{"id":13176,"date":"2026-01-27T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=13176"},"modified":"2026-01-26T19:58:39","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T02:58:39","slug":"tuesday-wisdom-simplicity-is-best-unless-the-complexity-has-outsized-value","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/27\/tuesday-wisdom-simplicity-is-best-unless-the-complexity-has-outsized-value\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Wisdom: Simplicity is Best, Unless the Complexity has Outsized Value"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Bilt is back in the Churn-o-Tron 5000 news cycle, this time because they sent a bunch of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/churning\/comments\/1qnc385\/comment\/o1u83bs\/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button\">&#8220;oops, my bad, I guess we do actually need customers&#8221; emails<\/a> to existing card holders that had been soft or hard denied for conversion to the new Cardless versions of the card.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s positive when taken at face value, but it also illustrates a critical point in churning:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Simplicity beats complexity, unless the complexity is really, really valuable<br \/>&#8211; MEAB tome of apocryphal wisdom<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m going to wager that you can&#8217;t find a churner who can argue that the new version of Bilt has any heir of simplicity with a straight face. Assuming that&#8217;s true, you&#8217;d better find a metric ton of value in the new Bilt ecosystem before you decide to join.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If a metric ton of value isn&#8217;t obvious though, maybe consider that your time will be better spent by using a Citi Double Cash card, Venture X card, American Express Blue Business Plus card, or Chase Ink Unlimited card and looking for other plays instead of taking hours learning the ins-and-outs of the most complex credit card program ever invented for the possibility of good returns before Cardless axes you. With all of those non-Bilt cards:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>You&#8217;ll earn 2x on all spend (1.5x for the Ink Unlimited)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The annual fees are simple<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The programs all have valuable transfer partners<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You don&#8217;t have to spend hours learning how to use the card<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Richard Kerr won&#8217;t be watching your plays in real time<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>So naturally the follow-on question is: Well, is there a metric ton of value in the Bilt program?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think generally the answer is absolutely not for a whale, maybe for a dolphin, and possibly for a shrimp. But, you do you friends, and obviously what you know is different than what I know. Let me leave you with a new word, courtesy of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chrishutchins.com\">Chris from All the Hacks<\/a>: <em>Bilted<\/em>, which (I&#8217;m definitely paraphrasing and editorializing his words) means &#8220;So much complexity that you want to give up and laugh, but maybe there&#8217;s a good deal behind it all.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Have a nice Tuesday friends!<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"798\" src=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-15.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-13180\" style=\"width:420px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-15.png 696w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-15-262x300.png 262w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 696px) 100vw, 696px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"font-size:14px\">With the right you complexity you can drive in a river like churning legend Danny too. But should you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bilt is back in the Churn-o-Tron 5000 news cycle, this time because they sent a bunch of &#8220;oops, my bad, I guess we do actually<\/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":[54,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-credit-cards","category-wisdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13176","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=13176"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13184,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13176\/revisions\/13184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}