BILT Update: January 22, 2026

Written By Scott Kobayashi

Yes… It’s Still Complicated…. You’re not crazy. BILT 2.0 is confusing, and that’s exactly why I am making this feed... to vent, to educate myself, and hopefully help you along the way. The good news is Bilt listening to overwhelming feedback and made some changes….. some.

The Bilt 2.0 FAQ was recently updated an hour ago the time of the publication on Jan 22, 3:58 pm HST.

1. The Two BILT Options are now named

Bilt officially had two earning options, called Option 1 and Option 2, and where you can choose one every month inside the app. More recently, they renamed Option 1 as Housing Only Rewards + Option 2 as Flexible BILT Cash.

Image taken from BILT’s Website on Jan 22.

Option 1: Housing Only Rewards

No Bilt Cash involved.

You earn points on your rent or mortgage automatically based on how much non-housing spending you do that month.

Spending Tiers (based on your housing cost):

  • 0–24% spent: 250 points (flat)

  • 25% spent: 0.5x on housing

  • 50% spent: 0.75x on housing

  • 75% spent: 1x on housing

  • 100%+ spent: 1.25x on housing

Example:
Rent = $2,000
Everyday spend = $2,000
→ You earn 1.25x, or 2,500 points, on your rent.

This option exists because many people felt Bilt Cash was too confusing and just wanted something more straightforward.

Option 2: Flexible BILT Cash.

This is the original BILT 2.0 concept.

  • You earn 4% back in Bilt Cash on everyday spending (on top of normal points).

  • You then spend Bilt Cash to unlock points on rent or mortgage.

  • The exchange rate is $30 in Bilt Cash = 1,000 housing points.

  • You don’t have to use Bilt Cash on housing—you can use it on things like Lyft, Grubhub, Walgreens, SoulCycle, or the Bilt Collection instead.

I found and copied this on the BILT card offer terms: Changing Your Earning Options: You may change your Rewards Option at any time in the Bilt App or website up until the last day of the applicable Billing Cycle. Your Rewards Option selection will take effect on the first day of the following Billing Cycle. Your current option remains in effect for the entire current Billing Cycle. Bilt will endeavor to honor your selection.

2. BILT CASH redemption options added “a la Points accelerator.”

FIrst off, I can’t assume you know exactly what BILT CASH is… since they update its uses daily. Think of Bilt Cash as a second rewards currency, completely separate from Bilt Points. It’s designed to give you fixed, dollar-for-dollar value that you can spend inside the Bilt ecosystem.

How do you earn Bilt Cash?

There are two main ways:

  1. When you Choose to earn“ Flexible BILT CASH”
    If you choose Flexible BILT CASH, you earn 4% back in Bilt Cash on everyday purchases.

  2. Milestone Rewards
    Every time you earn 25,000 Bilt Points, you automatically receive $50 in Bilt Cash, even if you don’t have a Bilt card.

What You Can Use Bilt Cash For?

1. Housing (Most Common Use)

  • Use Bilt Cash to unlock points on rent or mortgage

  • $30 Bilt Cash = 1,000 Bilt Points

  • You can redeem in any amount, even a few cents converts proportionally

2. Dining & Food

  • GrubHub: Up to $10 credit each month toward restaurant and grocery delivery. Available starting March 1, 2026.

  • Bilt's 15-minute home delivery powered by Gopuff: Up to $5 credit each month.

  • GoPuff Fam (free delivery and discounted groceries): Up to $100 annually, redeemable for a monthly or annual membership. Available starting March 1, 2026.

  • Bilt Dining partners via mobile dining checkout: One visit per month up to $25 (Bilt says this is expanding to thousands of restaurants nationwide this year).

  • Bilt dining experiences: Up to $50 per month. Available March 1, 2026.

3. Transportation & Travel

  • Unlock higher transfer bonuses: Use Bilt Cash to unlock one tier higher on Rent Day transfer bonuses. For example, Gold members can unlock Platinum-level bonuses with this redemption. Platinum members can unlock an additional boost as well. This one has an example cost of $75, but it is also labeled subject to change.

  • Hotel stays in the Bilt Travel portal: Redeem up to $50 a month for Blue and Silver Bilt members and $100 per month for Gold and Platinum members. There is a two-night minimum stay for these redemptions.

  • Lyft credits: Up to $10 credit per month toward Lyft rides

  • Blacklane rides: Redeem credit for Blacklane rides, up to $50/year (Blue & Silver), $100/year (Gold) or up to $150/year (Platinum).

  • Blade credits: Redeem up to $350 per seat, up to two bookings per year. Available starting March 1, 2026.

  • Unlock Home Away from Home benefits: Bilt Blue and Silver members can redeem $95 in Bilt Cash to unlock Home Away from Home hotel booking benefits. Available starting March 1, 2026.

  • Priority Pass extra guest credits: Palladium cardholders can redeem Bilt Cash for up to two Priority Pass guest fees covered per month at $32 per guest (max $64 per month). Available starting March 1, 2026.

  • Bilt Neighborhood parking: Redeem up to $5 per month at Bilt Neighborhood Parking locations. Available starting March 1, 2026.

4. Lifestyle & Experiences

  • Fitness classes in the Bilt app: Redeem up to $40 per month for a fitness class (including SoulCycle, Barry's, and others)

  • Walgreens: Redeem up to $10 per month toward a Walgreens credit

  • Bilt comedy experiences: Redeem up to $50 per month for Bilt comedy experiences. Available starting March 1, 2026.

  • Bilt Design Collection: Redeem up to $10 per month toward Bilt Design Collection purchases.

5. Points accelerator on everyday purchases (NEW UPDATE)

  • Exclusive for Obsidian and Palladium Cardholders

  • This is a new update (Janaury 21, 2026)and it only applies when card earning is set to 4% back in the Flexible Bilt Cash. This is an interesting shift in how Bilt Cash works.

How the Point Accelerator Works

  • Cost: $200 in Bilt Cash

  • Effect: +1X bonus points on all everyday spend

  • Spend cap: First $5,000 in everyday purchases

  • Availability:

    • Begins February 7, 2026

    • Up to 5 activations per calendar year

  • Expiration:

    • Ends once you hit $5,000 in spend or

    • At calendar year-end (whichever comes first)

Think of this as using Bilt Cash to buy higher earning rates, temporarily.

Potential Earnings While the Accelerator Is Enabled

  • Obsidian Cardholders could earn

  • 4X dining or grocery (up to $25,000 on grocery)

  • 3X travel

  • 2X everyday spend

  • Palladium Cardholders could earn

  • 3X everyday spend

What makes this kinda insteresting is you can do it up to five times a year. Once you hit that $5,000 spend cap, the bonus turns off, but if you want to keep going, you just burn another $200 in Bilt Cash and flip it back on (up to the yearly limit). Since you’d earn that $200 in Bilt Cash after roughly $5,000 of everyday spend at the 4% rate, you can basically wash, rinse, repeat if you’re all-in on the Bilt system.

Honestly, this point accelerator feels a little distracting to me and not as valuable if you joined Bilt for what most of us originally loved it for earning points on rent or mortgage. I know the accelerator sounds flashy (“earn 1X more on everything”), but when you actually run the numbers, you might be better off using Bilt Cash to unlock points on housing instead.

Using Bilt Cash to earn points on rent or mortgage can actually stretch your value further. At the current rate, $30 in Bilt Cash unlocks 1 point per dollar on $1,000 of housing payments. So if your rent is $3,000, it would take $90 in Bilt Cash to earn 3,000 Bilt points. You can also use less Bilt Cash to earn points on just part of your payment.

When you compare the math, $200 in Bilt Cash could unlock points on up to about $6,600 in housing payments, versus using that same $200 (with the points accelerator activated) to get an extra 1X on only $5,000 of everyday spend through the accelerator, 5 times a year. From a pure numbers standpoint, the housing option could actually comes out ahead.

If you’re earning enough Bilt Cash and fully committed to the ecosystem, you could use it for both. But for most people, especially those who joined Bilt specifically to earn on rent or mortgage, the simpler and often more valuable play is still using Bilt Cash on housing first, not chasing bonus multipliers on everyday spend.

Our Current take, still.

Bilt tried to fix confusion by adding Options, but the system is still… a lot. Whether Bilt makes sense depends entirely on your rent/mortgage amount, monthly spending, and opportunity cost versus earning big sign-up bonuses elsewhere.

That’s why we have been updating the BILT 2.0 calculator , (still working on adding the POINTS ACCELERATOR FACTOR) to cut through the math and show you if this actually works for you.

If you want help deciding which option (or if Bilt makes sense at all), run your numbers first or DM me on IG. I’ll be following the BILT 2.0 updates as we move forward at Hawaii Reward Travel, but i’ll admit I'm bummed on how messy the rollout is.

Scott Kobayashi https://www.yumisocial.com