Bilt Cash Review: Bilt’s Second Rewards Program, The Most Compact Coupon Book
A few days ago, Bilt officially announced how Bilt Cash it works. It’s complicated. This article is dedicated to going through it in detail.
What is Bilt Cash
Bilt Cash is the second rewards program introduced by Bilt, separate from Bilt Points. Bilt points are very popular because of their excellent transfer partners (including Hyatt, Japan Airlines, Alaska Airlines, United, etc.) and frequent transfer bonuses—this is one of Bilt’s biggest strengths.
Bilt Cash, on the other hand, is not a good thing to spend. In one sentence: the system is very complex, with many limitations in use. That said, there there is certain circumstances in which it may be heard. Read on for details.
One important note: Bilt fee expires every year on 12/31. You can only add up to $100 of Bilt Cash in the next year. So if you earn it, you really need to use it immediately.
How to Get Bilt Money
There are two ways:
- Everyday spending (everything except rent and mortgage payments) earns 4% back in Bilt Cash.
- For every 25,000 Bilt Points earned in relation to the situationyou automatically earn $50 in Bilt Cash. The key phrase here is “statistical,” meaning that points from signup bonuses do not count. Basically, this means that you can only achieve this by spending money.
All Ways to Use Bilt Money
The list is long, painful, and honestly exhausting. I’ll paste the actual list below so you can quickly flip through it—reading it carefully will give you a headache:
Food and Shopping
$120 / year for grocery or restaurant delivery (fulfilled through GrubHub)
Use the restaurant and grocery delivery service provided by GrubHub; $10 credit every month; Available 3/1/26
$60 / year Bilt credit for 15 minute home delivery
Use Bilt Cash on super-fast Bilt Home Delivery orders for groceries, alcohol, and essentials, powered by Gopuff; $5 credit every month
$100 / year in Gopuff FAM (Free delivery and discounted groceries)
Cover your Gopuff FAM membership for up to twelve months; up to $100 per year; valid for monthly or annual memberships; Available 3/1/26
$300 / year restaurant credit at select Bilt Dining partners
Use Bilt Cash on meals at select Bilt restaurants with Mobile Dining Checkout; one visit per month up to $25; a rollout that expands to thousands of restaurants nationwide this year
$600 / year for dining experience reservations
Use Bilt Money to book exclusive Bilt dining experiences; up to $50 per month; Available 3/1/26
Cardholder Exclusive Bonus Points
Special cardholder bonuses are available when the card balance is set to 4% back in Bilt Cash on daily spend.
Acceleration point in daily spending²
Enable +1X bonus points on all daily spends on the next $5,000 in activations; only available to Obsidian and Palladium cardholders; Cost: $200 Bilt Cash; up to 5 times a year; expires after spending $5,000 or at the end of the calendar year
Obsidian benefits when empowered: 4X dining or grocery³, 3X travel, 2X daily spending
Advantages of Palladium when enabled: 3X daily use
Unlock points on mortgage payments, up to 1X
Unlock points for monthly rent or mortgage payments without operating expenses; every $30 Bilt spend earns 1,000 points, up to 1X your monthly rent or house payment
Travel and Transportation
Up to $1,200 hotel credit / year
Use Bilt Cash on the Bilt Travel Portal; two night minimum; up to $50/month for Blue & Silver members and $100/month for Gold and Platinum members
Unlock higher transfer bonuses
Use Bilt Cash to upgrade your Hire Day transfer bonus to the next level of status; Platinum members get an extra boost; example: A gold member can upgrade from 75% to 100% with $75 Bilt Cash; price and availability subject to change
$120 Lyft rideshare credits / year
Spend $10 a month on Lyft rides
Up to $150 to Blacklane ride / year
Use the Blacklane ride; up to $50/year (Blue and Silver), up to $100/year (Gold), or up to $150/year (Platinum)
Up to $700 in BLADE credit / year
Use BLADE airships; up to $350 per booking; booking up to 2 per year; Available 3/1/26
Unlock the benefits of a hotel away from home
Blue & Silver members can unlock luxury hotel booking benefits normally reserved for Gold and Platinum members for $95 Bilt Cash; may include benefits such as room upgrades, ~$100 hotel credits, early check-in, late check-out, and more; Available 3/1/26
Up to $840 in Priority Pass extra guest credits / year
Palladium only; limit up to two visitors per month; $35 per guest; up to $70 in statement credit per month
$60 for parking/year
Spend $5 per month at participating Bilt Neighborhood parking lots; Available 3/1/26
Health and Living
$480 fitness class credit / year
Use to attend one group fitness class per month on the Bilt app (including SoulCycle, Barry’s, and others); up to $40 per month
$120 Walgreens credit / year
Use $10 a month for Walgreens credit
Other
$600 in annual comedy bookings
Spend up to $50 per month for exclusive Bilt comic experiences; Available 3/1/26
$120 Bilt Design Collection credit per year
Earn up to $10 per month by purchasing the Bilt Design collection
Every case that is used has a very low cap, almost all of them every month, and everything is crazy.
That said, I do understand the purpose of this design. A card with an annual fee that earns 4% on almost every spend, while keeping clear dollar-for-dollar value—if this wasn’t designed to be so difficult to use, the bank would be losing a lot of money.
Recommended Ways to Spend Bilt Money
Personally, I find the $10/month style coupons completely exhausting. Keeping track of all this feels like taking on a second job. So my recommendation is to focus on using the following:
1. Rent or Mortgage Payments
In our article about paying rent and mortgage with Bilt, we mentioned that there are two options. The first option does not include Bilt Cash (and if you choose this, your spend will not earn 4% Bilt Cash). The second option allows you to spend $3 in Bilt Cash to earn 100 Bilt Points, which are combined with your rent or loan.
For example, on a $2,000 build, you can spend up to $60 in Bilt Cash to earn 2,000 Bilt Points.
This method converts hard-to-use, soon-to-be-expired Bilt Cash into very valuable Bilt Points. If you earned Bilt Cash through a signup bonus or similar methods, this is one of the best ways to use it.
2. Point Accelerator to Earn More Bilt Points
You can spend $200 in Bilt Cash to unlock a +1X bonus in Bilt Points on your next $5,000 in spending. You can do this up to five times a year (ie, up to $25,000 in spending).
Here’s the interesting part: since everyday spending earns 4% back in Bilt Cash, spending $5,000 will earn you $200 in Bilt Cash—the same one you spent to unlock the bonus. You can also use that $200 to unlock another +1X bonus. Some people jokingly call this a “perpetual motion machine,” or “non-perpetual” with a $25k spending limit.
If you spend a lot of money on food or shopping, the Bilt Obsidian card with a +1X bonus allows you to earn up to 4X Bilt Points in those categories, which are very strong. If most of your money is in other categories, the Bilt Palladium card with +1X is 3X on everything, which is very competitive.
This strategy only makes sense if you really have the ability—and willingness—to spend significant money on Bilt cards.
3. Buying High Transfer Bonuses
During Bilt Rent Day promotions, Bilt often offers transfer bonuses, sometimes with very strong partners and very high bonus levels. Bilt stated that Bilt Cash can be used to purchase bonuses for higher tiers. Price and availability will vary.
So far, this has not happened, and the prices are unknown. If it does, we will update our Bilt Rent Day page accordingly.
Final thoughts
Bilt Cash, like Bilt’s second rewards program, is very complicated, has a very thick coupon book and is a real pain to read. For most people, we recommend choosing the easiest option when paying off a mortgage or mortgage—one that doesn’t involve Bilt Cash at all.
If you do we want to play the Bilt Cash game, the uses we recommend are: converting it for rent or housing payments, using the Point Accelerator to increase income levels by +1X Bilt Points, or buying high transfer bonuses during the Bilt Rent Day promotions.
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