Bilt Credit Cards Review: Blue, Obsidian and Palladium

Card image: Bilt · Part of my Credit Card Reviews · Last checked: October 14, 2026

Card benefits change often, and this page may be out of date by the time you read it. Always check Bilt’s page and your card’s guide to benefits for the current terms before you rely on a benefit.

I wrote in 2022 that the Bilt card was for people who don’t play the points game, and that the rest of us could do better. Four years, one bank change and a complete relaunch later, Bilt has managed to build a program that only a points player could love, and then made it so complicated that most points players won’t bother either. That’s an achievement of sorts.

The three cards are good at exactly one thing: turning a lot of card spending into a lot of transferable points, with a partner list that reaches Alaska, Turkish, JAL, Aeroplan, Virgin Atlantic and (through the end of this year at 1:1) Hyatt. For the right person that’s valuable, and I’ll be specific about who that person is. For everyone else, this review is a long way of saying no. My original 2022 review of the Wells Fargo Bilt Mastercard is still up, kept as written.

Is the Palladium’s $495 fee worth it for you? Add up the credits you’d really use with the calculator near the end of this review, or see how it stacks up against the other premium cards.

Jump to: Highlights · The three cards · Bilt Cash · Rent and mortgage · Earning · Credits · Perks · Insurance · Transfers · Application rules · My take · The catch · Keep it? · Offer history · Quick Answers

The highlights

• Points transfer at 1:1 to a partner list no single bank matches: Alaska Atmos, Turkish, JAL, Aeroplan, Virgin Atlantic, Flying Blue, United, Avianca, Cathay, Emirates, Etihad, Qatar, British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Finnair, TAP, Southwest, plus Hyatt, Hilton, IHG, Wyndham, Marriott, Accor and I Prefer at their own ratios
• Hyatt is 1:1 only through December 31, 2026; from January 1, 2027 it’s 4:3, the same cut Chase made on the Sapphire Preferred
• All three cards earn up to 1.25x on rent and mortgage with no fee, but only if you also put roughly your housing payment on the card every month (details below)
• The “4% Bilt Cash” on everyday purchases is not cash; it’s store credit that turns into roughly 1x to 1.33x more points if you work it, and expires December 31
• Palladium: 2x on everything, $400 a year in Bilt Travel hotel credits (two $200 halves, 2-night stays only), $200 in Bilt Cash a year, Priority Pass (2 guests, no restaurants)
• Obsidian: 3x on dining or groceries (you pick one; groceries capped at $25,000 a year), 2x on travel, $100 a year in hotel credits (two $50 halves, 2-night stays only)
• Blue: 1x on everything, no fee, and no access to the Points Accelerator, so the Bilt Cash on it is only good for unlocking rent points
• Rent Day: double points on non-housing purchases on the 1st of each month, capped at 1,000 bonus points, plus transfer bonuses that get better with status
• Cell phone protection, no foreign transaction fees and rental coverage (secondary at home, primary abroad) on all three; trip insurance on the Obsidian and Palladium only

Confused yet? You’re not alone. But don’t worry… it gets worse.

The three cards compared

	Bilt Blue	Bilt Obsidian	Bilt Palladium
Annual fee	$0	$95	$495
Welcome offer	$100 Bilt Cash	$200 Bilt Cash	50,000 points + Gold status after $4,000 in 90 days, plus $300 Bilt Cash
Everyday earning	1x	3x dining or groceries (grocery capped at $25,000 a year), 2x travel, 1x everything else	2x on everything
Bilt Travel portal	3x hotels, 2x flights	4x hotels, 3x flights	4x hotels, 3x flights
Bilt Cash on everyday spend	4%	4%	4%
Rent and mortgage	Up to 1.25x, conditions apply	Up to 1.25x, conditions apply	Up to 1.25x, conditions apply
Points Accelerator (buy +1x with Bilt Cash)	Not available	Yes	Yes
Hotel credit (Bilt Travel, 2-night minimum)	None	$50 per half-year ($100)	$200 per half-year ($400)
Annual Bilt Cash	None	None	$200
Lounge access	None	None	Priority Pass Select, 2 guests, restaurants excluded
Insurance	Cell phone, rental (secondary at home, primary abroad), purchase assurance	Adds trip delay, trip cancellation, lost luggage, extended warranty	Adds baggage delay and price drop protection on top of the Obsidian’s list

Bilt’s card page, checked October 14, 2026. The Blue and Obsidian are Mastercard World Elite cards and the Palladium a World Legend, all issued by Column N.A.

The short version: the Blue is a no-fee card that earns 1x, which is the worst everyday rate of any transferable-points card I cover. The Obsidian is a $95 card that competes with the Sapphire Preferred and loses on everything except the partner list. The Palladium is the only one of the three with an argument behind it, and the rest of this review is mostly about that argument.

How Bilt Cash really works (and why “4%” isn’t 4%)

Every Bilt card advertises points plus 4% back in Bilt Cash on everyday purchases, which sounds like a 2% card with a 4% card stapled to it. It isn’t. Bilt Cash is store credit that only works inside Bilt’s own world, and Bilt lists nineteen ways to spend it, of which exactly two matter.

Option 1: unlock rent or mortgage points. $30 of Bilt Cash unlocks 1,000 points on a housing payment, up to 1x your payment. So $100 of everyday spending earns $4 of Bilt Cash, which buys 133 points on your rent. That’s the 4% turning into an extra 1.33x, but only if you have enough housing payments to absorb it.

Option 2: the Points Accelerator. $200 of Bilt Cash buys an extra 1x on your next $5,000 of card spending, up to five times a year ($25,000 of spending), on the Obsidian and Palladium only. $200 of Bilt Cash is what $5,000 of spending earns at 4%, so the accelerator is a closed loop: spend $5,000, get $200 of Bilt Cash, spend it on the next $5,000, repeat. The 4% becomes an extra 1x, and the Palladium becomes a 3x card on its first $25,000 a year, then 2x after that.

That’s the whole trick. The “2x plus 4%” Palladium is really a 3x card (or 3.33x if your Bilt Cash goes to housing instead), and the “3x plus 4%” Obsidian is really a 4x card on one category. Those are good numbers, and if Bilt simply printed them on the card I’d have less to complain about.

Instead, here is what you have to remember: Bilt Cash expires every December 31, and only $100 rolls over, so Bilt Cash earned in November has weeks to live. You can’t buy the next accelerator until the previous $5,000 has fully posted, which cardholders report leaves a gap of up to a week where you’re back to 2x, and there’s no auto-renew. The Blue can’t buy accelerators at all. And you have to choose, at activation and then once a year, between earning Bilt Cash and earning “housing-only rewards” (next section), because you can’t do both.

Bilt, in other words, is counting on breakage, which is the same thing I said about the five-transactions-a-month rule in 2022. The rule changed. The business model didn’t. And it’s no accident: Bilt’s program and cards were shaped largely by people from the points and miles world, including some of the most popular bloggers in it, who have a stake in the company or work for it. They know exactly how people like us squeeze outsized value out of a program, because they wrote the playbook, and they’ve designed this one so we can’t.

Rent and mortgage points: the two options

Paying rent or a mortgage through Bilt is free on all three cards, but earning points on it isn’t automatic. You pick one of two settings when you activate the card, and you can switch once a year (the change takes effect the following month):

1. Housing-only rewards. Your everyday spending on the card that month, as a share of your housing payment, sets the rate: 25% of your rent in other spending earns 0.5x on the rent, 50% earns 0.75x, 75% earns 1x, and 100% or more earns 1.25x. You earn no Bilt Cash at all under this option.
2. Bilt Cash. You earn 4% Bilt Cash on everyday purchases and redeem it toward rent points at $30 per 1,000 points, up to 1x. If you don’t have enough Bilt Cash, you can pay a 3% fee on the uncovered part, or just not earn the points.

On $2,000 rent, the two options land in about the same place: 1x (2,000 points) takes $1,500 of other spending that month under option 1, and $60 of Bilt Cash, which is also $1,500 of spending at 4%, under option 2. Only option 1 goes past 1x, and only if you spend at least your full rent on the card every month.

So the honest description of “earn points on rent” is: earn points on rent if you also put roughly your rent amount on the card every month. A renter paying $2,000 a month who puts $500 on the card earns 500 points on the rent (0.5x under option 1, or 667 points under option 2 using the $20 of Bilt Cash). That’s a nice-to-have, not a reason to hold a card, and it’s a long way from the 2x-on-rent card Bilt launched as in 2021.

Two things homeowners should know. Mortgage payments aren’t charged to the card; Bilt pays them from your bank account, and the card only earns the points. And you can’t pay your mortgage through Bilt with a non-Bilt card to hit another card’s sign-up bonus, which was the one thing I’d hoped the mortgage feature would allow. Rent can still be paid with any card at a 3% fee, which is only worth it for a bonus you can’t otherwise reach.

How it earns

Category	Blue	Obsidian	Palladium	Caps and fine print
Rent and mortgage	Up to 1.25x	Up to 1.25x	Up to 1.25x	See the two options above; no fee on the payment itself
Dining or groceries (your pick)	1x	3x	2x	Obsidian only: choose within 30 days of approval, change once a year in January; groceries capped at $25,000 a year
Travel booked direct	1x	2x	2x	No cap
Hotels through Bilt Travel	3x	4x	4x	Portal prices; a 2-night minimum applies when a credit or Bilt Cash is used
Flights through Bilt Travel	2x	3x	3x	Portal prices
Bilt partner restaurants	Up to 4x	Up to 6x	Up to 5x	Card-linked offers through the Bilt app; the rate varies by restaurant
Lyft (accounts linked)	5x	5x	5x	2x for any linked card; 5x total with a Bilt card
Everything else	1x	1x	2x	Plus 4% Bilt Cash on all three if you choose that option over housing-only rewards
Rent Day (the 1st of the month)	2x	2x	2x	Doubles the rate on non-housing purchases, capped at 1,000 bonus points

Bilt points are worth 1.25 cents each in the Bilt Travel portal and 1.5 cents toward a home down payment (once per purchase). Amazon, gift cards, Lyft and statement credits pay 0.55 to 0.7 cents and should be avoided. Transfers to partners are where the value is.

Credits and how to use them

See when each of these credits resets, and how many days you have left on each, in my credit card credits calendar.

Credit	Card	Amount	How often	Where / how	The catch
Bilt Travel hotel credit	Palladium	$200 + $200	January–June and July–December	Hotels booked through Bilt’s travel portal (Expedia-powered)	2-night minimum stay, portal prices only, and a half-year is easy to let lapse. Treat it as two forced portal stays a year, not $400.
Bilt Travel hotel credit	Obsidian	$50 + $50	January–June and July–December	Same portal	Same 2-night rule on a $50 credit, which means a $50 discount on a stay you’d have paid at least $200 for.
Annual Bilt Cash	Palladium	$200	Once a year	Spend it on an accelerator or on rent points (see above)	Worth about 5,000–6,700 points if you use it well, and nothing if you don’t. It’s Bilt Cash, so it expires December 31 like the rest.
Welcome Bilt Cash	All three	$100 / $200 / $300	Once, on approval	Same two uses	Same expiry. Apply in January, not November.

Lounges, status and other perks

• Priority Pass Select (Palladium only), primary cardholder plus 2 guests per visit; airport restaurants excluded. Extra guests can be paid with $35 of Bilt Cash each, up to $70 a month, which is the most Bilt sentence I’ve ever written.
• Rent Day, the 1st of each month: double points on non-housing purchases, capped at 1,000 bonus points, so it’s worth $500 of spending on the Palladium and then it’s over. Rent Day is also when Bilt runs transfer bonuses and status perks, and the bonuses get better the higher your status.
• Status. Silver at 50,000 points earned or $10,000 of non-housing spend, Gold at 125,000 or $25,000, Platinum at 200,000 or $50,000. Gold gets the “Home Away from Home” luxury hotel program and better Rent Day transfer bonuses; Platinum gets Flying Blue Gold for a year after transferring 10,000 points, a free Blade ride, and a gift from Bilt’s home-decor collection, which tells you who they think their customer is. The Palladium bonus includes Gold status. Bonus points and Rakuten points don’t count toward status.
• Neighborhood rewards: extra points at partner restaurants, Walgreens, SoulCycle-type fitness classes and Metropolis parking lots when a card linked in the Bilt app is used. You don’t need a Bilt card for most of these, which undercuts the case for carrying one.
• Rakuten: shopping-portal cash back can be taken as Bilt points, but since August 2026 members without status get 1 point per 2 cents, so Amex Membership Rewards is the better choice for most people.
• Cell phone protection and no foreign transaction fees on all three.

Insurance and protections

Benefit	Blue	Obsidian	Palladium
Rental car coverage (MasterRental)	Secondary at home, primary abroad; no maximum stated	Same	Same
Trip delay	None	$300 per trip after 6 hours, 1 claim per 12 months	$300 per trip after 6 hours, 1 claim per 12 months One-way and award tickets: round trips only
Trip cancellation / interruption	None	$2,000 per trip, $5,000 per 12 months	$2,000 per trip, $5,000 per 12 months
Baggage delay	None	None	Up to $250 per claim, 2 claims a year
Lost or damaged luggage	None	Listed by name; limit not stated	Up to $1,500 per incident
Cell phone protection	Up to $800, $50 deductible, 2 claims and $1,000 per 12 months	Same	Same
Extended warranty, purchase assurance, price drop	Purchase assurance only	Extended warranty and purchase assurance	All three

Bilt’s card page lists these by name; the limits come from my card travel benefits comparison, which read Bilt’s benefits guide on October 13, 2026. Check your own guide to benefits before you rely on one.

Transfer partners

This is the part Bilt gets right, and the only reason any points player would consider the card. Airline partners at 1:1: Aer Lingus, Air Canada Aeroplan, Air France/KLM Flying Blue, Alaska Atmos Rewards, Avianca LifeMiles, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Etihad, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, Qatar, Southwest, TAP, Turkish, United and Virgin Atlantic. Hotels: Hyatt, Hilton, IHG and Wyndham at 1:1, with Marriott, Accor and I Prefer at their own ratios. Most transfers are instant, and you don’t need a Bilt card to transfer; any Bilt member can.

No single bank reaches Alaska, Turkish, JAL, Aeroplan, Virgin Atlantic and United from one account, and Bilt’s Rent Day transfer bonuses have hit partners the banks never bonus (IHG at 100% once, Avios regularly). If you’re the kind of person who books Turkish business class to Europe or Alaska awards on Japan Airlines, that list is the pitch. American Airlines, which I pointed to in 2022, left Bilt in June 2024.

And then there’s Hyatt. Bilt spent the summer as the only program still transferring to Hyatt at 1:1 after Chase cut the Sapphire Preferred to 4:3, which was the single best argument for the card. On October 1, Bilt announced it would match Chase: 4:3 from January 1, 2027. Transfer what you have a use for before December 31; don’t park points in Hyatt on speculation.

Ratios and transfer times for every partner are in my transfer partners guide.

Application rules for this card

• One card at a time. You can’t hold a Blue and a Palladium together; you upgrade or downgrade between them once your first statement has closed, and only one change per 12 months. Bilt removed and then restored its upgrade/downgrade terms in October 2026, so read the current terms before you count on moving between cards.
• One welcome offer, ever, across all three cards. Taking the Blue’s $100 of Bilt Cash uses up your lifetime shot at the Palladium’s 50,000 points, and Bilt says it can deny or reverse bonuses for opening multiple cards. If you’ll ever want the Palladium bonus, don’t apply for the other two first.
• Soft pull, but it counts. Bilt approves with a soft credit check, but the account reports as a new card, so it counts toward Chase’s 5/24 (details). Doctor of Credit’s read is that former Wells Fargo Bilt cardholders who converted also used up a slot.
• Former Wells Fargo Bilt Mastercard holders were eligible for a new-card bonus even though they’d held the old card, which is the rare case of a bank resetting the clock in your favor.
• No published rules yet on which bureau Bilt pulls or on approval limits beyond the one-card rule (Bilt rules and reconsideration).

The full rules for every bank are in my credit card application rules guide.

My take

I’ll start with the number that decides this for most people. $30,000 of spending a year on the Palladium, with every Bilt Cash dollar put to work, earns about 85,000 points: 60,000 at 2x plus 25,000 from five accelerators. That same $30,000 spread across sign-up bonuses at $4,000–$5,000 each earns something like 400,000 points, and you don’t have to remember to buy an accelerator in the Bilt app on a Tuesday. If you still have bonuses available to you (and most people reading this do), the Palladium is a worse use of your spending by a factor of four or five, and that’s before the $495.

The case for the card only exists once you’ve taken bonuses off the table. Say you’re done with the game, or over 5/24 by choice, or you have $30,000 of spending that can’t move between cards. Then the comparison is the Palladium against a plain 2x card: the Capital One Venture X at $395 with a $300 travel credit and 10,000 anniversary miles, or a free Citi Double Cash. Against those, the Palladium gives you 3x instead of 2x on your first $25,000 (3.33x if the Bilt Cash goes to rent instead), a partner list the others can’t match, and $400 of hotel credits that are worth something only if you’d book two 2-night stays a year through a portal. For a $25,000-a-year spender, the extra 1x is 25,000 Bilt points, which I’d value around $450, for roughly $300–$400 more in net annual fee than the Venture X. That’s a card that breaks even, not a card that wins, and it only breaks even for someone who runs the system perfectly.

Add rent or a mortgage and the math improves, because the Palladium is the only premium card that earns on housing. $3,000 a month of rent with $3,000 a month on the card earns 1.25x on the rent, 45,000 housing points a year that no other card would have earned, on top of the 2x. That’s the person Bilt built this card for: high rent, high spend, no bonuses to chase, and the patience to set it up once.

What I keep coming back to is the effort. To get the advertised value out of a Bilt card you have to pick the right rewards option at activation, choose dining or groceries (Obsidian) by day 30, buy an accelerator five times a year and watch for the gap between them, remember Rent Day, spend or lose your Bilt Cash by December 31, and track which partners are still 1:1. I spent an afternoon understanding this program, and I do this for fun. My friends and family, the ones who ask me “what card should I get,” would not make it through the first month, and they’d end up with a $495 card earning 2x and a pile of expiring Bilt Cash. I can’t recommend a card whose value depends on the customer out-working the company that designed it, especially when the company was designed by people who used to be on our side of the table. That, more than any single rule, is why this program isn’t useful for most people: it was built by experts in getting outsized value, specifically to stop you from getting it.

Then there’s trust. Bilt dropped American Airlines in 2024, bungled the move from Wells Fargo so badly that Doctor of Credit wrote a post on how it should have been done, pulled its upgrade and downgrade terms and put them back within a week, and matched Chase’s Hyatt cut three months after being the only program that hadn’t. None of those are crimes, but together they tell you not to let a large balance sit in Bilt. If you do get the card, transfer points out to Hyatt, Alaska, Turkish or wherever you’ll use them as the need comes up, and treat a speculative transfer as the lesser risk for once.

Who should get it:

• You put $25,000 or more a year on one card, that spending isn’t going toward sign-up bonuses, and you’ll actually run the accelerator loop. The Palladium.
• You pay $2,500 or more a month in rent or mortgage and put at least that much on the card every month. The Palladium, or the Blue if you refuse annual fees.
• You want a transferable currency that reaches Alaska, Turkish, JAL, Aeroplan and Virgin Atlantic at 2x everywhere, without chasing Alaska status on an Atmos card. The Palladium.
• You’re done applying for cards, you rent, and you’d otherwise earn nothing on the rent. The Blue, as long as your card spending is near your rent amount; below that it’s a 1x card with a gimmick.

Who should skip it:

• Anyone with sign-up bonuses still available. That’s a 50,000-point card against a 75,000–175,000-point field, and a 5/24 slot either way. The Card Finder will tell you which bonus to take instead.
• Anyone spending under about $15,000 a year on cards. The accelerators and the hotel credits don’t pencil out, and the Palladium is a $495 2x card.
• Anyone who wants a card they can set and forget. The Sapphire Preferred, the Venture X and the Amex Gold all earn more on real spending with less to manage.
• Anyone whose plan is Hyatt. After December 31, 2026, Bilt is 4:3 to Hyatt like the Sapphire Preferred, and the Sapphire Reserve or the Hyatt card is the better route.
• Anyone considering the Obsidian. The Sapphire Preferred costs the same $95, earns 3x on dining and groceries with no choosing, and its $100 hotel credit has no 2-night string. The Obsidian only wins on partners.

I was skeptical in 2022 because the card had no bonus and made you jump through hoops to earn on rent. In 2026 it has a bonus, more hoops, and two annual fees. I’m more skeptical, not less, and I’m aware that’s not the consensus.

The catch

The 4% Bilt Cash is store credit that expires every December 31 (only $100 rolls over), and it’s only worth its headline if you feed it into accelerators or rent points by hand. The accelerator is capped at $25,000 of spending a year, can’t be bought on the Blue, can’t be set to renew, and leaves a dead gap between activations. Rent and mortgage points depend on putting roughly your housing payment on the card every month, mortgages aren’t charged to the card at all, and you have to choose the right earning option up front.

The hotel credits are portal-only with a 2-night minimum, paid out in halves that lapse. Priority Pass excludes restaurants. You get one Bilt card and one welcome offer in a lifetime, the card eats a 5/24 slot, and Hyatt drops to 4:3 on January 1, 2027. Bilt’s own history (American Airlines gone, the Wells Fargo transition, terms pulled and restored) is the reason not to sit on a large balance.

And the thing underneath all of it: every piece of this program is designed so that an inattentive customer earns far less than an attentive one, by people who know exactly which customer is which. Bilt calls that “rewards.” I call it breakage.

Keep it after year one?

Palladium: $495 minus the $200 of Bilt Cash (call it $150 of real value in points) is about $345, and the $400 of hotel credits only count if you’d book two 2-night portal stays a year anyway; if you would, it’s close to free. Keep it if you’re still putting $25,000 or more a year on it with the accelerators running. If you’re not, downgrade to the Blue rather than paying $495 for a 2x card. Your points come with you: Bilt’s downgrade terms only reverse the welcome bonus if you downgrade within 30 days of the annual fee posting, which can push the balance below zero, so wait until that window has passed. Bilt pulled and reinstated these terms in October 2026, so confirm them first.

Obsidian: $95 for 3x on one category and a $50-twice hotel credit with a 2-night string. I wouldn’t keep it; the Sapphire Preferred does the same job for the same fee with less effort, and if you only want the Bilt partners, the Blue reaches them for free.

Blue: no fee, so keep it if you pay rent through it and your card spending is near your rent. If you don’t, it’s a 1x card and there’s no reason to carry it.

Is it worth it for you?

Almost any card is worth it in the first year because of the welcome bonus, so the bonus isn’t the question. The question is whether the credits and benefits you’d really use cover the annual fee every year after that. Tick what you’d use without changing your habits, and lower any amount you’d only use part of. Benefits without a price tag, like lounge access, start at $0: put in what they’re worth to you. Points you earn from spending aren’t counted here. “Start with the easy ones” ticks the credits I count as easy above.

Offer history

Best offer today: 50,000 points + $300 Bilt Cash + Gold status after $4,000 in 3 months. New card: launch offer. The card is too new to compare: this is its first offer.

When	Best available offer
Jan 14, 2026 to today	50,000 points + $300 Bilt Cash + Gold status after $4,000 in 3 months (launch)

Obsidian and Blue: $200 and $100 in Bilt Cash on approval since the February 2026 launch; neither has had a points bonus. The old Wells Fargo Bilt card had no public points bonus for most of its life and stopped working as a Bilt card on February 6, 2026.

The best offer you could get on your own at the time: the bank’s public page, plus direct landing pages, in-branch, in-flight and phone offers (marked). Referral and targeted offers are left out, and nothing here is an affiliate link. Dates come from dated reports (mainly Doctor of Credit, Frequent Miler, One Mile at a Time, AwardWallet, The Points Guy and Upgraded Points) checked against each other; “about” means the exact switch day isn’t known. Last checked: October 15, 2026. Compare every card’s offer history.

Quick Answers

Last checked: October 14, 2026. Card terms change often, so confirm on Bilt’s page before you apply. There are no affiliate or referral links on this site, ever; links go to the issuer’s own page.

Changelog

• October 15, 2026: Trip delay limit for the Obsidian and the downgrade rules (points carry over; bonus reversed only within 30 days of the fee) now sourced from Bilt’s own guide to benefits and support terms instead of a blog report; the “not in the first year” wording corrected to Bilt’s actual rule (after the first statement, one change per 12 months).
• October 15, 2026: Offer history now tracks the best available offer (direct-link, in-branch, in-flight and phone offers added and marked).
• October 14, 2026: Offer history rebuilt with every public offer since October 2024 and its dates (the old list was short and partly wrong).