Bilt Obsidian Card review: A complicated way to earn housing rewards

The Bilt Obsidian offers solid rewards for dining or groceries, as well as a few travel and purchase protections. Further, cardholders get quite a long list of redemption options.

Rewards earnings: Decent for groceries and dining 

With the Bilt Obsidian, you can earn 3X points on your choice of groceries (up to a spending cap of $25,000 per year, then 1X) or dining. After you choose the category, it remains in effect for the entire calendar year.

This is a competitive rate for either category, so it can be easy to wrack up rewards just with your regular spending. That said, you can find rewards cards that allow you to earn points or cash back on both dining and groceries — often, without an annual cap.

Cardholder perks: Solid travel and purchase protections

The Bilt Obsidian offers all the perks you could expect from a mid-tier travel rewards card. To begin, the card provides two semi-annual $50 statement credits to spend on hotel stays of at least two nights when you book through Bilt Travel.

The rest of the perks come from Mastercard, the card’s network. Specifically, cardholders receive the following travel benefits*:

• Trip Delay Reimbursement
• MasterRental Coverage
• Trip Cancellation and Interruption Insurance
• Lost or Damaged Luggage Insurance

Additionally, cardholders get access to a couple of shopping perks, such as purchase assurance and extended warranty coverage.

*A maximum benefit amount and certain restrictions and limitations apply. Please review the Mastercard Guide to Benefits for details.

Redemptions: Flexible options

With the Bilt Obsidian, cardholders have multiple options for how to spend their Bilt Points. As is the case with most travel cards, you’ll get the most out of your rewards when you redeem for travel. Transferring your points is an especially lucrative option, and Bilt has 24 transfer partners for cardholders to choose from.

Another noteworthy redemption option is to use your Bilt Points for a down payment on a home, which is unique in the credit card rewards space. With this redemption method, you’ll get a value of 1.5 cents per point.

Other ways to redeem Bilt Points include:

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

Note that you’ll only get 1 cent per point or less in value with these options. 

While the Bilt Obsidian has plenty to offer, it doesn’t make it easy for cardholders to unlock value. Not to mention, it charges an annual fee (See Rates & Fees).

Rewards system: Demanding and complicated

The unique feature of the Bilt cards is the option to earn rewards on rent or mortgage payments. But you’ll have to put in quite a bit of mental work — and spending — to do so.

The Bilt Obsidian offers two ways for you to choose from to earn rewards on your housing payments. With the first option, you’ll earn points without a 3% processing fee. However, the rewards rate you’ll earn depends on how much you spend on non-housing purchases. Here’s the breakdown:

• Spending 100% or more than your housing payment earns 1.25X points;
• Spending at least 75% earns 1X points;
• Spending at least 50% earns 0.75X points;
• Spending at least 25% earns 0.5X points. 

If you spend less, you’ll only get 250 points per housing payment.

For example, if your mortgage payment is $2,000, you need to spend at least $2,000 on non-housing purchases to earn the rewards at the 1.25X rate. If you only spend half of that, you’ll earn 0.75X points.

With the second option, you’ll earn Bilt Cash, a separate rewards currency for non-housing purchases, note that with this option, rent and mortgage rewards are capped at 1X points. 

Fees: May be a deterrent 

A $95 annual fee is by no means excessive, especially for a card with such a competitive list of perks (See Rates & Fees). However, the card requires a considerable amount of effort and spending to unlock its full potential, which isn’t the case with more traditional rewards cards. Plus, if you’re interested in earning rewards on food purchases, you can find cards with comparable rewards rates on both dining and groceries without annual fees. 

Justifying the annual fee on the Bilt Obsidian can be even more challenging when you already carry other rewards cards. If you’re hoping to add it to your wallet purely to earn rewards on your rent and mortgage, it might not be the best strategy considering how much non-housing spending you’ll need to shift to the Bilt Obsidian just to access housing rewards. 

Also, keep an eye out for the higher-than-usual variable APR. Even if you're approved to be on the lower end of this range, this card's APR is especially higher than average and should be considered if you expect to have to carry any balances, as interest will accumulate quite quickly. 

If you’re interested in the Bilt Obsidian but worried about the complexity of its rewards system, you have a couple of alternatives. The Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card offers excellent rewards rates on groceries and dining without annual fees, and the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is deservedly one of the most popular mid-tier travel cards with valuable rewards and great perks.

The Bilt Obsidian lets you earn rewards on housing payments, but unlocking them involves some math, as well as spending on non-housing purchases. Additionally, the card provides decent perks and flexible redemption options. It can be a solid choice for:

• High earners looking for a mid-tier travel card
• Rewards enthusiasts willing to commit to the Bilt Program

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: