or thousands of dollars in Bilt Cash at year’s end.” And just a note here, all the Bilt Cash expires at the end of the year except for $100 at the time of recording.
The commenter continues, “The math ain’t great, especially when high-value redemptions, Blacklane, Blade is still coming soon, aren’t available for six [00:15:00] plus months.” That’s the end of the comment. And we’ve talked about this before, Darren. It’s sad to see that most BILT Cash is scheduled to expire at the end of the year, and I have $638 in BILT Cash right now.
I’ve been using it often. I’ve been redeeming my monthly BILT Cash. I’ve been paying rent. I’ve used the points accelerator. I’m still spending to reach status, but I think I’ll use the card far less when I reach status, and probably others will, too. However, 2X everything is still appealing, especially because points transfer to Atmos Rewards, and I’ve been denied for BOA cards.
I’m still trying to get an Alaska card with Bank of America, but they’ve been denying me. To fix this expiration, BILT could remove certain caps or add new BILT Cash options, but still, the 2X everywhere plus BILT Cash is good even if some or a lot of BILT Cash expires at the end of the year. Yeah. I think the BILT Bucks or BILT Cash that we’ve talked about, [00:16:00] Justin, are really bonus points, the way, as, as I’ve been thinking about it.
It lets you do a number of other things, and most importantly for me, it’s earning points on housing payments, which I was not able to do with any other card at least not for free previously. Yeah I think it is potentially concerning, and I don’t anticipate this is gonna change.
I think we’re gonna get to the end of the year, folks will be frustrated, there’ll be a big hullabaloo in the Points and Miles community on, and on Reddit it’ll be like Groundhog Day. You go back to 100, start over again.
But these are pretty clear terms and conditions that have been there from the start. I think this is a little bit of a safeguard.
I don’t know as much where the concern comes from, except that, behaviorally and economically and all the psychology of behavioral economics, people really hate to lose things more than they like to win things.
We should probably plan and think about that now. What can you do in the short term to make sure that you’re cashing out now, and so you’re not stuck with some in the end.
Let’s take the $10 here and the [00:17:00] $100 in hotel credits there and make sure we’re not coming to the end of the year thinking we’re gonna spend it tomorrow, Justin. Sometimes it’s just not tomorrow.
Very aggressive redemptions I think is the way to go and yes, still it’s 2X plus the BILT cash which is really good And unfortunately for them, then they’re probably going to lose spending towards the end of the year when people have already used all the points accelerator. I think there are break points at 25k and 50k where the card is less attractive to use.
Maybe people who are very high spenders would even just shift to general 2% cashback cards or other cards that might give 1.5x points or they’ll work on other high spend goals. And this goes into another comment, this time from someone named David, who writes, “The problem with the expiration of cash at calendar year end as opposed to a rolling 12 months is that I think come September or so, they’re going to see a tremendous drop-off in spending on the card.
If you have enough Bilt cash to get through your [00:18:00] mortgage and a few transfer bonuses, why spend on the card to earn more that will just expire? It’s a weird card in that it’s good for moderately big spenders, but not really big spenders. After 25k spend a year, it’s not as compelling. That being said, with their good transfer partners, it’s still a good 2X everything card, so no real deterrent to most of the other big 2X cards for otherwise un-bonused spending.”
And you think, Darren, this is how much you value the Bilt points, because if you value the Alaska points very highly, especially if you can’t get cards with Bank of America or don’t have those cards yet, then maybe that 2X will be more valuable for some people compared to others. Absolutely. That’s the whipped cream on top of the sundae, Justin. I think the real value in this card is the 2X everywhere spend or 3X. But even a 2X, 2X transfer to Alaska, 2X transfer to Hyatt if you time a transfer probably to neither one of those will ever be bonused, but never know, maybe that’ll be a wonderful [00:19:00] holiday present for us this year, Justin.
But even without that there’s been, of course, numerous transfer bonuses to a variety of different airline and hotel partners, and you can get good value out of those too if they line up with your future travel plans.
For me, there’s still a tremendous value in 2X Alaska miles whether at 25K, 50K, or 150K.
Bilt could possibly do something to fix this, whether it’s more Bilt Cash redemption options or just waiving the expiration on the Bilt Cash. And with that, we’ll take a short break. Ads are here to support the show and support my efforts. You’ll hear ads here just like on many other shows.
The show is free for listeners with no paywall. I spend time editing audio, creating transcripts, and preparing for the show. I also pay for software and subscriptions. Please support through affiliate links and by becoming a Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast supporter on subscribestar.com or [00:20:00] YouTube. Visit meetup.com/PhillyMilesAndPoints to RSVP for monthly Greater Philadelphia travel credit miles and points meetups I host in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania.
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Simply cancel existing flights and rebook when AutoPilot emails you about lower fares. Find my link in the show notes. Returning to today’s episode with co-host Darren, we’re discussing the Bilt Palladium credit card and many other features about Bilt. Thanks again for joining me today, Darren You’re welcome, Justin.
Justin does a tremendous amount of editing to make me sound smarter and maybe slightly better looking. Thank you for that, Justin.
And maybe it’s a deeper voice today. You got sick recently, but you’re still committed to coming on. Yeah. I’m not [00:22:00] sure if I’ve gone beyond the, McConaughey, all right,” something- … something slightly deeper. Barry White today maybe. Yeah, Barry White. Yeah, Johnny Cash. “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.”
Or Batman. Yeah, Batman. Yeah. Batman.
We’ll highlight something Bilt adjacent. We’ll feature NextCard.com in this segment, and I’m hoping to have someone from NextCard on the show. Coincidentally, they reached out to me saying they wanted to be on, so this is a pre-show, a preview of that.
NextCard.com Has many helpful features for Bilt users, including the Bilt 2.0 calculator because, of course, America loves math. Calculate how many Bilt points you earn from rent, mortgage, and everyday spending between the Bilt Blue, Obsidian, and Palladium Card. They also have you compare your monthly and annual Bilt reward earnings versus other cards like the Freedom Unlimited, the Venture X, or the Citi Double Cash.
We also have [00:23:00] the Bilt Cash redemption calculator. Find the best ways to redeem your Bilt Cash. They rank credit redemptions like the Lyft, Grubhub, and dining credits first because that’s one for one. $10 in Bilt Cash gets you the $10 Lyft, the $10 Grubhub, and 25 in Bilt Cash gets you the $25 dining credit.
Then they have Bilt Cash used for housing payments, transfer upgrades, and the points accelerator feature. With limited Bilt Cash, this ranking seems on point, but I imagine most listeners here are more intermediate to advanced and higher spenders, so they have lots of Bilt Cash. Likely redeem for everything they can because it’s mostly going to expire at the end of the year.
But for those who maybe don’t have as much spending or fewer spending opportunities, then maybe they’ll be more careful on their Bilt cash redemptions and NextCard.com’s calculator will be quite helpful
I love this community and the tools that pop up around it, whether it’s ways in order [00:24:00] to search airline redemptions reprice airline or car rentals, hotels and now NextCard with a BILT calculator.
Does NextCard also have the map for Home Away From Home stays as well?
Yes, they do have a map for the Home Away From Home. Usually expensive compared to other options, and even a $300 discount won’t do much. But there are some hotels outside the US that they have ranging from 100 to $150 per night, and the Home Away From Home is similar to the Edit or Fine Hotels & Resorts where you get extra benefits on your stay, like later checkout, extra food, and so on That’s nice.
Maybe a better and cheaper way to redeem those points is the Bilt dining map. It sounds like NextCard has built a map that maybe is as good as or maybe a little bit better than what we can find in the, the Bilt dining app or the Bilt app.
Nextcard.com is doing it [00:25:00] for Bilt, doing it for us, and finding those dining locations.
And they also have Resy on there, the Chase exclusive tables, and much more, and in some cases you can stack a lot of these different benefits, maybe Rakuten Dining, InKind . You could split tender, our favorite. You could even do a split tender with the Bilt dining to not have to go over is my understanding, as long as the cashier or the server would be cooperative with that.
If I know I’m gonna be traveling somewhere and I’d like to use Bilt Dining, it’s hard for me to find the Bilt Dining options in that new city. A lot of cool tools on there. I look forward to having them on the podcast. Hopefully, that works out for August .
We’ll move on here as some in the Bilt Facebook group, they’ve been concerned about the future with Bilt cards. They’ve been asking, “Can you downgrade a card when the second year annual fee hits?”
Maybe you have the Palladium now, you wanna downgrade to the lower annual fee [00:26:00] Obsidian card. Is that possible? Another question, can you have both the Palladium and the Obsidian card? At this time, it seems, no, that you can’t have multiple Bilt credit cards.
But someone did get a reply from Bilt customer support, and this is what the representative said, “Members can only hold one primary Bilt credit card at a time. We currently do not support upgrading or downgrading between card products. However, we do anticipate having this ability available prior to your one-year card anniversary.
Once that feature is live, the relevant terms and conditions will be shared at that time. Our recommendation would be to check back with us closer to your one-year anniversary for the most up-to-date information. We appreciate your patience and look forward to sharing more details when they become available.”
Sounds like there’s hope, Justin. Upgrading and downgrading. Amex has spoiled us in [00:27:00] allowing us to do that pretty seamlessly and and in some instances or most instances even on a prorated annual fee basis.
This customer service representative highlighted one primary card that would indicate that you could hold a primary card, then also be an authorized user. on a recent Frequent Miler episode, they talked about how the authorized user can choose to decide whether their Bilt points go to their own account or back to the primary holder’s account.
You could see a situation where, maybe in year two, Justin I would consider downgrading my card for Obsidian. My wife signs up for the Palladium, and I become an authorized user on that card with all my miles going towards my account as well as maybe 3X grocery.
Some interesting opportunities there. It would be interesting to see what Cardless thinks of that sort of creative approach to account holding. [00:28:00] We’ll have to wait for the terms and conditions, as the rep said.
A lot of this talk about upgrading and downgrading in year two is very early. It’s still six months from the annual fee hitting, so this probably isn’t the best brain space activity at the moment. We hear people talking about, “Oh, the mental load of the brain power, it’s so difficult.”
But I think you’re adding to your troubles here if you’re thinking about what’s going to happen six months from now when so much could change. Who knows what Bilt is going to be like six months from now, as we have lots of changes from month to month and it’s a new program. But when February of 2027 comes, then we’ll start asking those questions more, and I think it’s a more worthwhile endeavor at that time.
A lot has changed and a lot may still change with Bilt and with other credit cards, and so that may change how you feel about Bilt. My hope is that we just have some reasonable options that allow us to make decisions [00:29:00] that, benefit us still ensure that we have value in this card and in this program, and a little flexibility.
It would probably be to Bilt’s benefit, more Bs, to allow people to downgrade because if they don’t wanna pay the Palladium annual fee in year two, they’re not impressed with the hotel credits, they probably don’t want people canceling.
So if you can go from Palladium to Obsidian rather than canceling the card, that’s probably the best way to go. I’ll probably keep the Palladium, but again, that’s a decision six months away, so who knows at that time.
I’m not sure whether they will have sign-up bonus restrictions like Amex has like a lot of banks have these days. That would be interesting to know. Cardless has or has had some sign-up restrictions in the past, even total number of cards.
It would be interesting, maybe people would cancel the Palladium and then sign up for the Obsidian or cancel the Palladium, get the Palladium again at a later time to get that sign-up bonus once again. [00:30:00] We’ll see.
Moving on to more credit cards and something Bilt-adjacent, I was recently approved for the Rakuten Credit Card with imprint slash, I believe, WebBank.
I linked Bilt to my Rakuten account. Shout out to podcast listener Gene, who suggested to just change my email address, as I had Rakuten on another email address. Bilt said the Bilt email address had to be the same as the Rakuten email address. I changed from earning membership rewards with Rakuten to Bilt points.
The 2X on the card for grocery spending will now go to Bilt. You earn 2X on all grocery spending on the Rakuten Credit Card. There’s no cap on that, and it’s another way to earn Bilt points without spending on the Bilt credit card, or you have more options. The card also earns 4X on purchases with the [00:31:00] Rakuten shopping portal and has bonus points at Rakuten dining locations.
This is another option for earning points with Bilt. In my case, it’s probably going to go to Alaska, a no annual fee card with uncapped 2X earning at grocery stores. Pretty interesting for my purposes. It’s my understanding the rewards will be paid out once per quarter and then show in my Bilt account.
I think that’s how it works. The Rakuten card is confusing marketing because it talks about earning cash back, but that’s not really the case because it’s going to be earnings through Rakuten. Maybe it defaults as cash back, but I imagine many listeners have had Rakuten set to membership rewards, or maybe they moved it to Bilt like I did
I really like this option.
As we look for ways to qualify for higher status, you can do that in a couple different ways. Most commonly, I think people are doing it on spend, total spend, 25k for gold, 50k for platinum. But you can also [00:32:00] qualify on total points. If you had a place where you were spending a lot on this Rakuten card, 2X uncapped at grocery stores, for example all of a sudden that becomes a very interesting proposition to move towards that 100,000 points for gold and 200,000 points for platinum in a year?
Does that sound right for the Bilt card? Yes. It does show in the Bilt app that if you earn 200,000 Bilt points in a calendar year, you can get status that way rather than spending the 50,000 on a Bilt credit card. I wonder, though, if the Rakuten credit card earned Bilt points will qualify for earning status with Bilt.
I’m not sure that’s the case. It’s early. This is a relatively new card. I don’t think many people have it, and it’s probably not great for people earlier in the credit card game. But being low on options, I think that Rakuten was a good card to add for me.
Lot of ways to creatively earn with the [00:33:00] Rakuten credit card and Bilt.
Anything else, Darren, on Bilt?
I don’t think anything else. I think we covered it pretty well here. A good update. I think it still continues to bring value. I will be interested to hear more about upgrade/downgrade options in, maybe the new year. But in the meantime, like you I’m aggressively liquidating Bilt cash, and making sure that when it comes to the end of the year here, I’m not gonna be bag holding much more than what’s gonna roll over.
We’ll try to redeem as much as we can. Hopefully we’ll get on a Blade helicopter before the end of the year. We’ll see how that pans out. The Bilt cash benefit is coming soon, like George r. Martin had said in South Park, “It’s coming soon. The pizzas are coming. The dragons are coming. It’s coming soon.”
We’re still waiting. It’s been quite a while. So long- Hopefully we can have a Blade Christmas maybe … George. Maybe. It’s gotta be faster than George’s finishing of the next book. He’s only been promising that for 20 years, I think.
[00:34:00] All right. Very good. And for listeners, if you’d like to give some feedback, please comment on YouTube, comment on the podcast, and you can also email me, info@hurdygurdytravelpodcast.com. Make sure, info@hurdygurdytravelpodcast.com. Don’t leave out a word. You must have “podcast” in the email as well.
Thanks for coming on today. Always a pleasure to do the Bilt Bulletin with you, Justin. And listeners, we look forward to hearing your thoughts and what questions you may have about the Bilt card.
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