Bilt Mastercard Review: Must Have for Renters + Premium Travel Perks

The Bild Mastercard has single-handedly changed how I use credit cards. With no annual fee, this is the only credit card that allows you to pay for rent without fees. On top of that, it also comes with premium travel benefits not typical or no annual fee cards. While Bilt’s program was designed with renters in mind, non-renters can also easily benefit from the card.

Long-term Value of the Bilt Mastercard

When a credit card has no annual fee you’re usually not expecting lucrative benefit or perks. Not only does the Bilt Mastercard come with no annual fee, it also has more perks than premium travel cards with annual fees.

Unique to the Bilt Mastercard, you can pay your rent without any fees and earn lucrative Bilt points. Your landlord doesn’t have to be part of the Bilt’s network or even have to accept digital payments. If you’re paying your rent by check Bilt will take care of that for you and make sure you still get those Bilt points.

Rent can be the single-highest monthly expense for most people. It’s amazing that renters can now capitalize on the money that they were already spending on rent and turn that into cash or miles. So how exactly does this all work?

Bonus Category Spending

The Bilt Mastercard earns the following rewards when you make at least five posted transactions each billing cycle:

• 3X points on dining
• 2X points on travel
• 1X points on rent payments without transactions fees and up to 100,000 points each calendar year
• 1X points on everything else

With no foreign transactions fees, use the Bilt Mastercard anywhere in the world that accepts Mastercard.

Mastercard classifies travel as airlines, hotels, motels, resorts, cruise lines, and car rental agencies. You also get primary car rental insurance which is unheard of for a no annual fee card. Additionally, the card comes with trip delay reimbursement, trip cancellation and interruption protection, and Lyft credits.

Bilt streamlines the process of paying rent with this credit card. I’ll take you through my personal experience paying rent with the Bilt Mastercard.

Paying Rent with the Bilt Mastercard

There’s a network called the Bilt Rewards Alliance – if your rental property is within this Bilt Alliance then you are automatically earning Bilt points even without owning the credit card. For those of us outside of this network, you can still earn points on rent by signing up for the Bilt Mastercard. Fees will be reimbursed if your landlord uses any other online portal or accepts checks, Venmo, or Paypal. Rent payments earn 1X points and count towards one of your five transactions.

When selecting your payment method in your rent online portal, you need to select the “Bank Account”, “E-check”, or “ACH” option. Do NOT enter select “Credit Card”. Enter the account and routing numbers generated by Bilt. This should look you’re setting up a bank account as your payment method and how Bilt bypasses the fees. Bilt with automatically pull money from this account every month so there’s nothing else you need to do! Paying by check is just as easy – simply enter where Bilt needs to mail your check.

What if your rent payment puts you near or over your credit limit? How will you have room to do four other transactions in that statement period to qualify for the points? Don’t worry, Bilt has thought of a solution called BiltProtect. On the “Pay Rent” tab of your Bilt app, you’ll see an option to enable BiltProtect which makes your Bilt Mastercard act like a debit card instead of a credit card for your rent transaction. This immediately frees up your credit usage while still giving you all the benefits of paying with the Bilt Mastercard.

How to Redeem Bilt Points

There are multiple ways you can redeem your Bilt points:

• Transfer your points 1:1 to one of our many world-class partners
• Redeem directly through Bilt’s travel portal on hotels, flights, car rentals, and activities
• Redeem your Bilt Points to save on next month’s rent payment, or save your points and put them towards a down payment
• Redeem for some of the nation’s top group fitness classes (such as Soul Cycle)
• Redeem for exclusive access to our hand-curated catalogue of art, decor, and apparel
• Shop with points on Amazon

Bilt created a lot of momentum with their transfer partners when they announced an exclusive partnership with American Airlines. No other transferrable point currency allows you to transfer to American Airlines. Hyatt is another popular partner for hotels.

Hint: Booking activities through the travel portal also includes theme park tickets if you’re trying to justify spending more money to go to Disneyland.

Perks and Benefits

The Bilt Mastercard comes with premium benefits that you likely won’t find on many no annual fee cards including:

• Cell phone protection – Up to $800 per claim after the $25 deductible with a maximum of 2 claims per 12 month periods
• Primary car rental coverage – Auto rental collision damage waiver when you pay for your entire car rental with the Bilt Mastercard and the rental company’s collision loss/damage insurance
• Purchase security (theft and damage protection) – Up to $10,000 per claim if made with 90 days from date of purchase
• Trip cancellation and interruption protection – Up to $5,000 reimbursement for a covered reason if your trip is interrupted or canceled
• Trip delay reimbursement – Get reimbursed for expenses incurred, including meals, when your trip is delayed more than six hours due to reasons like inclement weather, mechanical breakdown of the common carrier or air traffic control delays

While there are many other premium credit cards that offer similar benefits, it’s difficult to find one that does it with no cost to you. You’ll also want to consult the benefits guide to review terms and conditions of these benefits.

Rent Day Promotions

Besides earning 1X points on your rent, Bilt also has promotions that occur on the first of each month. These can range from transfer partner specials or bonus points on category spending. Additionally, you’ll earn double points (with the exception of rent) on all purchases made on rent day. There’s also trivia questions for bonus points as well as a chance to earn free rent each month.

Sign-up Bonus

A generous sign-up bonus is usually a make-it-or-break-it deal for most people when signing up for a new credit card. Unfortunately there is no outright sign-up bonus with the Bilt Mastercard. Instead, Bilt strongly markets themselves as the only card to earn points on rent and focuses on the long-term value of the card.

Unofficial Sign-Up Bonus

While there isn’t an official sign-up bonus I was surprised to find an details of a 5X points promotion in my welcome email. Shortly after getting approved for the card I received an email detailing that I could immediately use my card to earn 5X points for the first 5 days, up to 50,000 points. It’s not advertised on their site or app when you apply for the card so there’s no way to tell if this applies to everyone. This offer can be lucrative if you need to make big purchases that would’ve otherwise not qualified for bonus points on your other credit cards. Have you seen or gotten this offer?

Bottom Line

Is the Bilt Mastercard worth it? If you’re a renter you NEED this card. Even if you don’t plan on traveling soon there are other ways to use of your points such as putting it towards a mortgage.

Ensuring you have five transactions each month sounded cumbersome initially but I’ve adapted my spending around my Bilt Mastercard:

• Automating rent payments
• Setting reminders to pay my cell phone bill each month (no auto-payments for me due to T-Mobile’s stingy rules about debit vs credit card payments)
• Putting food and travel spend on the first of each month on my Bilt Mastercard to get double points
• Using my Bilt Mastercard until I hit five transactions, then going back to my other credit cards

The Bilt Mastercard is slowly turning into a keeper card. With no annual fee, no foreign transaction fees, and bonus points on travel and food categories, I’ll continue to use this card even when I stop paying rent.