I recently signed up for the Bilt Palladium card, forking over a beefy $495 for the annual membership fee to test it out. I’ll do a full post on my experience after having some reps under my belt on the card, but for now I’m going to focus on one of the major offsets for that reward. $400 in annual Travel Hotel credits. Based on the early experience, it turns out it’s, dare I say, a “good” UI and overall experience.
The credit
$200 in booking credits, bi-annually (2x), when booking hotels through the Bilt Travel Portal. This stacks with the monthly $50 statement Bilt Cash redemption option. Both require the same 2-night stay minimums to enable redemption.
How it worked in practice
SO EASY. I opened the card a week back, and both the $200 bi-annual (Bilt Palladium perk) and $50 monthly (Bilt Cash redemption) credits were available without any hassle. As pictured to the right, these $250 in credits required only pressing the green + buttons, and magically my $370.74 2-night Nashville stay bill had dropped to a much more palatable $120.74 ($250 off from the two credits.)
The underlying rates on the hotel were also highly competitive, identical to rates available when shopping across other portals AND directly with the hotel. That means the credit isn’t meaningfully offset by inflated rates, as often is the case with AMEX Travel bookings.
My take
I was skeptical of the value. That skepticism is now cautious optimism. If this works as well as I’m hoping it does, this benefit alone will fully offset the $495 annual fee on the card ($400 from the bi-annual credits, combined with $100 from 2-monthly credits). That REALLY makes a difference in the calculus for this card, as there are many other potentially valuable perks, too.
Post-ending gif
