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There’s been a steady stream of news coming out of Bilt Rewards lately. With the launch of three new cards and an overhaul to how you’ll earn points on rent (and now mortgage) payments, there’s a lot to digest.
And not all of it is good. Bilt's already gotten blowback on the complexity of its new cards. But it gets worse. Once you dig into the terms and conditions, you'll find the soon-to-be-activated Bilt cards have significant restrictions on what types of purchases earn rewards.
So, consider this a PSA if you’re applying for or receiving a new Bilt card and are thinking about making a big tax payment to earn a welcome bonus or doing some online shopping to rack up a large number of points.
Bilt Adds Rewards-Earning Restrictions to New Cards
There’s not a credit card in existence that doesn’t come with pages and pages of disclosures. These spell out your card’s rates and fees, what points or miles you’ll earn, and a lot more. And in the disclosures for Bilt’s three new credit cards, you’ll find some interesting language around what counts as an “eligible purchase” that goes beyond what other card issuers include.
Eligible purchases matter because they’re the types of transactions that earn rewards, whether that’s Bilt Points or Bilt Cash. What’s more, these purchases are also what count toward your signup bonus, if applicable.
In each card’s offer terms, you’ll see the following paragraph (emphasis ours):
“Eligible Purchases” or “Purchases” means transactions for goods or services made with your Bilt Card, minus returns, refunds, or credits. Purchases that do not earn Bilt Points or Bilt Cash: Balance transfers, Special Transfers, cash advances, travelers checks, money orders, wire transfers or similar cash-like transactions, prepaid cards, gift cards, person-to-person payments (such as Venmo, PayPal, Cash App, or Zelle), tax payments, online resale marketplaces (such as eBay or Facebook Marketplace), cryptocurrency or other digital currency purchases, fees or interest posted to your Account (including annual fees, late fees, and returned payment fees), lottery tickets, casino gaming chips, race track wagers or similar betting transactions, and checks that access your Account.
Put differently, if you’re planning to use a Bilt Palladium Card to make a large tax payment to earn its welcome bonus, it won’t count toward your minimum spending requirement and it won’t earn rewards, either. Thankfully, there are plenty of other cards that make sense for tax payments, because this clearly isn’t one of them.
Ditto for gift cards, purchases through online resale marketplaces, and more.
How will these restrictions be interpreted?
Outside of tax payments, one clear takeaway from these offer terms is that they’re fairly vague, at least when it comes to gift cards and online resale marketplaces. That vagueness makes us wonder whether these terms are really the full story.
After all, much of the internet functions as an “online resale marketplace.” Beyond eBay-adjacent platforms like Poshmark, Depop, StockX, and others, many websites allow users to resell items they’ve purchased elsewhere. So does that mean purchases made on those sites won’t earn rewards either?
Taken a step further, this interpretation could even open the door to no rewards on sites like Amazon, Walmart, Target, and others, since these platforms allow third-party sellers to effectively resell merchandise they’ve sourced elsewhere.
Bottom Line
If you’re about to apply for or receive a new Bilt credit card, pay close attention to its offer terms. Like every other credit card out there, some purchases won’t earn rewards. But the language around what does and doesn’t earn Bilt Points and Bilt Cash is much more restrictive than on most other cards.
As a result, if you use a Bilt Palladium Card to make a tax payment, a Bilt Obsidian Card to buy a sweater on eBay, or a Bilt Blue Card to purchase a Chili’s gift card, you shouldn't expect to earn anything on those transactions.
Hopefully these restrictions don’t expand even further. But based on the language in each card’s offer terms, the door is definitely open.
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