Bilt Blue Card review: Housing rewards without annual fees

The Bilt Blue Card can be a solid choice if your goal is to earn rewards on your housing payments without paying annual fees (See Rates & Fees). 

Rates and fees: The only Bilt card with $0 annual fees

While the Bilt Palladium Card and the Bilt Obsidian Card have more to offer in terms of rewards and perks, they also charge annual fees. For many cardholders, this is a deciding factor. The Bilt Blue doesn’t have annual fees and provides access to the same rewards ecosystem (See Rates & Fees).

Additionally, the card offers a 10% intro APR offer on purchases for the first 12 billing cycles. That means if you have a balance during your first year with the card, your interest rate will be significantly lower than average. That said, if you’re planning to carry a balance, a 0% APR credit card might be a better option.

Redemptions: Flexible options

Bilt Blue cardholders have plenty of choices when it comes to spending their Bilt Points, but the best way to maximize rewards with this card is to redeem them for travel. This is especially true if you transfer your points to one of Bilt’s 20+ transfer partners. Note, however, that value varies depending on the partner, so do the math before moving your points.

There’s another valuable redemption option that’s much more unique: You can use your Bilt Points for a down payment on a home. In this case, you’ll get a value of 1.5 cents per point.

Other redemption options on the Bilt Blue Card yield 1 cent per point or less in value. They include:

• Rent payments
• Principal-only mortgage payments
• Statement credits
• Gift cards
• Lyft rides
• Fitness classes
• Amazon purchases
• Home Design Collection purchases

It’s possible to get plenty of value out of the Bilt Blue Card, but it’s certainly not easy. And for some cardholders, the complexity might be a deterrent. 

Housing rewards: Overly complicated

There are two ways Bilt Blue cardholders can earn rewards on housing payments. The first one involves a 3% processing fee that you can pay using Bilt Cash (which is separate from Bilt Points). Like with other Bilt cards, you’ll earn 4% Bilt Cash on all non-housing purchases with the Bilt Blue. To find how much Bilt Cash you need to cover the fee, calculate what 3% of your mortgage or rent amount is. For instance, for a $2,000 payment, that’s $60. That will also help you figure out how much non-housing spend you need per month to fully offset the fee: $60 is 4% of $1,500. 

The second option allows you to earn housing rewards without the 3% fee. In this case, the rate you earn is directly tied to your non-housing spending. Here’s how it works:

• If you spend 100% or more than your housing payment, you’ll earn 1.25X points;
• If you spend at least 75%, you’ll earn 1X points;
• If you spend at least 50%, you’ll earn 0.75X points;
• If you spend at least 25%, you’ll earn 0.5X points. 

For instance, if your rent payment is $2,000, you need to spend $2,000 or more on non-housing purchases to earn 1.25X points. If you don’t meet the spending threshold, you’ll receive 250 points per housing payment. As you can see, there’s a lot of math you’ll need to do — and quite a bit of spending, too. 

Note that recently, there have been numerous complaints from Bilt users about their mortgage and rent payments not coming through, as first reported by Fintech Business Weekly. Cardholders who reached out to customer support interacted with an AI chatbot which offered no solutions. As of writing, Bilt hasn’t publicly shared any plans on how it will resolve the issues.

Rewards rate: Low everyday rewards

The Bilt Blue Card only earns 1X points on everyday purchases. This may seem appealing if you value simplicity and don’t want to worry about maximizing bonus categories. However, this rate severely limits the card’s earning potential, especially when you compare it to rates on most other rewards cards on the market. Besides, simplicity isn’t the Bilt Blue Card’s strongest suit either if your goal is to use it for housing rewards. 

Of course, you might add more cards to your wallet to get more cash back or points on your non-housing purchases. However, in this case, it will be more challenging to maximize rent or mortgage rewards on the Bilt Blue Card as getting the best value is tied to non-housing spending.

If you’re open to cards that don’t earn points on housing payments, you can find plenty of options that offer both simplicity and valuable rewards. For example, the Chase Freedom Unlimited® offers solid cash back rates in some popular categories, plus 1.5% cash back outside of bonus categories, and the Wells Fargo Active Cash® Card gets you 2% cash rewards on all purchases.

If you’re willing to put the time and effort that the Bilt Blue Card requires, it can be a great entry point into the Bilt Rewards system. This card might be the right choice for:

• People who want to earn Bilt Points without paying an annual fee (See Rates & Fees)
• Credit card enthusiasts who don’t mind a complex reward system

We rate credit cards using a proprietary card scoring system that ranks each card’s estimated average rewards rate, estimated annual earnings, welcome bonus value, APR, fees, perks and more against those of other cards in its primary category.

Each card feature is assigned a weighting based on how important it is to people looking for a card in a given category. These features are then scored based on how they rank relative to the features on other cards in the category. Based on these calculations, each card receives an overall rating of 1-5 stars (with 5 being the highest possible score and 1 being the lowest). 

We analyzed over 150 of the most popular rewards and cash back cards to determine where each stacked up based on their value, cost, benefits and more. Here are some of the key factors that influenced this card’s overall score and how the score influenced our review: