{"id":12767,"date":"2025-11-18T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=12767"},"modified":"2025-11-17T22:51:24","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T05:51:24","slug":"thoughtful-tuesday-is-the-bilt-card-just-about-cooked-ymmv-but-also-yes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/18\/thoughtful-tuesday-is-the-bilt-card-just-about-cooked-ymmv-but-also-yes\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Thought: Is the Bilt Card Just About Cooked? YMMV, but also Yes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Introduction<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The Bilt credit card program has had a <a href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/25\/tuesday-interlude-reading-between-the-lines\/\">few missteps<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/11\/thursday-triple-32\/\">over the years<\/a>, they&#8217;ve <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/CreditCards\/comments\/1ecxsqj\/the_rent_day_bonus_on_the_bilt_card_is_capped_to\/\">cut the earning structure on the card<\/a>, and they&#8217;ve told us about a couple more negative enhancements coming soon:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The infant <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rakuten.com\/blog\/rakuten-bilt-partnership\/\">Bilt+Rakuten<\/a> partnership <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/biltrewards\/comments\/1oxw46y\/comment\/np1hoyn\/\">won&#8217;t be 1:1 earning after Q1 2026<\/a> (which are paid on May 15, 2026, don&#8217;t let their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/biltrewards\/comments\/1oxw46y\/comment\/np1hoyn\/\">slippery language<\/a> fool you)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The move <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/biltrewards\/comments\/1op3lio\/what_you_need_to_know_bilt_card_20_launches\/\">from Wells Fargo to Cardless<\/a> means a new account on cardholders&#8217; credit reports<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>(Side note: <a href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/07\/\">On October 7, I wrote<\/a> &#8220;<em>Hopefully the ratio of Rakuten points to Bilt Rewards will be 1:1, but given Richard Kerr\u2019s involvement I wouldn\u2019t call that a foregone conclusion. Go ahead Richard, prove me wrong.<\/em>&#8221; Oops.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bilt is practicing death by a thousand cuts, and we may have reached the &#8220;one cut too many&#8221; threshold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Good and Bad<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Let&#8217;s talk about the good of the Bilt credit card and Bilt Rewards program, both of which are made better together:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Hyatt, Alaska, and JAL are valuable transfer partners<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Periodic 50-100% transfer bonuses<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/support.biltrewards.com\/hc\/en-us\/articles\/25174107414157-Complimentary-BLADE-airport-flight\">kewl helicopter ride<\/a>&#8221; after major spend<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Rewards on rent payments (though the card isn&#8217;t required for that, it&#8217;s just better with the card)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>But, there&#8217;s plenty of negativity go with that, moreso <a href=\"https:\/\/support.biltrewards.com\/hc\/en-us\/articles\/40834037331085-Bilt-Card-2-0-Program-Transition\">when Cardless takes over the program on February 7, 2026<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Earning multipliers are relatively poor<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Cardless isn&#8217;t friendly to churners, and is sometimes actively hostile and vindictive<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Bilt+Rakuten (see above)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>New account on your credit report (see above)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Unknown earning and annual fee structure going forward<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Customer service is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.trustpilot.com\/review\/biltrewards.com\">objectively bad<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Personally, I can handle two or even three of these negatives, but taken as a whole, I&#8217;m over the edge, this thing no longer makes sense. <a href=\"https:\/\/tenor.com\/view\/rydoggrafix-seinfeld-the-butter-shave-0901-stick-a-fork-in-me-gif-27089004\">Stick a fork in it, it&#8217;s done<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Exceptions<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Your situation isn&#8217;t the same as mine, and you&#8217;re all adults so obviously you can make your own assessment. But, there are a few cases where Bilt might still make sense:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>You&#8217;re shutdown by Chase and you want Hyatt points or  United miles<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You don&#8217;t care about a new account showing on your credit report<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Maybe the unknown Cardless Bilt card family&#8217;s earning structure is better<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You want to earn Bilt points on rent payments without other games<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You have a Kerr-resistant loophole<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, you do you, and remember it\u2019s  good advice to not blindly listen to a rando on the internet, even on a Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Happy Tuesday!<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"478\" height=\"478\" src=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/image-9-edited.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12769\" style=\"width:420px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/image-9-edited.png 478w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/image-9-edited-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/image-9-edited-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 478px) 100vw, 478px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"font-size:14px\">Bilt credit card: Current status.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Introduction The Bilt credit card program has had a few missteps over the years, they&#8217;ve cut the earning structure on the card, and they&#8217;ve told<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[54,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-credit-cards","category-louse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12767"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12782,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12767\/revisions\/12782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}