rewrite this title Big Changes at Bilt: More Rent Rewards, New Ways to Use Points – NerdWallet

Bilt Rewards continues to prove itself as a top-tier rewards currency. Over the past month, the rewards program has added new ways to earn points on rent payments, more travel partners and more redemption options.

The positive changes have been rolling out fast. Here’s a summary of what’s new.

Bilt now allows users to earn up to 100,000 Bilt points per calendar year by using any credit card to pay rent. To get started, you’ll need to join Bilt Rewards — it’s free — and link a card to your account.

Previously, any rent payment that wasn’t made with the Bilt World Elite Mastercard® Credit Card was capped at earning 250 Bilt points per payment, or 3,000 Bilt points annually. There’s a 3% fee for using any third-party cards for rent payments, but you’ll also receive rewards from your credit card in addition to Bilt Rewards.

If you’re using the Bilt World Elite Mastercard® Credit Card, keep in mind that the card must be used five times per statement period to earn points on rent and qualifying net purchases (purchases minus returns and credits) for that statement period. If you don’t make at least five transactions in a statement period, you’ll earn a flat 250 points when you use the card to pay rent through the Bilt app or website.

If you use a different card to pay rent, that 3% fee could be easy to overcome with the right credit card sign-up bonus. For example, the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is currently offering the following welcome offer: Earn 100,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.

If you paid a 3% fee on the entire minimum spend requirement of $5,000, you’d exchange $150 in fees for at least 105,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards® points (including the points from the initial spend requirement). Those 105,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards® points would be worth a minimum of $1,050 if redeemed statement credit or — even better — they’d be worth $1,313 when redeemed through Chase’s travel portal and potentially more if you transferred those points to Chase’s transfer partners. Plus, you’d earn an additional 5,000 Bilt points in the process, since the card is a Visa.

Bilt is also making Southwest its monthly Rent Day transfer bonus for May 1, 2025. Depending on your Bilt Rewards elite status, you’ll receive between a 25% and 100% bonus for points transfers to Southwest — but like other Rent Day deals, it’s available for one day only.

Bilt Rewards can now be redeemed for payments to student loans serviced by Nelnet, MOHELA, Sallie Mae, Aidvantage and Navient. Points are worth 1 cent each when redeemed toward student loan payments. You can use the Bilt website or app to apply your points to your student loan balance.

While you can get better value for your rewards by transferring them to travel partners, this could be a great way to pay down your student loan balance faster. If your rent is $1,500 per month and you use your Bilt Rewards credit card each month for the payment, that could be an extra $1,800 per year you can funnel toward paying down your student loans.

Bilt Mastercard holders can now redeem Bilt points for up to $10 in savings during checkout at Walmart, Walgreens, CITGO, CVS, BP and Dollar General. Points are worth 0.55 cent each at these merchants, with the exception of Walgreens Pharmacy where points are worth 0.7 cent each. These redemptions don’t give you a good value for your points, but it’s nice to have options. To redeem points at one of these stores, pay with your Bilt World Elite Mastercard® Credit Card at checkout and select “Yes” to redeem points when prompted at the terminal.