Update 8/2/24: They are also excluding tax payments from earning Rent Day bonus rewards. (ht FM) Not clear if this excludes state/city taxes, property taxes, and business taxes as well.
Original Post 7/26/24:
Bilt’s CEO sent out an email today talking about Bilt Rent Day which earns double points. At the bottom of the email in the fine print it’s mentioned that beginning in October 2024 the double points on Bilt Mastercard will be limited to a max 1,000 points each month on Rent Day. Previously the max was 10,000.
A lot of people tried pushing all of their spend on the first of the month to get the double points and that won’t be possible after September. Starting October 2024, you’ll only get the double on the first 1,000 points which would be, for example, $1,000 in ordinary spend or $333.33 in Dining spend.
Hat tip to reader n.
There were a few months early on where you could use the curve card to time shift all your restaurant spending on rent day to earn 6x on built and 1x on curve. They closed that loophole unfortunately.
The core benefit is still there, rent point earn that no other card has w/o sub churn. This is still a great deal.
Will be a sad day when WF pulls the plug on BILT, then it either ends abruptly, or slowly devalues, reducing or eliminating points earned on rent, or upsettingly charging a fees to pay rent. Time will tells.
If I want to pay a private landlord via venmo can I automate with the bilt card or can this only be automated with a check?
Bilt itself must make the payment.
As in I could set Bilt as the payment card in Venmo and then pay the private landlord?
NO, You setup the payment in Bilt to the landord (via check/snail mail) NOT through VENMO!
Ah I see, thanks for the clarification. I was hoping to steer clear of checks/snail mail. Historically I’ve read Bilt supported Venmo and not Zelle, but perhaps I have that backwards.
Bilt does support Venmo to landlord. I use it.
You have to add evolve bank as the payment method to use bilt on venmo. Ask the customer care for more information.
You can, the other replier is wrong. You can add your BILT account to Venmo, and then use Venmo, pulling from your BILT account, to pay your private landlord. This reddit page documents it well: https://www.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/comments/wbmdrd/using_venmo_to_pay_rent_with_bilt/
And BILT’s site confirms so too:
https://support.biltrewards.com/hc/en-us/articles/6561447272717-I-pay-rent-by-check-Paypal-Venmo-Zelle-can-I-still-use-the-Bilt-Mastercard
The amount of people “angry” over the change is odd. The only change is you can’t heavily abuse the points earning 1 day a month with manufactured spending, which can’t be too surprising it wouldn’t last forever. It’s still a no af card that has had amazing transfer bonuses and earns points on rent with no fee.
just another nerf
But, there’s a chance 1) transfer bonuses will be capped, 2) transfer bonuses will no longer be 2.5x, and 3) transfer bonuses will ultimately move to semi-annual. Don’t count your chickens . . .
Achieving status will be harder.
I’m “angry” (or more accurately annoyed) because Bilt has implemented a stunning (and stealthy) devaluation in the last year. The higher tier transfer bonuses are a big part of the program’s value. Bilt increased the thresholds for 2024, but that was OK because the Rent Day bonus still allowed for making Platinum w/o too much opportunity cost. Now, I either have to do a high volume of sub-optimal spend or just resign myself to getting a couple thousand points per month (which is still OK). On top of all that, they weren’t up front about notifying their customers about the most recent change (burying it in the T&C page initially). I suspect they are making the change now, because a higher-than-expected number of customers are on their way to achieve Platinum status. And then pretending like it was no big deal as an excuse for being less-than-transparent. I expected better from Bilt
Also, they did this after people reapplied. When Wells Fargo purchased Choice cards from Barclays, they transferred the cards. Cardholders didn’t have to reapply and impact their FICO score.
Hey Komma…how can you “abuse” points earning structure that is offered by the company?? Even today it is limited to 10000 points, they just nerfed it to 1000
Do we know if tax payments will be excluded from the 5x, 5 day, card opening promo? … Here’s hoping that’s that even a think still…
Obviously, 5 times 0 is 0
I remember when they sent out a notice to some people about using the Curve card to switch transactions to the Bilt card for “Rent” day.
It seems like business these days is all about ‘gotchas’ .. in the fine print, bait and switch. Seriously, is this just in the U.S., or like a global phenomena? We need more regulations. These companies be lyin’
Just in the US. Corporations runs this damn country
Enshitification
Usually it’s a select few that take perks to the extreme and ruin it for most people.
How is this a gotcha? They are announcing the change months in advance. That’s literally the opposite of a gotcha. More regulations mean higher prices, more government power, and incumbents benefits. Every. Single. Time. Maybe find something else a little more consequential to be outraged about.
Bilt isnt run by anyone I would want to be associated with. If I cant abuse their system and cost them money then I wont bother.
Will Bilt continue to offer 1x points on rent payments with no cap on that benefit and no transaction fee for paying rent with the card?
There is a cap on that benefit though.
There was always a 100,000 point annual cap.
And if you’re paying more than $100,000 annually on RENT… do points and miles really matter anymore? Like, you’re probably flying private anyway.
Not really. That’s like $8-9K a month. In NYC/LA, it’ll get you a nice place for sure, but that’s not really flying private money.
It is interesting to me that they’d take this approach to nerfing the card. The 2x spend on rent days earns them interchange, which depending on the merchant type can exceed 2%.
A much smarter move would have been to apply 2x to the catch-all category and exclude restaurant and travel spend, which already get bonuses. Plenty of cards have proven that 2 points per dollar is a sustainable bonus level for a no-AF card. This still gives incentive to customers putting actual spend on the card without completely throwing them under the bus.
The whole issue with this card is that their customers are using it for “rent” and nothing else. This move only exacerbates that problem.
You have to remember that Bilt and WF are separate companies. The points are issued by Bilt. Bilt pays for redemptions primarily out of their cut of the interchange fee from WF (and the $200 they receive per sign-up as per the WSJ article). I don’t the the exact numbers, but assume the interchange fee is 3%, Bilt gets 50% (1.5%) and each point costs about $0.01, depending on how it is redeemed. 2x everywhere would cost Bilt $0.005 per dollar spent. It’s not sustainable.