How I Set Up My Bilt Palladium, Lazily
This is the February 8, 2026 edition of the LazyPoints Weekly newsletter. It goes out by email every Sunday at 8:00 a.m. Pacific–unless I oversleep–and is archived here on the blog. Want it straight to your inbox each week? Sign up here.
Bilt 2.0 cards went live yesterday, and judging from the number of questions I fielded just from my household, the complexity of this new system can potentially be a little overwhelming. But it doesn’t have to be.
I’m going to let someone else write the definitive guide to navigating all the different redemption options and maximizing your Bilt experience. If you want to just keep it simple like I did, read on:
Using the Point Accelerator
I simply chose to earn ~3x points on most everyday purchases by using Bilt’s Point Accelerator, available to holders of Bilt’s premium cards, the Palladium and Obsidian.
It lets you redeem $200 in Bilt Cash to earn +1 bonus point per dollar on your next $5,000 in spending. That $5,000 spend generates another $200 in Bilt Cash, and you can repeat this up to four times—meaning you can earn roughly triple points on up to $25,000 in spending. Both Bilt premium cards come with $200+ in Bilt cash to start, so you can activate this right away.
Setup was mostly painless, though a little glitchy at first. I couldn’t activate the accelerator in the app initially (an update fixed this), so I had to log in on the website, but the basic path is the same for both:
Wallet → Bilt Cash → Bonus Points → Point Accelerator.
There’s a spending tracker, but I’m not sure whether Bilt will notify me when each $5,000 in bonus spend is used up. If not, that might lead to gaps between activations, but I expect I can keep a close enough eye on it that it won’t materially affect my earning.
Earning housing rewards
Although the point accelerator is only available to Obsidian and Palladium cardholders, all three Bilt cards offer points on housing.
Housing payments now come from a linked bank account, not your credit line. You’ll connect your account in the Wallet section and then set up BillPay (ACH or check, depending on the payment).
If you redeem Bilt Cash for points on housing, you can earn up to ~1.3x points per dollar, with the best return when your card spending is no more than ~75% of your housing payments. Beyond that, your effective point-earning per dollar of card spending declines—but you’ll have excess Bilt Cash you can use elsewhere.
You can also opt into housing-only rewards instead of earning Bilt Cash. If you spend at least 25% of your housing amount on the card, you’ll earn 0.5–1.25x on housing. There are scenarios where this makes sense, but in most cases the Bilt Cash route is more favorable. (You can also switch back and forth each month—the option can be found by clicking “Manage” on your card in your Bilt Wallet.)
Why a second card helps
This is counterintuitive, but important. One odd quirk of Bilt 2.0: sometimes it’s more rewarding not to put all your spending on a Bilt card.
The Point Accelerator caps out at $25,000.
You generally earn the most Bilt points per dollar of spending when spending on the card is less than ~75% of housing costs.
A second card makes it easier to stay in those sweet spots. I’ll be putting dining and foreign purchases on my Atmos Summit, but other cards like the Sapphire or Amex Gold can fill that role just as well.
Lazy Take 🦥
There are dozens of ways to optimize Bilt 2.0—but you don’t need most of them.
A quick Point Accelerator setup gets you an extra Bilt point per dollar with almost no effort, and that’s one of the best value-for-effort deals in points right now.
This week on the blog 📝
I wrote an intro to LazyPoints for newcomers, and updated the homepage to (hopefully) make it a bit more navigable. ⛵
Quick Points of the Week ⚡
Special offers ✨
Get free Frontier Miles. Up to 5,000, while supplies last. That might be enough for a one-way short-haul, but they do expire after 12 months without qualifying activity. (FrequentMiler)
Rove swipes at Bilt, offers miles. Their “Built Better” promotion (get it?) offers extra points on loyalty-eligible bookings, gift cards, or even mentioning them on instagram. There’s also a referral bonus. Not a member? Sign up with our referral link for 1,000 Rove miles instantly. (We’ll get miles, too. FYI, the usual offer is 500, but we’ve seen as high as 1,500.)
New products/features 🆕
Disney has a new credit card. I won’t be reviewing this, but Disney enthusiasts might want to give it a look. (Daily Drop)
More value 📈
Get the prepaid hotel rate without prepaying… kind of. HotelSlash now offers prepaid hotel rates with only a $25 deposit, so you don’t have to pay the whole sum up front. (View from the Wing)
Mark your calendar 📅
Barclays’ AA cards converting to Citi on April 24. I canceled my AA Aviator this week; I don’t want to risk missing out on a welcome offer on a Citi AA card. (AwardWallet)
Recommended 👍
Check your 5/24 status. Chase’s 5/24 rule can stand between you and a great sign-up offer, but it can be hard to know if it applies to you. AwardWallet has guidance.
Sign up bonus of the week 🎯
Links marked with an * are affiliate or referral links, meaning we may earn if you apply via our link.
Things have calmed down after last week’s explosion of offers.
This week, the JetBlue Plus card is offering 70,000 TrueBlue points after spending just $1,000 and paying the $99 annual fee in the first 90 days. Like most airline cards at this price point, it has solid perks when flying JetBlue, but its value may be limited if you’re not flying the airline somewhat regularly (something that can be harder to do with JetBlue compared to its bigger competitors). That said, TrueBlue points can be quite useful. From my home in San Francisco, I can easily book a round-trip to Paris for about 48,000 points and under $150 in cash costs. If you need a top-off, JetBlue points can be transferred from Citi and Chase at a 1:1 ratio. JetBlue has an easy-to-use search function, so it might be worth checking out where the points could take you from where you live. 🔥
Other great sign-up bonuses this week
50,000 points + $300 Bilt Cash + Bilt Gold status on the Bilt Palladium (our take: 🔥🔥🔥🔥)
100,000 points + 25k-pt companion discount on the Atmos Summit (our take: 🔥🔥🔥🔥)
70-125k points on Delta co-branded cards (our take: 🔥🔥🔥 for the Gold)
175k points in the IHG Premier (our take: 🔥🔥🔥)
125k points on the Chase Sapphire Reserve* (our take: 🔥🔥🔥)
80k miles on the Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select (our take: 🔥🔥)
5 free nights + airline credits on the Marriott Boundless (our take: 🔥🔥)
75k points on the Chase Sapphire Preferred* (our take: 🔥)
75k points + $250 travel credit on the Capital One Venture Rewards (our take: 🔥)
60k points on the no-fee Choice Privileges Mastercard (our take: 🔥)
Up to 100/175k on the Amex Gold/Platinum (our take)
Enjoy the weekend! 🦥
Post-Bilt 2.0 content next week, I promise 🤞