I may be jumping the gun as I'm using leaked info for my calculations, but I wanted to get a gut check.
Thank you u/Same_Performance9439/ for the post:
If you want a simple set up, does it make sense to go all-in on Bilt, assuming the transfer partners and/or points valuations stay the same?
Assume you have monthly $1,500 of spend on rent and $1,500 spend on everything else.
For the $0 AF Bilt card, you’d generate 1,500 points from rent, 1,500 points from regular spend, and $60* worth of bilt cash. (4% bilt cash generated on spend in addition to 1x points)
*You’d need to spend $45 in bilt cash monthly to cover the rent transaction cost, so net of $15 bilt cash per month.
For a flat 2% card, you’d generate $30 per month from general spend and nothing from rent.
Flat 2% annually: $30 * 12 = $360 per year
Bilt annually: 3,000 points * 12 = 36,000 points per year at 2cpp = $720 per year
Is there something glaring I'm missing?
Bilt 2.0 as a one-card setup?
byu/Sure-Reward8501 inCreditCards
Posted by Sure-Reward8501
6 Comments
We have to see all the terms for Bilt Pesos. I saw you that you can only rollover $100 at the end of the year.
It’s not worth using on rent. But it does seem that any of the 3 higher tier cards (for me at least) become best in class across all categories- and I’d drop from 4 to 1 card!
It’s unlikely that you’ll always be able to redeem at 2 cpp on average
One thing is knowing what Bilt cash can actually be used for. To me, it wouldn’t make sense if you and can “cash out” since that’d effectively make it a 4% card and they already have a 1x multiplier for all spend.
If you literally only want 1 card period, then yes, this might work for you. But it doesn’t take much additional min/maxing to beat this potential 1 card setup.
For example, you can go with a Citi Double Cash and a Strata premier. This simple 2 card setup will get you a 2x catchall and a 3x gas/groceries/restaurant/travel card that opens up citi’s transfer partners. If you also value citi’s TY points at 2cpp, then the double cash alone can match the points you’d earn through rent via bilt. Then any other spend that you may have – gas/groceries/restaurants – will just pull the citi 2 card setup further ahead. The Bilt mid-range obsidian card makes you chose between groceries or restaurants, and doesn’t provide any bonus spend on gas and only 2x on travel. You also do not have a 2x catchall option unless you go for the palladium.
So, the bilt cards based on what we know from the leaks, are in a weird spot. For the people who want absolute extreme simplicity of only 1 card, bilt may work. But if that’s the case, then introducing a SECOND currency kinda muddles the simplicity argument a bit – would someone who only want 1 card for simplicity want to keep track of bilt points AND bilt cash — with the bilt cash potentially expiring every year ? It’s hard to say. This is why the most important information we need to really gauge bilt 2.0 is how useful bilt cash actually is. And right now, we don’t have this information.
As in this is your one and only card with no back up? Nope. That would be ballsy move to rely on a CC issuer has work-in-progress back office and cardmember support infrastructure with limited human staffing if you incur any problems.
Maybe, so long you have one or more reliable back up CC and are confident/comfortable redeeming points and using credits via Bilt rewards system/portal.