Bilt Now Lets You Pay Rent With Any Credit Card For A Fee, Double Dip

I’ve written extensively about the Bilt Mastercard® (review), which is an innovative and rewarding credit card. The greatest selling point of the card is that you can earn points for paying your rent with no fee, as long as you make at least five transactions per billing cycle.

Bilt has just introduced a cool new feature, which makes it more rewarding to pay your rent using another credit card. I think this is something that could interest many, as the math checks out.

Double dip on your rent payments for a 3% fee

For quite some time, Bilt has allowed people to pay rent through the Bilt platform using a credit card other than the Bilt Mastercard, for a 3% fee. That’s not the most exciting thing on earth, but could still make sense for some people, since you earn whatever credit card rewards that card offers (but not Bilt points, at least historically).

There’s now an exciting update to this, as Bilt has improved the rewards that you earn when paying your rent with any credit card. If you pay the 3% fee for your rent spending through Bilt on another card, you now also earn Bilt points.

Specifically, for Discover, Mastercard, and Visa products, you earn 1x Bilt points per dollar spent on rent, while with Amex products, you earn 1x Bilt points per two dollars spent on rent.

To take advantage of this opportunity, you just need to have a Bilt account (which is free, and is separate from applying for the credit card), and then you need to set up your preferred payment method for your rent payment. Then Bilt points will be credited to your account after your payment is processed.

Note that as before, those with the Alaska Airlines Visa Signature® credit card (review) can earn 3x Mileage Plan miles per dollar spent on rent through Bilt, on up to $50,000 spent annually (after that, you earn 1x miles). That also requires paying the 3% fee, and nothing else about that opportunity has changed, as this is part of a special partnership between Alaska and Bilt.

Is paying rent by card with a 3% fee worth it?

Of course it’s nice to have the no annual fee Bilt Mastercard, and to be able to earn rewards for paying rent, all without paying any extra fee (as long as you have five transactions per billing cycle).

However, I’d argue there’s merit to using another card as well. Yes, you pay a 3% fee, but being able to double dip is awesome. You could use one of the best cards for everyday spending (like one that earn 2x transferable points currencies), and then you could also earn 1x Bilt points per dollar spent. So we’re potentially talking about earning 3x transferable points in exchange for a 3% fee, which I’d consider to be a great deal. If you ask me:

• This could be a good deal for someone who just doesn’t want to get the Bilt Mastercard, for whatever reason; I get that there are limits to how many cards people want to add to their wallets
• This could be a good deal for someone who wants to boost their credit card spending, to earn a welcome bonus, to achieve some sort of other spending threshold bonus, etc.

Bottom line

Bilt has improved the ability to earn rewards for rent payments when not using the Bilt Mastercard. You can now use any other card to pay rent, and earn 1x Bilt points per dollar spent (1x Bilt points per $2 spent on Amex cards), in addition to credit card rewards, in exchange for a 3% fee.

I’d say that this could represent a good deal, in particular if you have a minimum spending requirement you’re trying to reach.

What do you make of the opportunity to double dip points for rent payments through Bilt?