The Bilt Obsidian Card

Now that I’ve introduced the new Bilt ecosystem, it’s time to go through the new cards on offer. The new no annual fee card I covered in the initial post, but they have introduced two additional cards at the $95 and $495 price points, which are intended to compete in the mid-tier and the premium credit card space.

While it’s unfortunate that the better cards carry an annual fee, it makes sense for Bilt to segment its customers, and they need to make the cards profitable long term. So, let’s see what you get for an additional $95 over the free card.

This blog is for entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.  I provide the information here just to give readers a vague idea if the rewards offered by the card might make sense for them to consider the card.  The information on this page has been collected independently, and all information should be confirmed with the card company before applying.

Welcome Offer

The Bilt Obsidian Card does not have a traditional welcome offer as far as I can tell now that the initial transfer period has ended, but it looks like some preferred partners offer a $200 Bilt Cash bonus. That’s pretty weak. Maybe it still has the unofficial 5x points/$ for the first 5 days, but I don’t think that’s guaranteed.

Earnings

The Bilt Obsidian card has a standard 3/2/1 earning structure.  It’s similar to the structure of the $95 Chase Sapphire Preferred in that it earns 3x points/$ on dining (or groceries but not both), 2x points/$ on travel, and 1x point/$ on everything else.  This is the same as the old Bilt Card, except that you get to select 3x points on dining or groceries (but groceries are capped at $25 000/year).

Benefits

The main benefit of this card is the ability to earn Bilt Cash that can be used to earn points from paying rent on the card. All the new Bilt cards earn 4% Bilt Cash per dollar and have the same complex redemption structure.

Ok, so what do you get for the extra $95/year beyond some bonus categories? Well, what you get is a $100 Bilt Travel Portal hotel credit ($50 biannually per calendar year), which sounds extremely annoying to try to use and truly not worth it.

How to use the points

Bilt lets you redeem your points as a statement credit but only gives you a value of 0.55 ¢/point, which is not great.  You can also redeem the points for travel at a rate of 1 ¢/point, which is better.  The best use of these points, however, in my opinion is to transfer them to partners.  And Bilt has some decent transfer partners.  Specifically, Bilt partners with United Airlines (like Chase), British Airways (like every card honestly), Alaska Airlines (Atmos Rewards), and World of Hyatt (which has been considered to be one of the most valuable reward currencies, but that may be changing).  In my case, I will probably transfer them to American Airlines on demand to top up my balance.  I could also transfer them to British Airways, but I already can do that from Chase and from American Express.

Examples of using the card

These examples assume you spend all your airfare budget directly with the airline and that your general travel expenses are all local transit. This example uses the dining 3x instead of groceries 3x option because I want to highlight how the earnings are identical to the old no annual fee card.

Spend per month

	Example A		Example B		Example C		Example D
Groceries (1x)	$300	300	$200	200	$600	600	$400	400
Gas (1x)	$0	0	$100	100	$200	200	$100	100
Airfare (2x)	$700	1 400	$200	400	$0	0	$400	800
Hotels (2x)	$1 000	2 000	$200	400	$0	0	$300	600
Gen Travel (2x)	$400	800	$0	0	$300	600	$100	200
Dining (3x)	$600	1 800	$300	900	$300	900	$0	0
General (1x)	$1 000	1 000	$500	500	$500	500	$400	400
Total	$4 000	7 300	$1 500	2 500	$1 700	2 800	$1 700	2 500
Average points/$		1.83		1.67		1.65		1.47
Rent points	$3 000	3 000	$1 800	1 800	$0	0	$1 500	1 500
Total		10 300		4 300		2 800		4 000

The three-tiered earning structure in common spend categories mean that the points earning is strong but also a bit broad with a range of 1.47 – 1.83 points/$, which is worth 2.21 – 2.74 ¢/$.  That’s a perfectly reasonable return for a $95 annual fee card.  When you add in the bonus points off rent (assuming you pay rent of course), then the points/month are often boosted by 40%+, which is awesome.

Specific examples

I will note that this is the first credit card post to reflect the fact that BA now awards Avios based on flight price.  

Card (% return)	British Airways (World Traveller) ($750)	Marriott Hotel night ($230/night)	Points values (BA/Hotel)
No rewards card	3 000 Avios (5.2%)	2 200 MP (7.7%)	$39.00 / $17.60
General 2% cashback card ($0)	3 000 + $15.00 (7.2%)	2 200 MP + $4.60 (9.7%)	$54.00 / $22.20
Chase Sapphire Preferred ($95)	3 000 + 1 500 UR (8.2%)	2 200 MP + 460 UR (10.7%)	$61.50 / $24.50
Amex Green Card ($150)	3 000 + 2 250 MR (9.4%)	2 200 MP + 690 MR (11.9%)	$72.75 / $27.26
Bilt Card ($95)	3000 + 1 500 BP (8.2%)	2 200 MP + 460 BP (10.7%)	$61.50 / $24.50

Is this credit card right for you?

Eh. I hate travel portal hotel credits. They’re a dime a dozen at this point, and this card’s offer is one of the weakest. 2x on travel and 3x on groceries is potentially interesting, but not at a $95 price point without other perks beyond Bilt Cash (which you can already get on the free card). I’ll grant you that it’s pretty competitive with the Chase Sapphire Preferred, and I think that’s what they were going for. In a lot of ways, it feels like Bilt is just asking you to pay $95 for the same perks that used to be free, which is mildly annoying, but the free ride clearly couldn’t last.