When picking out which credit card to sign up for next, you can take different paths. You can pick a card that fills a hole in your portfolio. Maybe you want a card that gives a good return on grocery store spending or provides primary rental car coverage.
You might also be looking for a card that can earn the points you’re looking for, like if you’re trying to build your World of Hyatt point balance.
There also can be times when you’re taking advantage of a limited-time offer. I’ve often found myself signing up for a card I wasn’t planning on, just because of a fantastic offer. I don’t care if I wasn’t looking for these points; I’ll figure out what to do with them later.
Of course, you can get burned with that strategy, like when I earned a bunch of British Airways Avios, and it took me YEARS to use them.
This time, I’m not really following any of those paths. I’m signing up for a card that earns valuable transferable points, has decent earning categories and has no annual fee.
When I wrote about the best no-annual-fee cards for people getting started with points, I took a bold step and said that the Bilt Mastercard was the number one pick.
The card is a solid choice, but I haven’t signed up for it. I have so many other cards that earn more points in the same categories, it wasn’t worth applying for a card that would only find minimal use in my wallet.
However, I did sign up for a free Bilt account to check out the app and the content. I even earned 500 Bilt points by linking my World of Hyatt account. Those points are of limited use because you need at least 2,000 points for a transfer. Nothing lost though, because Bilt points don’t expire.
I stay interested in the Bilt card because they keep making positive changes. They have a great list of transfer partners and just announced their own travel portal where points are worth 1.25 cents each. I hadn’t used the app in a while but wanted to see what the travel portal looked like.
Call it a coincidence, but I received an email alert moments after I opened the app on my phone. (Note from Sharon: Dude, that was SO NOT a coincidence)
The Bilt Mastercard still doesn’t have a public sign-up bonus offer. I don’t mind because it’s a no-annual-fee card and sign-up bonuses for those are few and far between. That’s why getting a limited-time bonus offer for the card was a big deal. I did some searching and found on Reddit that this offer was sent to others who had Bilt accounts but had not signed up for the Bilt Mastercard.
Earning 10,000 points that can transfer to a loyalty program for spending $1,000 is a great deal. That’s like earning 10X Hyatt or American Airlines points per dollar. I’d be crazy to pass that up.
So Bilt Mastercard, you got me for the small price of 10,000 points. Keep making positive changes and I might even shift some spending to the card. 🙂
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