I’ve had the Bilt Credit Card for a little over two years now.

When I first applied, it became my favorite credit card, for the same reason everyone else liked it: I could earn points on rent. It felt built (no pun intended) for people like me: renters in high-cost cities where rent is the single biggest expense.

To start 2026, Bilt announced its new lineup of “Bilt 2.0” cards.

Bilt has tried to frame this as an upgrade. But clearly, these cards are worse than the original Bilt card.

Unfortunately, my Bilt card is deactivating, so I have to either jump on Bilt 2.0 or let it go.

I’ll be honest, I feel like I’ve been going through the stages of grief with this card. There was denial (surely they’re not taking away THEIR MAIN FEATURE), then frustration, then resentment, then some sadness.

I think I’m near acceptance. The new Bilt 2.0 cards are a downgrade, but they’re still worth considering.

What follows is my attempt to make sense of Bilt 2.0 and guide you through my thought process. I’ll also try to break down their annoying corporate-speak that made a confusing launch even harder to understand.

Why Bilt 1.0 Worked So Well (Rest In Peace)

Back in the day, like four years ago, Bilt had been the it credit card in NYC. It was on subway ads and on the tips of tongues of New Yorkers who always talk (complain) about how much they pay in rent. Their pitch was so easy: earn 1x points per dollar on rent, with no transaction fee and no annual fee. The only hard part was getting accepted for it.

That was it. No lifestyle branding required.

Bilt 1.0 felt tailored to people like me. Rent is by far my biggest monthly expense. I didn’t need to “optimize” my spend. Honestly, I put almost everything on my Bilt card. With 3x points on dining and 2x points on travel, it was a pretty good everyday card!

Well, some people gamed the system. Banks lost money. If you met the five-transaction minimum per month, you could earn points on rent without engaging beyond that.

Wells Fargo ended their deal with Bilt early. I expected Bilt to close the loopholes, but they’ve completely downgraded the card.

Okay, So What’s the Deal With Bilt 2.0?

The new Bilt cards are extremely confusing. You can read the press release yourself if you want.

If I weren’t a blogger, I would be annoyed at how much brain space this is taking up.

At a high level, Bilt now offers three cards:

• Bilt Blue (no annual fee)
• Bilt Obsidian ($95 annual fee)
• Bilt Palladium ($495 annual fee)

Every card does two things:

• It earns Bilt Points
• It earns 4% back in something called “Bilt Cash”

The key change, and this is the part that is easy to miss at first, is that you no longer earn points on rent by default.

Instead, you have to earn Bilt Cash first, and then use that Bilt Cash to “unlock” points on your rent payment.

In other words, rent is no longer the engine that earns you points. Rent has been demoted to something you can optionally earn points on if you’ve already spent enough elsewhere.

Bilt has tried to pass it off as a technical change, but it’s a big change.

The Core Problem with 2.0: It’s Hard to Earn Enough Bilt Cash to Earn the Full Rent Points

The original promise of Bilt was simple: earn points on rent. That was the whole reason to have the card.

Under Bilt 2.0, that promise is gone.

Now, to earn 1,000 points on rent, you need $30 in Bilt Cash. And the only way to earn Bilt Cash is by spending on the card. When you run the math, that works out to 1,000 points on rent for every $750 you spend. It doesn’t matter which card you have.

So while “Bilt Cash” sounds like a nice new perk, its exists to replace what we used to get automatically.

For people like me, renters in high-cost cities where is 30, 40 or even 50% of post-tax incomes, the math doesn’t math.

My rent is $3,450 a month. That already eats most of my money. Even if I put all of my spending on the Bilt card, I wouldn’t come close to unlocking full points on my rent. Not even close.

Bilt Has Ditched the Cities for The Suburbs

The rent-burdened are the losers. Why did they target us with ads for four years if they were just gonna dump me?

The winners are those, I suppose, who don’t spend much on rent and can hit the full earnings, and those who have mortgages.

There are other annoyances layered on top. Bilt Cash expires after a year, which means you can’t even stack it long-term.

If I wanted to go back to being a digital nomad (because I’m rent-burdened), I’d be forced to spend it on whatever Bilt decides is eligible, whether that’s useful to me or not.

Then there’s the smaller but still irritating change: rent payments no longer flow through your Bilt card at all. They come straight out of your bank account. That’s not my biggest concern, but it’s another signal that rent is no longer central to the product.

The Acceptance Phase: What is Bilt 2.0 Good For?

I’m angry. Bilt is trying to dump me. Even after I’ve said so many nice things about them on my blog. AFTER ALL THAT I’LL DONE FOR YOU, BILT.

Already, let’s move past anger.

Is Bilt 2.0 still a good card?

If your rent is high like mine and you already know you’re not unlocking full rent points, the cleanest way to think about Bilt is this: it’s not 1x points on rent anymore. It’s roughly a 1.33x boost on your everyday spend, layered on top of whatever category bonuses you’re already earning.

That’s still decent.

It’s still a no-foreign-transaction-free card with good transfer partners.

You can transfer them to United, American, Southwest, Alaska, and a dozen more airlines. You can transfer them to Hilton as well, which includes a lot of hotels in the U.S. Right now, we have to hope that these last.

The $495 annual fee card is 2X points on everything, and a bunch of credits and other goodies. (You can find that elsewhere.)

The $95 annual fee card is 3X points on dining or grocery, 2X on travel, 1X on everything else. Some smaller goodies. This is sad because those are the multipliers on the ONCE FREE Bilt 1.0 card.

The $0 annual fee card is 1X on everything.

On top of that, you get (if your rent is high compared to your spend) 1.33 extra points per dollar.

Assuming your spend is less than 75% of your rent, you get at least 2.33x on everything in the end. That’s quite good. When I put it this way, the no annual fee option sounds compelling.

They’re not bad cards. But they’re confusing and no longer rent cards. If I didn’t already have one, I wouldn’t get it.

Comparing Bilt 2.0 to the Wells Fargo Autograph

Everyone with an original Bilt card got a notice in the mail that it’s automatically turning into a Wells Fargo Autograph card.

On paper, the Autograph is very strong:

• No annual fee, no foreign transaction fees, and good protections.
• Solid 3x categories: dining, travel, transit, gas, streaming, and phone plans

With so many 3x cateogires, it’s stronger than the $0 annual fee Bilt card. If you have a lot of miscellaneous spend, you could use the no-fee Bilt card for that, and Autograph for the rest. That may be the stack I end up with.

The real question is the $95 Bilt card vs the Autograph.

Category-wise, it’s similar. I’d give an edge to Autograph for simplicity and for having more 3x opportunities. Where Bilt still wins is on transfer partners.

Wells Fargo has the same ideas as Bilt for transfers, but just not as many options.

Let’s call that a wash.

So the question becomes: is that roughly 1.33x extra value, plus some credits, worth:

• $95 per year
• Another credit check (they say “no hard inquiry,” but it’s still vague)
• The added complexity of an extra card, and a card that’s complex.

For me, it’s a tough call. I’m not convinced yet. I could get the free Bilt card, earn (essentially) 1.75 points on miscellaneous spending, and use the Autograph for Dining and Travel to get 3x.

Other Benefits of the New Bilt Card, Carried Over From Bilt 1.0

Double Points on Rent Day

With Bilt 1.0, you got double points on rent day, up to 1,000 points. Assuming that continues, it’s a nice bonus.

In Bilt 1.0, I had all my subscriptions scheduled for the 1st. That gives me double points. Hopefully that stays.

Watch the Rent Day Bonuses for Special Transfer Deals

One month, just for Rent Day, you could transfer points at a 1:1.5 ratio from Bilt to Avianca. I pounced on that.

I got a free round-trip ticket to visit my grandpa in El Salvador, not only for free, but also using only using two-thirds of the points I would’ve otherwise.

2x Points at Walgreens and Lyft

There are a few other niceties. I use Bilt if I get something from Duane Reade (Walgreens), because you randomly get double points there.

I also choose Lyft if it’s the same price as Uber because you get double points on Lyft. However, it annoys me that Citi Bike purchases (owned by Lyft), don’t qualify.

Other Notes on the Bilt Credit Card

And here are some other notes I have on the Bilt Card.

They’re Trying to Push Other Initiatives and Build a Real Brand

For example, here in New York, they’re pushing their “Neighborhood Benefits.”

This included stuff like the “Bilt Neighborhood Comedy,” where you can use your Bilt points for a comedy show. Seems interesting. I haven’t gone. I can go to decent comedy for fifteen bucks, so I don’t feel the need to spend 2,500 or 5,000 points on a show.

They’ve opened a “Bilt Neighborhood Cafe” coffee shop in New York too. I did get 11x points there on Rent Day, and I share my experience of the cafe here. Will we still get these great multipliers with the new Bilt cards? We don’t know.

They are also pushing their merch. Sorry, credit card company, but no, I don’t think your brand is cool. I just want points so I can get free travel.

The “Points Interest” is Basically Worthless

When you hit silver status, you get to “earn interest on points.” This sounds nice, but in practice, it’s basically worthless. The interest rate is pitifully low.

I earned a grand total of 21 points last month in interest.

Don’t hold on to your points just for interest.

You Can Redeem Points for a Lot, But Traveling is Best

You can redeem points at Airbnb, Lyft, and probably a hundred other big brands. But they won’t be a great use of those points.

Bilt 2.0 Bottom Line: It’s Extremely Confusing. It’s Still Not a Bad Card.

When the dust settles, I think we’ll see that the earn-points-on-rent party is over. However the new Bilt cards are not bad.

If you don’t already have the Bilt 1.0 card, you can probably do better elsewhere. I guess if you have a mortgage? If so, congrats on that too. I’ll be here spending all my money on rent and no longer earning 1x points for it.