Posted: 11/7/22 | November 7th, 2022

As an voracious travel hacker, I’m unchangingly looking for new ways to earn increasingly points and miles through my everyday spending. As a result, I earn over one million points every year, permitting me to enjoy all kinds of self-ruling flights and hotel stays, upgrades, lounge access, peerage status, and more.

Travel hacking has saved me thousands and thousands of dollars over the years, and I wouldn’t be worldly-wise to travel as much without it.

However, there’s traditionally been one huge expense that has unchangingly been nonflexible to earn points for: rent.

For years, travel hackers have taken wholesomeness of temporary offers that waive credit vellum fees or gone through ramified procedures to pay their rent so they could get points.

But these maneuvers were all hit or miss and never lasted long. Thousands of potential points unfurled to be left on the table.

Until now.

Earlier this year, a vellum tabbed Bilt came out. And it has reverted the game.

What is Bilt?

Bilt is a credit vellum that allows you to earn points when you pay your rent (as well as on everyday purchases). You then use those points like you would any other rewards program: you can use them to typesetting travel directly, you can transfer them to travel partners, or you can use some of the other redemption options.

There are two ways to earn points with the card: by renting a Bilt Alliance property, or by using the Bilt World Peerage Mastercard®.

Bilt Alliance properties form a network of two million units wideness the US. But I’m not going to focus on that. I’m going to talk well-nigh its credit card.

How does the Bilt reward vellum work?

Once you unshut a Bilt Mastercard® (which is issued by Wells Fargo and has no yearly fee), you go to the Bilt app or website to set up your recurring monthly rental payments.

Bilt then creates a unique wall worth tied to your Bilt credit vellum so that your rent is paid with an e-check rather than through your credit card. This wall worth is basically a legal “dummy” worth created as a workaround for credit vellum processing fees. You do not use it for anything else, and you do not withdraw or petrifaction money from it.

Whenever these unique routing and worth numbers are used to pay rent, your Bilt Mastercard® is charged for the same amount. (You still have to connect your personal wall worth to pay off the vellum each month.)

And, if your property is old-school and only accepts checks, you can still pay with your Bilt vellum through the Bilt Rewards app, and Bilt will send a trammels on your behalf.

It all takes well-nigh five minutes to set up. When you’re done, you’ll be earning points on your rent. I use it, so I don’t leave any points on the table.

Bilt Reward Perks

Once your worth is set up, you’ll start earning one point per dollar spent using the Bilt credit vellum on rent payments, up to 50,000 points each timetable year. While the mileage needed for self-ruling flights varies drastically depending on many factors, if you play your cards right, that many points could get you a self-ruling round-trip flight from New York to London.

And, while earning points for rent payments is Bilt’s main draw, you’ll moreover earn two points per dollar spent on travel (when booked directly or through the Bilt Travel portal) and three points per dollar spent on dining. You’ll get one point per dollar on all other purchases.

Just note that you have to make five purchases per month (with no minimum spending requirement) to earn these rewards.

You can transfer points 1:1 to travel partners, including American Airlines, United, Emirates, Hawaiian, Virgin Atlantic, Air Canada, Air France/KLM, Hyatt, and IHG.

The fact that they transfer to American Airlines and Hyatt really sets this vellum untied (besides the rent thing). No one transfers to American, so this is a huge selling point for this card, considering it’s the only way to get AA points without having an AA card. And earning Hyatt points allows you to have a way out of the Chase system.

You can moreover redeem points for fitness classes, like SoulCycle, Solidcore, Rumble, and Y7, and for items in the Bilt Collection, a curated selection of wright home décor items. But redeeming for fitness classes comes out to virtually one point per cent — you get a largest redemption on travel purchases.

Additionally, purchases moreover help you earn status in the Bilt Rewards program, based on the total points earned annually.

The tiers for those Bilt Rewards are as follows (subsequent tiers include everything in the same ones):

• Blue: Earn points on rent and the worthiness to transfer them 1:1 to travel partners
• Silver (25,000 points per year): 10% bonus points when you sign a new lease or renew your lease, and interest on your points wastefulness (at the FDIC published national savings interest rate)
• Gold (50,000 points per year): 25% bonus points for new leases/renewals and wangle to a home ownership concierge (who will walk you through the home-buying process)
• Platinum (100,000 points per year): 50% bonus points for new leases/renewals and a self-ruling souvenir from the Bilt Collection of home décor items

While the perks in the higher tiers aren’t terribly exciting, they’re a nice way to earn plane increasingly points if they wield to you. But, plane at the wiring level, you can still take wholesomeness of Bilt’s main attraction: earning points on rent.

In wing to earning points, the vellum moreover gives you:

• Trip receipt protection and interruption coverage
• Trip wait reimbursement (for delays of six hours or more)
• Car rental standoff coverage
• Cell phone protection (up to $800 USD)
• No foreign transaction fees
• A self-ruling three-month DashPass and $5 USD off your first DoorDash order each month
• $5 USD Lyft credit each month without taking three rides that month

Who is this vellum for?

This vellum is suited for anyone who wants to earn points on their monthly rent. Once you set up the online payments (you can moreover set up auto-pay) and use your vellum five times a month, it’s largely a “set it and forget it” kind of card. With no yearly fee, you have nothing to lose and only points to gain.

The vellum is expressly geared toward travelers and restaurant-goers, since it offers 2x points spent on travel and 3x points on dining out. It’s weightier paired with other travel credit cards that have largest perks, nice welcome bonuses, and higher earning rates, though.

I will probably start using the Bilt vellum instead of my Chase Sapphire, considering I get a lot of Chase points through merchantry spending, and I’m aiming to fly to Japan next year, so I want those AA points (AA is a partner with Japan Airlines).

Who is this vellum not for?

As with any travel credit card, you should not get the Bilt vellum if you’re once delivering a wastefulness or plan to siphon a balance. Interest rates for travel credit cards are notoriously high, and the Bilt vellum is no different, with hefty APRs of 19–27%. The points just aren’t worth it if you’re paying interest each month.

This vellum is moreover not for anyone with poor credit, as you need good or spanking-new credit to qualify.

Furthermore, the Bilt vellum won’t be for anyone looking for one with a big welcome bonus (as there is none), and it does count toward Chase’s 5/24 rule (you can’t unshut increasingly than five Chase cards within 24 months). If you’ve once opened five Chase cards or want to unshut more, you might want to skip this one for now.

In sum, if you are a renter and want to earn points on this major monthly expenditure, then it’s worth considering the Bilt card. It’s completely free, and easy to set up, so there’s really nothing to lose. Plane if your rent isn’t particularly high, points are points, and the Bilt vellum could be a nice spare resource for earning those coveted points and miles (especially if you fly American Airlines, as this is one of their only transfer partners).

***

As the only rewards vellum that offers points on rent completely for free, Bilt is a welcome new player in the travel space. In my opinion, it’s really a no-brainer if you pay rent, so you can start working toward some self-ruling flights and hotel stays!

Click Here to Sign Up for Bilt!

The post The Bilt Rewards Card: How to Earn Points By Paying Your Rent appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.