I’m a new grad moving into my first apartment soon where rent will be about ~$1250
Current cards:
• Discover it, opened 2020, (currently don’t use)
• Amex Sky Miles Blue, opened 2021
• CSP, opened June 2025
• FICO Score: 720
• Oldest account age: 5yrs
• Income: $50,000
• Average monthly spend and categories:
• dining $100
• groceries: $300
• gas: $100
• travel: $0
• other: $350
I currently use my CSP for everything because the discover only has the quarterly bonuses and the sky miles is useless for me at the moment. I mostly care about points so that I can start to travel more. I’m also moving to a property that’s partnered with bilt
Posted by sunbaebie
4 Comments
not a waste, earning points on rent is nice if there’s no fee. just don’t overcomplicate your setup if you already prefer using one main card
I’d get the Bilt Obsidian for your setup. Use the CSP for food and the Bilt Obsidian, with the 3x grocery, for everything else. Keep it simple until you get familiar with Bilt’s ecosystem.
Walmart and Target code as grocery when using the Bilt card for in-store purchases. This will help keep your grocery spend low and AF’s low until you get a higher paying job.
Bilt Palladium is the only card that offers a real sign up bonus. The two other variants only offer a sign up bonus in Bilt Cash/pretend money.
So I would say get Palladium, and if you can use the two $200 hotel portal credits, that’s even better. After the first year, you should see how much you’re really getting out of Palladium, or consider downgrading to Obsidian to cover groceries*
*Technically downgrades aren’t currently supported but they say they will be eventually.
Beyond the sign up bonus, the real question is will you be using the Bilt card basically as your top of wallet card.
With your current spend level, it’s going to be difficult to accumulate points required for travel redemptions. Your thrifty spend level should be lauded, but it is not helpful in the credit card game. SUBs are going to be your main points driver, not your spend.
Because of this, I’d only consider the palladium from bilt (only bilt card with a significant SUB). And I’d only consider it if you can offset the $495 annual fee buy using the two hotel portal credits and bilt cash