I know there there's personal preference, travel destination, duration of points/cash accumulation, and other criteria but it seems like the top contenders (at least for me) are Bilt, Citi, and cashback. Kind of wondering what you all think among these 3 categories.
W.I.B. – What Is Better: Bilt Points / Citi Thank You Points / Cold Hard Cashback
byu/MichaelMidnight inCreditCards
Posted by MichaelMidnight
12 Comments
If you have a Citi cash back card like the double cash or custom cash and a points card like the premier or elite, you get the best of both worlds. You get the best transfer rates and you get the ability to redeem points for cash back at 1 cent per point.
Speaking for myself, I think the personal preference comes from “the old days.”
Like it used to be points were worth way way more than they are today.
Whereas cash back credit cards are maybe even higher value than they’ve ever been.
If you want to travel, go with points.
If you don’t, go with cashback.
Value of points: BILT > Citi > Cash
Best overall setup: Cash > Citi > BILT
My reasoning? BILT has problems. Their systems are not reliable and their history shows they might not be around tomorrow. Why would I want to give all my housing information to them? They also have only 3 cards and you can’t switch between them. They have limited choices and their credits are difficult for a lot of people to use.
Citi at least has good operations and they have choices. You can go with a simple $95 setup that covers most major spending categories or you can go with a premium set-up that is relatively easy to justify compared to other premium cards.
Right now, I think cash is king. It’s obviously the most flexible option and you can optimize it more than any other setup. Right now I’m probably averaging over 4% using 5 different issuers and about 8 core cards. I can go on cruises and book theme park hotels using cash. I can book package deals from Costco or I can find deals on Priceline and Hotwire that rival the best deals with points. Best of all, I don’t have to do any work looking for award deals.
It really depends on where you live and what cards you already have, but I usually reccomend people starting out a Citi setup (unless they live in a fortress hub for a non-AA airline.
For points, as always, it depends on where you want to fly and who you will transfer it to.
BILT points might be “more valuable overall” according to someone on the Internet, but if you don’t use those transfer partners, they are useless to you.
If award travel is your goal, find some likely routes you would want to fly, see who flies them, and check who transfers to those airlines.
Otherwise you’re just working in a hypothetical “white room” and setting yourself up for disappointment.
Depends on how much you travel:
– If you don’t, then obviously cash back
– If you do to some extent then go with Citi. Great for a hybrid setup with good multipliers, 1 CPP cash out, and access to some high value transfer partners
– If you do extensively then go with Bilt. The palladium is a serious earner since you get the 4% bilt cash on top of a 2x catch all. Everyone’s focused on the points boost for a higher catch all multiplier (or whatever it’s called idk) but if you travel a lot it should be easy to use via their travel portal. In theory anyway, I don’t have the card but would love to get it
Honest answer: Cash gives you the most flexibility and usually equal value. There are deals to be had with points, yes, but in general you can achieve similar results with either. I like points because it’s like making a budget and and I’m dedicating these rewards to my future travel. With cash it’s easy to use those rewards for other things.
There’s a reason cash is king – you need it to pay for housing, food, entertainment, and transportation. A setup of 5% back on the most important categories like groceries + dining + entertainment and 2% catch-all will work for almost everyone. The best part of the setup is the ease of redemption: you can cash out 100% of your rewards at any time. You know what you’re getting, but for some people it’s “solved” and won’t help pay for luxury travel (high end hotels, biz class flights).
Points are the opposite end of the spectrum: if redeemed properly, they will let you stay in suites and fly first class. However, in practice it’s hard to do because everyone wants to do so and there’s just not enough supply. Plus, points generally devalue faster than cash loses value to redemption. Also, most point cards have annual fees so you need to be actively managing your setup to stay positive. One major reason to get into points is the higher sign-up bonuses, which are usually much higher than $200 SUBs on cashback cards. For people who do not spend enough, it’s tough to earn enough points without the SUBs.
Bilt is the points game at an extreme level: it’s a very specific setup for “power users” that don’t redeem points for cashback and travel using their transfer partners. Note that redemptions are significantly harder because the sweet spots (JAL, Alaska, Hyatt, biz class) can be booked out months in advance.
Citi is in the middle: it’s fundamentally a cashback setup, with the added bonus that you can use your cashback to “buy” airline miles + hotel points at ~1 cent per point. I think that buying miles from airlines like AA + EVA represents incredible value, provided you fly with them or their alliance partners.
I personally recommend a hybrid setup: have points that can be cashed out at reasonable rates if needed, and can be turned into airline / hotel miles for upside when needed. Use SUBs to pay for bigger travel plans when needed. Citi, plus Chase and Wells Fargo, all fall into this category.
For me, I have cards that earn 2x Citi ThankYou points (Citi Double Cash), 2% cash back (Wells Fargo Active Cash) and 2x Bilt points (Bilt Palladium). Out of those options, I’m picking Bilt every time due to its transfer partners, ability to earn more on rent, 4% Bilt cash that can be redeemed $100/stay for hotels, $10 monthly for Lyft, GrubHub and Walgreens (the latter two stack), etc. Cash is always simplest though!
Citi is probably better for most people mostly because of the ease of use. The more you travel the better it is.
Optimizing cash back often requires a lot more management than most people want to deal with. I think you would put 5% where you can on cash back and the rest on Citi would be the best practice.
Do you care for luxury or are you only interested in “getting from point A to point B”? Cashback if you mainly travel economy/budget hotels, points for stretch opportunities you would never pay outta pocket.