Credit cards are an ecosystem. You don't have one card — you have a wallet, and every card has a job. One for dining, one for travel, one for the welcome bonus sprint. That's the whole game: the right card for the right spend.

But one bill breaks the system: housing. Rent, mortgage, HOA dues — the biggest check you write every month, and the hardest to put on a card. Landlords don't take plastic. Mortgage servicers either refuse cards outright or slap a 2–3% convenience fee on it that kills the math on contact. So the largest line item in most budgets earns exactly zero.

That's the problem Bilt was built to solve.

How Bilt works

Bilt's entire pitch is housing. Pay rent, mortgage, or HOA dues through Bilt and earn up to 1x points per dollar, with no cap. Three cards, three tiers:

  • Bilt Blue — $0 annual fee. Up to 1x points on housing, plus 1x points and 4% Bilt Cash back on everyday spending.
  • Bilt Obsidian — $95 annual fee. Up to 1x on housing, 3x on dining or grocery, plus Bilt Cash on everyday spend.
  • Bilt Palladium — $495 annual fee. Up to 1x on housing, 2x on travel, a $400 Bilt travel portal credit, and Priority Pass lounge access.

The honest fine print: there's a 3% processing fee on housing payments if you want the points. Bilt's answer is Bilt Cash — a second currency you earn on everyday purchases that covers the fee. A $2,000 mortgage payment needs $60 of Bilt Cash to earn full points. Run your daily spending through the card, bank the Bilt Cash, and the fee washes out. Skip that step and you're paying 3% for 1x points — terrible math. The card only works if you work the system.

Two details that matter: housing payments don't eat into your credit limit, and there's no cap on the points. A $2,400 mortgage at 1x is 2,400 points a month — nearly 29,000 a year — from a bill you were paying anyway.

The math

Take a $2,000/month housing payment. That's $24,000 a year currently earning nothing. At 1x through Bilt Blue — the free card — that's 24,000 points a year. Moved to a travel partner at roughly 2 cents apiece, that's ~$480 in travel value from money leaving your pocket regardless. The card costs $0. The only cost is running the system correctly. (Same playbook as putting a car down payment on the right card — big planned spend, right card, right moment.)

The royal rule:

You already run an ecosystem — a card for dining, a card for travel, a card for the bonus. Give housing a card too. A few credit cards with this one covering mortgages, rent, and HOAs is a good force multiplier: every dollar of the budget earning, none of it wasted.