On January 14th, 2026, Bilt launched three new credit cards to complement their rewards program. The reactions were mixed, with some people really excited about the new options plus the ability to earn points on mortgage payments, while others were angry about the changes. Both groups, however, agreed on one thing – Bilt Cash was baffling.
The three credit cards, including the no annual fee Bilt Blue Card, the $95 annual fee Bilt Obsidian card, and a $495 annual fee Palladium Card, all have one thing in common – they earn 4x Bilt Cash on every purchase. Each card earned Bilt Points at different rates, but they all earned Bilt Cash at the 4x rate.
What is Bilt Cash?
Bilt Cash was essentially created to solve a problem. Bilt’s biggest selling point was that you could earn 1X Bilt Points on rent. With the new relaunch, Bilt was extending that feature to mortgage payments. They are allowing it through their payment portal on their website using Venmo or ACH payment.
The problem for them is that there is zero money in doing that. They needed to create a way to get income to cover the cost of the points. They need people to spend on the Bilt credit cards, so they can collect interchange fees as well as interest payments on recurring balances.
Bilt Cash was created to force people to spend on the cards. The way it works is this: to unlock points for housing spend, you need to pay 3% of that amount in Bilt Cash. For example, on a $1,000 rent payment, you would need to spend $30 of Bilt Cash to unlock the 1,000 points earned on that rent. At 4X Bilt Cash earned on all non-housing spend, you would need to spend $750 outside of rent or mortgage to earn those $30 in Bilt Cash.
If your rent or mortgage was $2,000, you would need to spend $1,500 in non-housing spend on the Bilt Cards to unlock the 2,000 points earned from the housing spend. Yes, I know this is a lot of math.
What About Excess Bilt Cash?
Using Bilt Cash for unlocking points on rent or mortgages has been understood since the day they announced the new Bilt credit cards. The confusing part was about the leftover Bilt Cash, not used to unlock those points.
At first, Bilt simply said that you would be able to use it within the Bilt ecosystem on things like Lyft rides and hotel credits. What was unclear, was whether you could use Bilt Cash to completely pay for a Lyft or a hotel, or whether it would be a discount.
The Reveal
I had wondered if Bilt had a fully formed plan when they launched or if they were planning to create this over time. On January 21st, 2026, Bilt sent out an email that made it clear that they had a plan all along, and they were waiting to release the details.
Bilt has created a menu of ways to spend your Bilt Cash. For each of these, you would need to redeem Bilt Cash for these benefits on a $1 Bilt Cash to $1 US ratio. According to that email, Bilt Cash can be redeemed for:
| Benefit | Benefit per use | Frequency/Annual Max |
| Grubhub Credits | $10 | Monthly/ $120 per year |
| Bilt Home Delivery | $5 | Monthly/$60 per year |
| Gopuff FAM membership | $100 | Annually/$100 per year |
| Bilt Dining Partners | $25 | Monthly/$300 per year |
| Bilt Dining Experiences | $50 | Monthly/$600 per year |
| Hotel Credit through Bilt Travel Portal (Blue and Silver members) | $50 (minimum 2-night stay) | Monthly/$600 per year |
| Hotel Credit through Bilt Travel Portal (Gold and Platinum members) | $100 (minimum 2-night stay) | Monthly/$1200 per year |
| Lyft Credits | $10 | Monthly/$120 per year |
| Blacklane Rides | $50 for Blue and Silver members, $100 for Gold members, $150 for Platinum members | Annually/$50 to $150 per year |
| Blade Credit | $350 | Twice Annually/$700 per year |
| Fitness Classes (Barry’s, Soulcycle, etc) | $40 | Monthly/$480 per year |
| Walgreens | $10 | Monthly/$120 per year |
I looked through this list and said, “Oh, just a bunch of coupons”. It wasn’t that exciting, although I did see some usefulness, and I’m not gonna lie, I’m very curious about the Blacklane and Blade credits. However, it just wasn’t anything that I found particularly valuable. But then I kept reading and suddenly got very happy.
Burying the Lede
Right near the bottom of the email was some extremely valuable information. It stated “Point accelerator on everyday spend. Enable +1X 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 5 activations annually; expires after $5,000 in spend or calendar year-end.”
Once this is activated, the Obsidian Card earns 4x on dining or grocery (you have to choose one), 3x on travel, 2x on everyday spend. On the Palladium card, it would earn 3x on everything once it’s enabled. That is huge! The Palladium card would earn 3x Bilt Cash on all spend, and it’s the most valuable transferable points of any program.
It’s a shame that they don’t offer this benefit to people with the no annual fee Bilt Blue Card. However, for people who are holding the Obsidian or Palladium card and will spend a lot on those cards, using $200 in Bilt points to unlock 1X on all spend for the next $5,000 in spend is awesome.
Bilt Palladium Example
For this example, I will use a fictitious scenario of a family with a $2,000 per month mortgage and sufficient income/expenses that allow for $4,000 in credit card spending. They pay for their mortgage through ACH on the Bilt platform and signed up for the Bilt Palladium Card.
Since the Palladium Card has, as part of the signup bonus, $300 in Bilt Cash, they immediately use $200 in Bilt Cash to unlock the point accelerator. Each month, they would earn $160 in Bilt Cash from the $4,000 in spend on the Palladium card, $60 of which is needed to unlock the 1X from the mortgage payment, leaving an excess of $100 in Bilt Cash each month.
This means they can unlock the point accelerator every 2 months, a maximum of 5 times. With the point accelerator, they can earn a total of 1X extra for $25,000 of their spend over the year.
In one year, they would earn 24,000 points for the mortgage, 96,000 points from the everyday spend, and an additional 25,000 points from the point accelerator. That would be a grand total of 145,000 points (not counting the signup bonus), which, if you divide by the $48,000 in spend, would equal a little over 3X on everything over the course of the year. There just isn’t any credit card available that offers that rate of return on everyday spend, especially when you realize the points are widely agreed upon as the most valuable of the transferable points currencies.
Conclusion
Bilt’s attempt to force their members to actually use their credit cards to earn points on their rent or mortgage payments, left them with an odd system for people who overshoot the goal. They created Bilt Cash, which at first glance, is a system that is designed to provide coupons for their corporate partners.
However, if you don’t see the usefulness of buying coupons with the Bilt Cash, you have a tremendous opportunity to increase your earning power on the Bilt Obsidian and Bilt Palladium cards. They were already cards that earned a decent amount of the most valuable transferable currency available. Using the point accelerator turns these cards into super earners, and I don’t see any reason why I would choose a coupon over that.
Newby to Expert Traveler 