Big (and sad) news to users of Bilt.
Effective 10/1/2024, the maximum amount of bonus points you can earn under this promotion will be 1,000 per month regardless of how much you purchase. That’s the latest from the terms for August Rent Day.
For August and September Rent Days, the cap will remain at 10,000 points.
If you’ve been following Bilt, you’ve known how good of a deal it was. It was so good that Wells Fargo was losing millions of dollars a month on the deal.
What are Rent Days?
Bilt is a Mastercard that offers you 1X points on rent payments (up to 100,000 points per year), 2x on travel, and 3x on dining. 1x on everything else. The only requirement is that you use the card five times each statement period.
On top of this, they offer a special promotion on the first day of the month – known as Rent Day.
There is a rotating promotion that changes each month, which we outline on our page listing Bilt Rent Day promotions. For July 2024, you received a point bonus if you transferred Bilt points to Alaska Airlines. The bonus was based on the amount transferred and your status at Bilt.
Then there is a fixed promotion that doubles the standard earning rate (except rent) so that you earn 6x on dining, 4x on travel, and 2x on everything else. The point cap on this was 10,000 points.
How impactful is this change?
The main draw of Bilt is the ability to earn points for paying your rent. This, fortunately, hasn’t changed. You can still earn 1x on rent payments up to 100,000 points per year. Our Bilt review goes into greater detail of all the benfits.
But limiting the bonus points on travel and dining on Rent Day is big because, I suspect, a lot of people were waiting to make travel purchases for these bonus days. It’s hard to “bunch up” dining purchases, but travel is really easy.
If you were bunching up “regular” purchases because it was earning 2x points, there are plenty of credit cards that offer 2% cashback all the time. Now would be a good time to switch to one of those, as you no longer get that through Bilt (plus now you don’t have to wait for Rent Day)
The main draw of the card, earning points for paying rent, is still there. This is a negative change but not a massive one.
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About Jim Wang
Jim Wang is a forty-something father of four who is a frequent contributor to Forbes and Vanguard’s Blog. He has also been fortunate to have appeared in the New York Times, Baltimore Sun, Entrepreneur, and Marketplace Money.
Jim has a B.S. in Computer Science and Economics from Carnegie Mellon University, an M.S. in Information Technology – Software Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as a Masters in Business Administration from Johns Hopkins University. His approach to personal finance is that of an engineer, breaking down complex subjects into bite-sized easily understood concepts that you can use in your daily life.
One of his favorite tools (here’s my treasure chest of tools, everything I use) is Empower Personal Dashboard, which enables him to manage his finances in just 15-minutes each month. They also offer financial planning, such as a Retirement Planning Tool that can tell you if you’re on track to retire when you want. It’s free.
Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank or financial institution. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.
