TLDR; Option 1 earns points on your rent, as long as you spend 25% of your monthly rent/mortgage per month on non-rent expenses. Option 2 works if you treat the new Bilt cards as earning at least 2.33x Points / $1 spend for up to a certain limit per month.
Bilt recently announced the full details behind its three new cards: Bilt Blue Card, Bilt Obsidian Card, and Bilt Palladium Card. However, the cards are proving to be extremely complicated.
Then, they announced Option 1 and Option 2 on how you can be rewarded for housing payments. Became more of a headache to figure out.
We built a calculator to summarize how the Bilt cards effectively work with Option 1 and Option 2 in comparison to the original Bilt card. But, before we get into explaining how it works, let’s start with the most important (and confusing) item: Bilt Cash.
What is Bilt Cash?
Note: as of Jan 16, 2026, Bilt Cash is only relevant in Option 2.
Bilt Cash is the new currency you earn for spending on the Bilt cards (only available in Option 2). On all three cards, you earn 4% Bilt Cash for every $1 you spend. This is completely separate from the standard base earnings on the cards.
For example, if you have the Bilt Blue card and spend $100 on it, you earn both:
- 1x on all purchases = 100 points
- 4% Bilt cash = $4 Bilt Cash
You can then redeem Bilt Cash in a multitude of ways. The simplest way to redeem is against your rent or mortgage at a rate of $1 Bilt Cash = 33 points
So in the above example, $4 Bilt Cash would get you 133 points when redeemed against your rent or mortgage. In sum, $100 spend on the Bilt Blue earns you 100 points from your base spend alongside 133 points from Rent for a total of 233 points per dollar spent.
I think if there’s one takeaway: you should not evaluate your total rent against what you expect to earn from this card. What this means is that the era of $1 rent = 1 point is completely gone; the way I think about these cards now is what is the effective earn rate per $1 I spend (up to the limit of 75% of rent or mortgage).
What are all the ways you can use Bilt Cash?
Bilt denotes you can use your Bilt Cash here, but listed for simplicity:
- Elevated status for transfer bonuses: redeem Bilt Cash to boost your status tier and access a higher transfer bonus during Rent Day.
- Home Away From Home collection: redeem Bilt Cash to gain access to Bilt’s luxury hotel collection and exclusive benefits during your stay.
- Exclusive Bilt experiences: redeem Bilt Cash to book exclusive experiences like dining reservations, fitness classes, comedy shows, and more.
You can also redeem Bilt Cash for dollar:dollar monthly credits:
- Hotel bookings via Bilt Travel Portal
- Lyft credits
- Fitness Classes
- Dining at select Bilt partner restaurants
- Home Delivery via GoPuff
- The Bilt Collection
And you can also just use every $30 of Bilt Cash for 1000 points, up to your full rent or mortgage amount. This is the method we anchor on for our calculations.
How does the new tier based rent points method work for Option 1?
Bilt announced a new method for earning points on your rent, called Option 1. This option skips Bilt Cash entirely and goes straight to earning points on rent/mortgage payments, tied directly to how much you spend on the cards.
First, you must spend at least 25% of your monthly rent to access the point multipliers. If you don’t hit the minimum spend requirement, you still earn 250 points per month.
Then, here's how the tiers work. Let's use a $1,000 rent example:
- 0.5x points: Spend at least 25% of monthly rent ($250)
- 0.75x points: Spend at least 50% of monthly rent ($500)
- 1x points: Spend at least 75% of monthly rent ($750)
- 1.25x points: Spend the same or more as your monthly rent ($1,000+)
There's also no longer a 100,000 point rent cap.
What are the effective earn rates of the cards (for Option 1)?
Effectively, since per $1 of spend unlocks more effective point earnings for Option 1, the effective earn rates vary based on your spending.
For example, if you have a rent of $1,000 and spend $500 on non-rent spend, you effectively earn 2.5x points per dollar spent.
But, if you spend $250 on non-rent spend, you earn 3x points per dollar spent.
There's a lot of optimization to adjust for.
What are the effective earn rates of the cards (for Option 2)?
I think this is the easiest way to think about these cards for Option 2. For most people, you likely are't spending up to the limit.
Effectively, up until 75% of your total rent/mortgage (per month), you will earn an effective:
- Bilt Blue: 2.33x Bilt Points on all spend
- Bilt Obsidian: 4.33x Bilt Points on grocery or rent (up to $25k/year), 3.33x on travel, and 2.33x on all other spend
- Bilt Palladium: 3.33x Bilt Points on all spend
How we got to these numbers? Essentially, it goes to the unit economics of how much Bilt Cash you earn and how you can redeem that Bilt Cash against your rent:
- Every $1 spent on these cards earns 4% Bilt Cash
- Then, $3 Bilt Cash can be redeemed for 100 Bilt Points when used against your rent
- Effectively, that means that $1 spent earns 1.33 Bilt Points (additive ontop of existing base spend categories)
To oversimplify: the cards earn 1.33x more than advertised (per month).
*The limitation of this oversimplification is that you can't redeem more Bilt Cash than your monthly rent.
What is the Bilt 2.0 Calculator?
The Bilt 2.0 Calculator (Bilt Calculator) is designed for you to quickly be able to determine how many points you’ll earn on your spend across each of the new cards for both Option 1 and Option 2. It is based on a monthly view of earning, meaning it does not factor in carry over Bilt Cash you may have previously accumulated.
We put in the following base categories to cover the general earnings/spend categories of the card:
- Rent/Mortgage
- Dining
- Grocery
- Travel
- Everyday Spend (Misc)
How do we determine points you earn from rent for Option 2?
To keep things simple, we used the known conversion ratio for Bilt Cash: $3 Bilt Cash = 100 Bilt Points when used against rent or mortgages. We ignored all other possible redemptions for Bilt Cash outside of this because most other redemptions/limitations are not known right now.
We then used the standard earn rates from categorical spend to calculate the exact number of points you would earn. And then we used this spend to determine how many points you would earn from redeeming against rent or mortgages.
For example, if your rent is $1,000, then you’d need to spend at least $750 on the card to get the full points from rent. That said, you could still absolutely spend less than $750 on the card to take advantage of the Bilt Cash points you’d earn from using it on rent.
In this scenario, with $1,000 rent and $500 spend on the card for everyday spend, you’d earn:
- Original Bilt Card: 1,500 points
- Bilt Blue: 1,167 points
- Bilt Obsidian: 1,167 points
- Bilt Palladium: 1,667 points
Where does the $3 Bilt Cash = 100 Bilt Points come from?
This is a "conversion ratio" Bilt has set when you pay your rent using Option 2. Essentially if you have $1,000 in Rent, you can convert up to $30 Bilt Cash into 1,000 points.
Critical point: you can redeem any amount of Bilt Cash. Let's say your rent is $1,000, but you only have $10 of Bilt Cash (from $250 on spend on the cards). You can redeem the $10 of Bilt Cash against your rent and get a total of 333 points and you’d earn no other points on the rest of your rent:
That said, you can do partial payments for either method. For instance, in the No Transaction Fee method, let’s say your rent is $1,000 but you only have $10 of Bilt Cash (from $250 on spend on the cards). You can redeem the $10 of Bilt Cash against your rent and get a total of 333 points and you’d earn no other points on the rest of your rent:
Original Reasoning prior to Jan 16, 2026 Changes
The following info is outdated.
Bilt marketing advertises it like this, but the logic comes from the two new ways that you can pay rent:
- No Transaction Fee: Pay your rent or mortgage with no transaction fee. You may redeem Bilt Cash to unlock Bilt Points on your payment: every $3 of Bilt Cash unlocks 100 Bilt Points, up to a maximum of 1 Point per $1 of your payment amount. You choose how much Bilt Cash to redeem each payment.
- Max Points: Earn 1 Point per $1 on your rent or mortgage payment. A 3% transaction fee applies. Bilt Cash in your account is automatically applied to cover the transaction fee, though you may adjust this in the Bilt app. Any portion of the fee not covered by Bilt Cash is your responsibility
The transaction fee is arbitrarily set at 3% of your rent. The $3 Bilt Cash = 100 Bilt points comes from the idea to offset the 3% “transaction fee.”
That said, you can do partial payments for either method. For instance, in the No Transaction Fee method, let’s say your rent is $1,000 but you only have $10 of Bilt Cash (from $250 on spend on the cards). You can redeem the $10 of Bilt Cash against your rent and get a total of 333 points and you’d earn no other points on the rest of your rent:
What happens if you spend more than needed against your rent in Option 2?
If you spend more than 75% of your rent in a month, you earn extra Bilt Cash that will rollover. For the purposes of the calculator, we do not put a raw value to this and just note how much additional Bilt Cash you earn.
For instance, let’s say your rent/mortgage is $1,000 and you spend $1,000 on everyday purchases on one of the cards in a month. You you earn the following:
- 1,000 Bilt points
- $40 Bilt Cash, which can be redeemed against your rent. Your rent incurs a 3% fee that is offset completely by $30 Bilt Cash, leaving you with 3,000 Bilt Points & $10 leftover Bilt Cash
The $10 in leftover Bilt Cash stays in your account for the rest of the calendar year. Bilt Cash expires at the end of the calendar year in which it is earned. So if you earn Bilt Cash in Dec 2026, it expires on Dec 31, 2026 (gg). You get to rollover $100 to the following year.
Does the calculator factor in welcome bonuses/sign-up bonuses?
No. Welcome bonuses/sign-up bonuses are not factored into the calculations here. The Bilt 2.0 Calculator is designed to evaluate the ongoing value of the cards on a month to month basis, rather than value the cards from their first year value.
That said, if we were to value the automatic Bilt Cash provided by each of the bonuses, they’re worth the following (assuming you’re using them against rent/mortgage):
- $100 Bilt Cash = 3,333 Bilt Points
- $200 Bilt Cash = 6,666 Bilt Points
- $300 Bilt Cash = 10,000 Bilt Points
So effectively, the bonuses on the Blue, Obsidian, and Palladium can be thought of:
- Bilt Blue: $100 Bilt Cash = 3,333 Bilt Points
- Bilt Obsidian: $200 Bilt Cash = 6,666 Bilt Points
- Bilt Palladium: 50,000 points + $300 Bilt Cash = 60,000 Bilt Points
Frequently Asked Questions
This is our attempt to answer all questions that have arisen so far.
Is it safe to value Bilt Cash at a dollar for dollar value?
We do not think so. The reason is because that would be almost too easy and high value. Like if we value the Bilt Cash at a dollar for dollar value, that makes the cards reach ridiculous earn rates.
For example, that would make the Bilt Blue earn 1x points on everything + 4% Bilt Cash. Or effectively a "5% earning" card—not happening.
If I only use the $0 annual fee card to pay rent and nothing else, will I earn any points?
(For Option 2) No. You have to spend on the card on non-rent categories to earn Bilt Cash, which will then allow you to earn points on rent.
It doesn't matter if you do 10 transactions—you need to spend volume on the card to earn points.
(For Option 1): You earn 250 points flat.
Do I need to spend 75% of my rent per month to earn any points on my rent, especially for Option 2?
No. This is a very common misconception.
From the T&C themselves:
You may redeem Bilt Cash to unlock Bilt Points on your payment: every $3 of Bilt Cash unlocks 100 Bilt Points, up to a maximum of 1 Point per $1 of your payment amount.
There is no minimum spend required here. The 75% number is only important as a maximum "threshold" of how much you can redeem against your rent or mortgage in that month.
If you spend $200 on your Bilt card in a month, you'll earn $8 Bilt Cash. That $8 Bilt Cash can be turned into 266 Bilt Points when redeemed against your monthly rent/mortgage payment.