The Bilt Blue Card (rates & fees) is the beginner, entry-level card in Bilt 2.0’s recently revamped card collection.
If you’re new to Bilt or just starting to consider paying your rent or mortgage with a credit card, the Blue Card is the perfect no-annual-fee (rates & fees) choice that awards you with a significant amount of useful benefits for virtually nothing more than a bit of spending on your end and perhaps some time spent analyzing how the card and the Bilt Rewards program work together.
One thing that makes the Blue Card valuable is that it offers consumers options: the ability to earn up to 1.25x Bilt Points (offer terms) on rent and mortgage payments and Bilt Cash on everyday purchases (up to $100 of Bilt Cash earned rolls over to the next year).
This guide digs into the Blue Card’s most valuable benefits so you can best understand how to maximize them.
1. High Welcome Offer: $100 in Bilt Cash
Here is the current welcome offer for the Blue Card:
- $100 of Bilt Cash when you apply and get approved. At the end of each calendar year, any Bilt Cash balance over $100 will expire. (offer terms).
Given that this card doesn’t have an annual fee (rates & fees), this is an extremely generous welcome offer. It can help you unlock the full earning potential of Bilt Points on the card when you pay your rent or mortgage — up to $3,300 in housing payments.
Or you can use your Bilt Cash welcome offer bonus for things like hotel stays, dining, fitness classes, and Lyft rides.
2. Earn Points on Housing Payments (Rent and Mortgage)
Although you can earn Bilt Points (offer terms) on all 3 cards in the Bilt 2.0 card lineup — the Blue Card, the midtier Bilt Obsidian Card (rates & fees), and the premium Bilt Palladium Card (rates & fees) — the Blue Card is special because you can earn up to 1.25x points on your housing payments (rent and now also mortgage) without having to pay an annual fee (rates & fees).
There are some things to know, though, which we’ll get into more below, like how putting a certain amount of spending on your card or using Bilt Cash can help you obtain transaction-fee-free housing payments and earn the full amount of points.
3. Flexible Earnings Structure: You Choose How You Earn
Most credit cards don’t offer consumers a choice, but the Blue Card lets cardholders choose how they earn rewards. You can pick housing-only rewards, which means you’d only earn and get Bilt Points, or you can opt for both Bilt Points and Bilt Cash (offer terms).
Housing-Only Rewards
Choosing this option allows you to earn up to 1.25x points on your housing payments, but you wouldn’t earn any Bilt Cash (offer terms).
It works like this: Each billing cycle, track your spend in the Bilt app and do the math to see how much you need to spend on everyday purchases to get the full 1.25 points with no transaction fees on your housing payments. For example:
- Spend 25% of your housing payment on everyday purchases and get 0.5x points on your housing payment
- Spend 50% of your housing payment on everyday purchases and get 0.75x points on your housing payment
- Spend 75% of your housing payment on everyday purchases and get 1x points on your housing payment
- Spend the same amount (or more) of your housing payment on everyday purchases and get 1.25x points on your housing payment.
Bilt Cash
Bilt Cash is the other option you have with the Blue Card, where $30 worth of Bilt Cash unlocks 1,000 Bilt Points. This means that if your monthly mortgage or rent payment is $1,500, you need $45 in Bilt Cash each month to unlock a transaction-fee-free payment and earn the full 1x Bilt Points (offer terms).
Remember, you earn 4% back in Bilt Cash (offer terms) on everyday purchases (not including housing payments).
Let’s return to the example above, where your rent or mortgage is $1,500 per month. You’d need $45 worth of Bilt Cash to earn the full amount of points and pay no transaction fees. This means you’d need to spend $1,125 on everyday purchases each month (you get 4% Bilt Cash on each) to earn enough to unlock the full earning potential sans transaction fees.
4. Simple, Easy-To-Remember Earning Categories
It’s true that Bilt credit cards are more complex than cards from many other issuers, as you have to figure out your monthly spending on everyday purchases to unlock the full earnings potential on housing payments, as well as make choices on how you want to earn.
Still, the bonus earnings structure on this card is simple, as there aren’t any categories to remember. You get 1x points on everyday spending with the housing-only option and 1x points plus 4% in Bilt Cash (offer terms) with the combination Bilt Cash-and-Bilt Points option.
5. Cell Phone Protection
The Blue Card is a World Elite Mastercard, which means it comes with cell phone coverage.* You can get up to $800 per claim and $1,000 in a 12-month period for stolen or damaged cell phones. Claims come with a $50 deductible, and you can only make claims 2 times in a 12-month period.
6. No Annual Fee
Perfect for beginners, the Blue Card comes with no annual fee (rates & fees).
7. No Foreign Transaction Fees
The Blue Card doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees (rates & fees), so you can use it abroad without worrying about additional costs.
8. No Authorized User Fees
There’s no charge for additional users on the Blue Card (rates & fees). Just remember you’re responsible for paying your bill each month, so think carefully before adding additional cardholders.
9. Flexible and Valuable Points Redemptions
Bilt has more than 20 transfer airline and hotel partners, and most of them transfer at a 1:1 ratio. If you hold the Blue Card, you have access to these transfer partners. You can also use your Bilt Points to book travel in the Bilt Rewards Travel Portal.
Additionally, you can use Bilt Points for things like gift cards and statement credits, but you’d get a much better value by transferring your points. We value Bilt Points at 2 cents per point, so make sure you’re getting at least that, if not more, when redeeming them.
10. Easy-To-Redeem Bilt Cash
The most valuable use of Bilt Cash is likely unlocking transaction-fee-free housing payments at the full earning potential. However, you can also use limited amounts of Bilt Cash (check restrictions on amounts and timing) for purchases at Walgreens, dining, Lyft, hotel stays, fitness classes, and more.
11. Travel Protections
You get MasterRental coverage*, but you must decline the rental agency’s collision damage waiver. It covers theft or damage to your rental vehicle on a secondary basis.
12. Purchase Protections
If you have the Blue Card, you also get Purchase Assurance as part of the MasterCard elite benefits, which covers items within 90 days of purchase. It provides up to $1,000 per loss, up to a total of $50,000 per cardholder in a 12-month period.
You can also sign up for ID theft protection, which detects potential identity theft or fraud attempts.
Final Thoughts
If you’re new to Bilt and want to test out paying rent or mortgage with your credit card, the Blue Card is the perfect introduction. It’s packed with valuable benefits, offers consumer-friendly earning methods, and gives you so much back — all without an annual fee (rates & fees).
Test it out, and if you love it, you can stick with the card. Or, for card options that offer even more benefits, you could upgrade to the Obsidian Card or the Palladium Card. Either way, the Bilt Rewards program offers so many ways to earn and redeem, including the ability to earn points for housing payments on the card without transaction fees, that you’ll come out on top.
*A maximum benefit amount and certain restrictions and limitations apply. Please review the Bilt Blue Card Mastercard Guide to Benefits for details.
**A maximum benefit amount and certain restrictions and limitations apply. Please review the Bilt Palladium Card Mastercard Guide to Benefits for details.