Lazy Points of the Week
Story of the week: Bilt talks profits, growth, and exciting updates
Bilt CEO Ankur Jain sent out a letter to members this week, discussing how their business works, how they make money, how they provide the rewards that they do, and what changes are in store for the future. This builds on some previous explanations they’ve offered about their rewards structure. (h/t View from the Wing) Interestingly, the Bilt Mastercard is only a small fraction (15%) of the customer base, so while we highly recommend it, remember that you can earn points in a lot of different ways even without it.
But the exciting news is what Bilt has in store for 2025. Although details are still sparse at this point, here are the key highlights:
Mortgage payments(!!)
After adding the possibility of earning points on a home purchase, Bilt is now working on “ways to earn points on your mortgage payments.” Who knows what that will mean, exactly, but it could move the Bilt Mastercard from “indispensable card for renters” to simply “indispensable card.”
Expanding the neighborhood.
Bilt already offers several types of “neighborhood rewards,” offering bonus points at businesses near where members live. These currently including dining program restaurants, Walgreens, several fitness chains like Soul Cycle, and Lyft rides.
Bilt plans to build on this with bonus rewards on gas, groceries, and parking. I expect this will mean something like bonus points with specific merchants rather than, say, double points for Bilt cardmembers at any merchant coded as a grocery store. Even so, any additional opportunity for rewards at merchants I’m potentially already spending money with is welcome news to me.
“Tiered offerings”
Bilt also plans to introduce “tiered offerings” and more premium features. They have indicated in the past that they want to keep the Bilt Mastercard fee-free, but this raises the possibility of some sort of premium card carrying an annual fee. Given their incredibly successful disruption of the no-fee card space, it seems likely that any premium card could be a game-changer as well. This might also simply reflect a heavier focus on Bilt’s status tiers, reserving some premium benefits for the power users spending the $50,000 or earning the 200k Bilt points it takes to earn Bilt’s highest status.
Sign-up bonus of the week
Speaking of Barclays losing out in the airline credit card game, the Hawaiian Airlines Mastercard is currently offering 70,000 miles after spending $2,000 in the first 90 days. Given the ability to convert these miles into ultra-valuable Alaska miles, this is an easy way to net quite a bit of free travel. And earning double miles on gas, dining, and groceries, it’s a half-decent option to earn Alaska miles via spending as well.
Previously highlighted cards with bonus offers still available:
•30, 60, 70, or 90k miles on United Airlines credit cards
•75,000 points on the Citi Strata Premier
Lazy tip of the week
Earn miles at Walgreens. I mentioned it above, but even if you don’t have the Bilt credit card, you can open a Bilt account, add your own card to the Bilt app, and earn points any time you happen into a Walgreens. Plus, right now you can earn an extra 2 American Airlines miles per dollar spent when use a Mastercard enrolled in SimplyMiles and activate the Walgreens offer there.