More Bad News for Bilt Mastercard
Recently we wrote about an upcoming change for Bilt Rent Day. Starting with the October 1 Rent Day, you will be limited to only 1,000 bonus points through the double points promotion.
But apparently that’s not the only change that is coming in October. While terms don’t show this change yet, it has been revealed in an interview with TPG (founder Brian Kelly is a Bilt adviser and investor) and first highlighted by Frequent Miler.
While talking about the upcoming changes, Richard Kerr, vice president of travel at Bilt Rewards, also shared that tax payment will be excluded from earning bonus points.
We discovered that bonus points on tax payments during promotions accounted for 20% of our bonus category costs, yet only 0.8% of cardmembers (or 0.12% of our total members) use the card for taxes. That’s why as part of the above Oct. 1 Rent Day update, tax payments will be excluded from bonus point promotions. This allows us to reinvest in benefits that all members can enjoy.
So if you make a tax payment on October 1 with your Bilt Mastercard, you will only receive 1X point instead of 2X. Earning only 1X on these payments doesn’t make sense since you’re losing money due to the credit card fee which is a minimum of 1.82%.
Kerr says that these payments account for 20% of the bonus category costs, while only 0.8% of cardmembers use the card for taxes. That makes sense as these payments are usually much larger than the average transaction.
It is nonetheless another devaluation for the card and the popular Rent Day promotion, which recently also removed the monthly quiz which would get you 250 free points.
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