Bilt Palladium Card review: A premium option for earning points on rent, mortgage payments

Bilt Rewards stands alone as the only rewards program with a built-in option for earning points on housing, such as rent or mortgage payments. But to unlock the full power of this feature, you need a Bilt credit card.

The Bilt Palladium Card offers an excellent return on your spending, luxury perks and something else we haven’t previously seen attached to a Bilt card: a Bilt Points intro bonus offer. This card could earn a spot at the top of your wallet if you understand how to maximize its potential.

After getting approved for the Bilt Palladium Card, you’ll receive a bonus of $300 in Bilt Cash. You can also earn 50,000 bonus Bilt Points and Gold status after spending $4,000 on non-housing purchases in the first three months.

Gold status is awarded after you meet the spending requirement and is valid for the rest of the calendar year, all of the following year and expires on Jan. 15 of the year after that. So, if you earn the welcome bonus and Gold status at any point in 2026, you’ll have it until mid-January 2028.

The Bilt Palladium has a $495 annual fee but comes with perks that help justify its cost, depending on how you value the benefits. You’ll receive:

• $200 in Bilt Cash: This is awarded every calendar year.
• $400 in Bilt Travel Hotel credits: Earn up to $200 in statement credits from Jan. 1 to June 30 and up to $200 in credits from July 1 to Dec. 31. The credits apply to hotel bookings of two nights or more booked through Bilt Travel.
• Airport lounge access: You can enroll to receive unlimited complimentary Priority Pass airport lounge access for yourself and up to two guests.

This is a World Legend Mastercard and has built-in travel insurance and shopping protections, including:

• Trip delay reimbursement
• Trip cancellation and interruption protection
• Lost or damaged luggage
• Baggage delay
• Rental car coverage (secondary for rentals in the U.S.)
• Cellular phone protection
• Purchase assurance
• Extended warranty
• Price drop 90-day protection

Please review the Bilt Palladium benefits guide for details.

Earning Bilt Points

The Palladium has a simple rewards structure. You earn:

• 2X points on everyday spend

The Bilt Rewards program also offers a bunch of ways to earn Bilt Points, some of which simply require linking an eligible card to your Bilt Wallet.

Earn rewards on housing

This is where the Bilt program gets more complicated. You can’t simply make your housing payment with your Bilt credit card and earn rewards; you have to choose from two options.

With option 1, you pay no transaction fees and earn up to 1.25X on your housing payment. You earn rewards based on the percentage of your housing payment that you spend on your card on non-housing transactions.

With option 2, you’ll pay a transaction fee, earn flat-rate rewards and earn Bilt Cash (on top of Bilt Points) on your Bilt card spending.

You can cover the transaction fee with Bilt Cash, which means you only need to spend 75% of your housing payment on your Bilt Palladium each month to cover the transaction fee.

Earning Bilt Cash

Currently, there are only a handful of ways to earn Bilt Cash with the Palladium, including:

• Annual $200 Bilt Cash bonus
• New cardmember $300 Bilt Cash sign-up bonus
• Earn 4% Bilt Cash with any of the Bilt cards, depending on which option you choose for earning rewards on housing (see option 2 above)
• $50 Bilt Cash for every 25,000 Bilt Points you earn toward elite status

Redeeming Bilt Points

You can use Bilt Points for a growing list of redemptions. You’ll typically receive over 1 cent per point for:

And you’ll generally receive 1 cent per point or less for:

• Rent payments
• Student loan payments
• Statement credits
• Gift cards
• Merchandise, including Amazon, Bilt Home Delivery and Bilt Design Collection
• Lyft rides

Bilt Points are typically most valuable when you use them for travel. However, you’ll receive 1.5 cents per point when you use your Bilt Points for a down payment on a home, and redeeming points for fitness classes generally provides a value of over 1 cent per point.

The other redemptions outside of those options typically offer a subpar value of less than 1 cent per point, except for Bilt Travel redemptions and travel partner transfers. When you use points to pay for travel booked through Bilt Travel, you’ll receive 1.25 cents per point.

Bilt Points transfer to the following loyalty programs at a 1:1 ratio (unless noted):

Bilt doesn’t publish official point redemption values, but what you’ll receive in value from the best Bilt partner redemptions can dwarf other options. For example, Category 7 Hyatt hotels cost 25,000 points per night (for standard nights). With the Palladium Card’s bonus, you could book two nights at the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa by transferring 50,000 Bilt Points to World of Hyatt. Rooms can cost over $500 a night at this resort, which means you’re getting a value of over 2 cents per point.

Redeeming Bilt Cash

You have 19 ways to redeem Bilt Cash as a Palladium cardholder.

In addition to redeeming Bilt Cash to pay for housing payment transaction fees, each has its own dollar limits and other restrictions (which you can review here). You use Bilt Cash for:

• Point accelerator: For $200 Bilt Cash, you’ll earn an additional 1X points on the next $5,000 in purchases (up to five times per year; expires after $5,000 everyday spend or calendar year-end)
• Unlock higher transfer bonuses during Rent Day promotions
• Bilt Travel hotel credit
• Lyft rides
• Blacklane rides beginning March 1, 2026
• BLADE airport helicopter flights beginning March 1, 2026
• Bilt Home Away from Home benefits beginning March 1, 2026 (if you don’t qualify with elite status)
• Priority Pass additional guest credits
• Parking beginning March 1, 2026
• Fitness classes
• Walgreens credit
• Grubhub beginning March 1, 2026
• Bilt 15-minute home delivery by Gopuff Fam beginning March 1, 2026
• Gopuff Fam membership beginning March 1, 2026
• Bilt partner restaurants
• Bilt dining experiences beginning March 1, 2026
• Bilt comedy experiences beginning March 1, 2026
• Bilt Design Collection credit

The Bilt Palladium card has a 10% intro APR offer on purchases for the first 12 billing cycles from the date you open the account (then a standard variable APR of 26.74% to 34.74% applies). It has a $495 annual fee and no foreign transaction fees. Late payments and returned payments have penalties of up to $41 each.

Bilt Palladium Card vs. Citi Double Cash® Card

Citi ThankYou® Points transfer to Citi travel partners like American Airlines AAdvantage, Avianca LifeMiles, Choice Privileges, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club and more. For no annual fee, the Citi Double Cash® Card gets you access to all of these transfer partners. The caveat is that the transfer ratios are lower unless you pair this card with the Citi Strata Premier^® Card or Citi Strata Elite℠ Card.

Still, the Double Cash earns a flat 2% back on all purchases (1% when you buy and 1% when you pay), which is a generous return. While the Palladium Card clearly offers more value, the question is — is it worth $495 more? It might be, but for many people, the Citi Double Cash’s cheaper and simpler rewards approach could be more appealing.

Bilt Palladium Card vs. Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card

The Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card earns at least 2X miles on every purchase and has a slightly lower $395 annual fee compared to the Bilt Palladium’s $495 annual fee.

The Palladium provides more generous guest access for airport lounges (up to two complimentary guests without having to meet a high spending threshold). It can be more rewarding when you factor in the return from housing payments or features like the Points Accelerator, but the Venture X is much more straightforward.

Every year, Venture X cardholders receive a $300 Capital One Travel credit and 10,000 bonus anniversary miles (worth at least $100 in travel), starting on your first card anniversary. On top of that, it has better travel protections than what the Palladium card offers, including primary rental car insurance for domestic and international rentals, and includes a Global Entry or TSA PreCheck® application fee credit of up to $120 every four years.

Bilt Points are exceptionally valuable, and the Bilt Palladium Card is one of the best options for earning Bilt Points. It’s a 2X-everywhere card, but with features like Points Accelerator and points on housing payments, you can earn 3X points or more on a big chunk of your everyday spending.

There’s no questioning this card’s value, but you may be wondering if it’s worth the hassle. Its benefits can offset the annual fee, but the hotel credit is broken up semiannually and only applies to stays of two nights or longer booked through Bilt Travel. Further, you can get $200 in Bilt Cash every year, but you need to decide if you actually value that at $200 or less.

For a lot of people, the Bilt Palladium make sense. But if you’re struggling to understand how to unlock its full power, a simpler card like the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card can provide similar value with a much lower mental load.

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For Capital One products listed on this page, some of the benefits may be provided by Visa® or Mastercard® and may vary by product. See the respective Guide to Benefits for details, as terms and exclusions apply.

Information about the Bilt Palladium Card has been collected independently by Select and has not been reviewed or provided by the issuer of the card prior to publication.