Bilt Now Lets You Earn Points on Rent With More Credit Cards, but There’s a Catch

When Bilt Rewards came onto the scene, its novel idea of earning points on rent — without administrative fees — quickly gained a lot of fans.

Until now, however, your options for earning points on rent through Bilt were rather limited. Without the Bilt Mastercard (closed to new applicants; rates & fees), you would earn very few points on rent payments.

Now, that’s changing, as Bilt will allow you to use numerous credit cards to earn either 1x or 0.5x points on rent. However, using these other credit cards may not be worth it.

Here’s why.

How To Earn Bilt Rewards Points on Rent With the Bilt Card

If you would rather not pay administrative or transaction fees to earn points on rent, the Bilt Card (issued by Wells Fargo) remains the best option. So long as you make at least 5 transactions on your card each billing cycle, you’ll earn 1x points on rent — up to 100,000 points each year.

We value Bilt Rewards Points at 1.8 cents each, so you’re getting a 1.8% return on rent payments through Bilt Rewards. Plus, there’s no administrative fee or credit card fee tacked onto the transaction — along with the $0 annual fee on the Bilt Card — which avoids eating into the value of the rewards you earn along the way.

New Options for Paying Rent With Other Credit Cards

Now, Bilt will let you pay rent with other credit cards and earn rewards at a higher rate than what you could get before. This is a further expansion of your options after Bilt started allowing rent payments on Alaska Airlines credit cards in early 2024.

Unfortunately, that previous option and today’s newest options incur a 3% fee on rent payments, which reduces the value of any rewards you’re earning.

If you use a non-Bilt credit card, here’s a look at how you’ll earn Bilt Rewards points:

• Visa, Mastercard, and Discover cards: 1x Bilt points (1 point per $1 spent), plus whatever your card earns
• American Express cards: 0.5x Bilt points (1 point per $2 spent), plus whatever your card earns

If you use ACH payments for your rent, you’ll still earn a flat 250 points per rent payment.

Should you use these other credit cards to pay rent? Let’s check the math.

*Based on Upgraded Points’ valuations and not provided by the card issuers

In all of these examples, the 3% transaction fee for using anything but the Bilt Card significantly eats into the value of your rewards.

It’s worth pointing out, though, that the Freedom Unlimited card allows you to turn your cash-back into Ultimate Rewards points if you have an eligible Chase credit card. We value Ultimate Rewards points at 2 cents each, which could make using this card for rent with Bilt worth it if you’re redeeming Ultimate Rewards at an average value.

Final Thoughts

Bilt Rewards now allows its members to use additional credit cards to pay their rent, earning Bilt points along the way — on top of whatever rewards their credit card provides. The 3% transaction fee associated with this new option, however, significantly reduces the value you can gain along the way.