Of the three cards I opened earlier this month, the Bilt Palladium Card is the one I was most excited for. They have pretty marketing copy and make some bold claims on immense value. Even better, there is such complexity that it even made my head spin. But I took some time and did the math. And that math is is good, despite a $495 annual fee.
The math works across a few dimensions. I’ll cover each of these distinctly.
- Sign-up bonus
- Perks & benefits
- Ongoing rewards earn
Sign-up bonus
There are two parts of the sign-up bonus. First is the 50,000 points for spending $4,000 in the first 3 months. Second is a $300 Bilt Cash bonus for sign-up. This is on top of $200 annual Bilt Cash provided to cardholders.
The math: 50,000 points worth 1.25 cents each = $625; $500 BILT cash worth 0.33 cents each = $166.67 || $791.67 combined
Perks & Benefits
While Bilt highlights a wide range of benefits (some shown to the right, more on their site directly), I’m going to highlight those I find actually worthwhile:
- $200 bi-annual hotel redemption credit (per my separate post, this is a remarkably easy redemption!)
- $50 monthly Bilt Cash hotel redemption credit (per my separate post, this stacks with the credit above!)
- $10 monthly Wallgreens Bilt Cash redemption credit
- Priority Pass Membership (includes +1)
The math: Hotel: ($200 + $50) x 2 = $600 x 100% (redemption likelihood) = $600 | Walgreens $10 x 12 = $120 x 50% = $60 (redemption likelihood) || $660 combined; these should more than offset the annual fee
Ongoing card rewards earn (note, focusing on “Flexible Bilt Cash” only)
This is where the card gets interesting. There is a base rewards earn, but there’s also are “boosts” from mortgage payment Bilt cash redemptions AND/OR points-accelerator.
- Base rewards earn – 2x points on all spend
- Mortgage payment accelerator – 1x point per dollar of your mortgage payment, when redeeming $30 Bilt Cash for each $1,000 in mortgage payments
- Points boost accelerator – Up to 5x a year, you can redeem $200 in Bilt Cash for an extra 1x earn on $5,000 in spend ($5000 x 1 = 5,000 extra points) — I won’t focus on this, as it’s less valuable than the mortgage accelerator
The math: There’s a lot of complexity which means maximizing earn rate requires cardholders spend exactly 75% of mortgage payment processed through Bilt for a total of 3.33x Bilt points per dollar) || below example assumes $1,000 mortgage payment, which means $750 in total cardholder spend
- Base rewards earn – 2x on all spend ($750 total spend x 2 = 1,500 Bilt points)
- Mortgage payment accelerator – up to 1.33x additional on up to 75% of mortgage payment
- $30 Bilt Cash redeemed for $1,000 mortgage payment points ($1000 x 1x = 1,000 Bilt points)
- Earning $30 in Bilt Cash requires $30 / 4% (earn on all spend) = $750 in spend
- Points boost accelerator – up to 1x additional on up to $25,000 in spend/year
Overall take – a damn good deal
Worth it for the sweet, sweet sign up bonus. Annual fee offset by perks. Even more worth it when you consider the ongoing mortgage-rewards boost enhancements, which brings earn to 3x – 3.33x everywhere. These points are transferrable to many airline and travel programs, which means the value here is substantially higher even than the 3x-earn suggests.
Post-ending gif
