Should You Get a Bilt Card Now or Wait for Bilt 2.0?

Tl;dr: The Bilt Mastercard is one of the best cards currently on the market. But with the February launch of Bilt 2.0 meaning a change in issuer and in Bilt’s card offerings, there are risks to signing up now. 

The Bilt Mastercard is my favorite card and one of the best cards on the market. Because it has no annual fee and lets you earn points on rent without any transaction or processing fees, I have long recommended it, especially to folks in high-cost rental markets like where I live in the Bay Area. If you go to sign up now, though, you’ll see the following message:

“The current Bilt Mastercard offering will be replaced with a new lineup of cards in early 2026. Details on the new lineup of cards, including how existing customers can transition to a new card, will be announced in the coming months.”

Bilt has provided a general outline about what’s in store, but the details are sparse. With lots of points to be had with the current Bilt card but many blanks left to be filled in on Bilt 2.0, is now a good time to add the Bilt Mastercard to your wallet? 

Bilt 2.0 is Coming

In February 2026, it’s launching three new cards under Cardless, replacing Wells Fargo as the bank issuer behind Bilt’s loyalty ecosystem. We don’t yet know the exact features or how existing cardholders will be moved over—but Bilt did drop some hints in the spring. Possibilities include a souped-up version of the current card with a $99 fee and offsetting credits, a no-fee card earning 1.5x points on all purchases, and a premium card offering 1.25x on rent and mortgage payments. But it’s possible that none of the offerings will be nearly as great as the current version.

So if you’ve been on the fence about getting a Bilt card, the question is: should you apply now, or wait to see what the shiny new versions will look like?

Why get the Bilt Card now?

The Bilt card continues to be one of the easiest ways to generate free points, at least if you are a renter. Bilt 2.0 isn’t coming until February 2026, so that’s at least three more rent cycles to earn points on your rent with no transaction fees. In higher-cost markets like Boston or San Francisco, this can add up quickly. 

Bilt also offers double points on Rent Day, the first of each month. So that’s also 3-4 more Rent Days where you can earn up to 1,000 bonus points by earning 6x on dining, 4x on travel, and 2x on base purchases. 

Bilt also typically offers bonuses on Rent Day like elite status offers and transfer bonuses. Now, these won’t be valuable to most people who sign up for the Bilt card now. The status offers are either open to all members (in which case you don’t need the card) or to Bilt elites (which will take $10,000+ in spending, hard to do in a few months). But, by having the card and generating points now, you’ll have a stash of points to use by the time Bilt 2.0 comes around—and I have a suspicion that launch will be accompanied by some splashy offerings. 

Why wait?

Avoid the transition

Although Bilt promises a “seamless” issuer transition, a certain amount of hiccups is to be expected. The integration of HawaiianMiles into Alaska’s Atmos rewards was supposed to be smooth, and it was for me, but some people still ran into issues. The Bilt team runs a pretty tight ship, but things can always go sideways.

Avoid Wells Fargo

To apply now, you’ll have to have a hard pull on your credit and open an account with Wells Fargo… that will close shortly thereafter. You may also have to set up a Wells Fargo account. I think I’ve only logged into Wells Fargo once since getting my card (you can manage almost everything in the Bilt app), but the setup was a bit of a pain, and you may be doing it all over again with Cardless a few months later. You’ll probably also need to replace your physical card after just a few months. That could be more hassle than it’s worth.

Wait and see

Of course, if you sit on the sidelines, you can (a) wait to know what the full Bilt offerings are going to be in February, and (b) let others be the guinea pigs for those new cards and systems. You might not be earning points, but you can wait until the kinks are worked out, and make sure the value is still there with the new card lineup before committing. 

Welcome offers

This is the big one. There’s no hard evidence yet that Bilt 2.0 will come with sign-up bonuses—but if it does, there’s a chance existing cardholders won’t qualify. If skipping three months of rent points costs you 50,000+ bonus points, that’s a painful trade.

That said, I think it’s unlikely. Bilt has always viewed earning points on rent as the built-in bonus, and there’s no obvious reason that should change, at least for the no-fee card. And most issuers don’t exclude no-fee cardholders from bonuses on premium versions, so there’s a pretty good chance no-fee cardmembers could get a bonus on a premium card. Plus, Bilt has been building a reputation for consumer-friendliness, and penalizing new members by excluding them from bonus opportunities would be a bad look. 

Lazy Take 🦥

I think Bilt points are the best in the industry, and I’d want to have a stack of them ready to go when Bilt 2.0 launches. So if you’re currently spending a lot on rent, there’s a lot to be said for getting one of the best cards on the market while it’s still available and figuring out the rest later. 

But if you’re risk averse or lazy, you might just want to sit this one out. Let Bilt work out the details, and jump into the Bilt universe once all the new card details are available and you can fully assess the value proposition.

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