AwardWallet receives compensation from advertising partners for links on the blog. The opinions expressed here are our own and have not been reviewed, provided, or approved by any bank advertiser. Here's our complete list of Advertisers.
One of the biggest changes with Bilt 2.0 is the ability to earn Bilt Points on mortgage payments. Previously, members could only earn points on a single monthly rent payment. Now homeowners can earn points on eligible mortgage and HOA payments, too — but only if they follow the right steps.
Bilt Points can be especially valuable thanks to the program's 23 transfer partners and recurring Bilt Rent Day transfer bonuses.
Here's everything you need to know about paying your mortgage and HOA via Bilt Rewards.
Not a Bilt member yet? Sign up here to start earning points.
What to Know About Paying Your Mortgage Through Bilt Rewards
To earn points on your housing or HOA payments without any additional transaction fees, you'll need a Bilt Rewards credit card.
There are three Bilt credit cards:
- The no annual fee Bilt Blue Card (Rates & Fees)
- The Bilt Obsidian Card (Rates & Fees)
- The top-tier Bilt Palladium Card (Rates & Fees)
- Choose to earn 4% back in Bilt Cash on everyday spend. Use Bilt Cash to unlock point earnings on rent and mortgage payments with no transaction fee, up to 1X.
- 1X points on everyday spend
$95Rates & Fees
- Choose to earn 4% back in Bilt Cash on everyday spend. Use Bilt Cash to unlock point earnings on rent and mortgage payments with no transaction fee, up to 1X.
- 3X points on your choice of grocery (up to $25K/year) or dining. Your 3X category choice remains in effect for the entire calendar year.
- 2X points on travel
- 1X points on everyday spend
$495 Rates & Fees
- Choose to earn 4% back in Bilt Cash on everyday spend. Use Bilt Cash to unlock point earnings on rent and mortgage payments with no transaction fee, up to 1X.
- 2X points on everyday spend
While anyone can use Bilt to make transaction fee-free mortgage or HOA payments, only cardholders can earn points on those payments — and only if they follow one of the qualifying paths outlined below.
Choosing a fee-free housing payment option
Complicating things a bit more, Bilt Rewards has two paths to transaction fee-free housing payments that earn points through the program. This is due to a confusing rollout of Bilt Cash at the onset of the redesigned Bilt program. Try to follow along, as the changes — in this author's opinion — only made things more confusing for the Bilt member.
Note: Bilt Cash expires at the end of each calendar year. Up to $100 of Bilt Cash earned rolls over to the next year.
If you don't qualify through one of these options, your housing payments that earn points are subject to a 3% fee. So, for a $2,000 mortgage payment, you'll pay a $60 fee to earn 2,000 Bilt Points.
Bilt Cash
The first option to avoid transaction fees is to earn Bilt Cash through a Bilt credit card. Bilt Cash is earned on eligible card purchases at a rate of 4% and can be redeemed for a variety of purposes within the Bilt Rewards program, including offsetting fees on points-earning housing payments.
The redemption rate is 3 cents of Bilt Cash per fee-free Bilt Point. In practical terms, you'll need to spend 75% of your monthly housing payment on your Bilt credit cards to earn enough Bilt Cash for fee-free housing payments that earn points.
For example, a $2,000 housing payment would require roughly $1,500 in card spending to generate enough Bilt Cash to offset the transaction fee.
Spend-based earning option
Otherwise, you can forgo earning Bilt Cash for an alternative path to transaction fee-free housing payments that earn Bilt Points. Under this structure, your earning rate depends on how much you spend on your Bilt credit card each month relative to your housing payment:
- Spend 25% of your monthly mortgage payment to earn 0.5X Bilt Points
- Spend 50% of your monthly mortgage payment to earn 0.75X Bilt Points
- Spend 75% of your monthly mortgage payment to earn 1X Bilt Points
- Spend 100% of your monthly mortgage payment to earn 1.25X Bilt Points
At the highest tier, this structure could potentially unlock 1.25X Bilt Points on housing payments. But this is at the expense of earning Bilt Cash, which has other uses in the program, like the ability to “buy up” to a higher status during lucrative Rent Day transfer bonuses.
Either way, you can switch between the Bilt Cash and spend-based options monthly, with changes taking effect the following month. Bilt also allows partial mortgage payments.
Steps to Making a Mortgage Payment Through Bilt
To make a mortgage or HOA payment via Bilt Rewards, you'll first click on the “My Home” tab in your account. Note that these screenshots are from the browser experience, but you can also complete this process in the Bilt Rewards app.
Next, you'll see your housing payments. For testing purposes, I submitted a $10 mortgage payment. If you have more than one housing payment, select “Pay a different bill” and set that up. When you're ready, click “Make a payment” to submit your mortgage payment.
I found that it took a few days for my mortgage payment to appear in my mortgage servicer's portal. So, I would allow extra time to ensure an on-time payment using Bilt Rewards.
If you're adding a new payment, you'll have to choose between “Mortgage” or “HOA fees.”
Next, select how you currently pay your mortgage.
Then, you'll set up your BillPay account if you haven't already. This links your bank account to Bilt Rewards so you can make monthly payments seamlessly.
You'll also see in the image below my Bilt Palladium Card is set up to use Bilt Cash to make fee-free payments while still earning Bilt Points.
Currently, there's no way to autopay your mortgage unless UWM (a Bilt investor) owns your mortgage. In my case, I'll have to make a manual payment each month.
Our Take
Overall, Bilt Rewards is currently the best option for earning points on your mortgage. The process to do so, however, is pretty convoluted. If you're willing to go through the steps, it can be a great way to earn Bilt Points for award travel.
To earn points without paying transaction fees, you'll need a Bilt credit card and either enough Bilt Cash to offset the fee or sufficient monthly card spending to qualify for the spend-based earning option.
- Choose to earn 4% back in Bilt Cash on everyday spend. Use Bilt Cash to unlock point earnings on rent and mortgage payments with no transaction fee, up to 1X.
- 1X points on everyday spend
$95Rates & Fees
- Choose to earn 4% back in Bilt Cash on everyday spend. Use Bilt Cash to unlock point earnings on rent and mortgage payments with no transaction fee, up to 1X.
- 3X points on your choice of grocery (up to $25K/year) or dining. Your 3X category choice remains in effect for the entire calendar year.
- 2X points on travel
- 1X points on everyday spend
$495 Rates & Fees
- Choose to earn 4% back in Bilt Cash on everyday spend. Use Bilt Cash to unlock point earnings on rent and mortgage payments with no transaction fee, up to 1X.
- 2X points on everyday spend
For rates and fees of the cards mentioned in this post, please visit the following links: Bilt Blue Card (Rates & Fees), Bilt Obsidian Card (Rates & Fees), and Bilt Palladium Card (Rates & Fees)
