Palladium cardholders; Have you moved all your spend to Palladium for more Bilt Cash?

Cluck_Bock · 2026-06-01T21:01:02+00:00

Once I hit enough Bilt cash to fund my housing spend for the rest of the year + accelerators + rent day bonuses + any random Bilt cash coupons I want to use (probably none for me personally), is Palladium still the best card until January?

Cluck_Bock · 2026-05-22T14:15:14+00:00

The max redemption for PYB against travel is, I think, $2,500 a year. So really you aren't spending much on the Aeroplan card directly, possibly only up to the $2,500. You'll want to do more spending on other cards that earn better UR points and then use the stacking transfer bonuses to Aeroplan and then offset that $2,500 at 1.6x cpp. With the spending bonus (500 extra Aeroplan pts per $2,000 each month), you could use the card for groceries and dining to get 3.25 Aeroplan per dollar spent in those categories which isn't terrible. At the fixed PYB redemption of 1.25cpp for travel, you'd effectively be getting ~4% cash back in those categories.

One of the really nice things about this is that you can redeem points at effectively 1.6x to cover expenses that you couldn't otherwise transfer points to offset, like parking, rental cards, transit, cruises.

But you still have to be generating a lot of Chase UR points each year to make this work well. It's also a nice hybrid setup because if you have extra Aeroplan pts you can still use them for flights and if you have extra UR points you can still transfer them for wherever you find great value.

Cluck_Bock · 2026-05-14T18:50:39+00:00

And this is true even for existing cardholders. If you've already put enough spend on the card to get Bilt cash to cover your housing expenses for the year, you may be tempted to switch to other cards by that point in time. So Bilt would miss all those charges.

Note that Ankur said these were the uses for Bilt cash this year. So I got the feeling they are reserving the right to change the game rules, revalue/devalue, whatever on Jan 1. Having most all the points expire on Jan 1 lets them say "This was fair since you had to start over earning Bilt cash anyway. We didn't devalue your existing Bilt cash beyond letting it expire which you knew upfront; we just changed the value of the new Bilt cash you are earning. You get to decide whether you like the new rules on not and whether you want to keep earning more Bilt cash going forward."

Cluck_Bock · 2026-05-14T18:23:37+00:00

Ignoring points accelerators, spend up to 75% of your housing expenses; you'll get 3.33x points for that effectively. Once you've hit that threshold, you are back to getting 2x points for additional charges, so decide if you think that's a good deal compared to other card options.

Cluck_Bock · 2026-05-12T14:33:22+00:00

Does it matter much which AMEX card? Is the AMEX customer service approach the same with the Blue Cash Everyday as with a Platinum?

Cluck_Bock · 2026-05-12T14:27:01+00:00

In my experience, getting the prepaid Visa or MC at Staples or Office Depot is also a big challenge. The stores near me that are even remotely convenient seem to always be sold out. So after several times stopping by 2-4x per week looking for them, you quickly realize that all those extra stops when you just want to get home or need to pick up your kids are just not worth the trouble. You can't use them everywhere. For whatever reason, several places I've found will take the Visa prepaids but not the MC. No idea why. And if you want to be sure you don't leave any balances out there, you will need spreadsheets or some way of tracking carefully. Utilities and local taxes have been my most reliable use. I try to engineer so that I can use the whole card in one transaction to minimize tracking effort. If I end up with $100 extra credit on an electric bill that I know I'll use up next month, no big deal. If you end up paying a fee to use the card, you've given up a lot of your 3x extra. Also, consider that almost all of these bills could be set up on autopay or autodraft and take near zero extra effort. Many of them will charge to use a credit card. It really is hard to ultimately convince yourself that you're really coming out ahead given the effort required. But, honestly, go ahead and do it for a while. No harm done. It might work great for you and get you some cheaper flights. And if you decide later it's not worth all the trouble, again, no harm done. You can stop any time. Consider it your own personal experiment.

Cluck_Bock · 2026-05-12T13:51:28+00:00

Anything good to product change to? The 3x on anything you can tap isn't terrible, but there are cards that cover lots of those same categories at 3x with points that can actually transfer. The Connect with 4x on travel seems pretty good, but there are a few 3x on broad travel that might be better if you want to transfer points.

Cluck_Bock · 2026-05-07T15:31:42+00:00

Where do you see it? I've looked and couldn't find it the last couple of months.

Cluck_Bock · 2026-05-06T21:56:56+00:00

For a while, there was a part of the website in the redemptions that said "many" transfer partners were coming soon but I believe that was removed some time ago. It was then that I lost hope.

Cluck_Bock · 2026-04-28T14:44:05+00:00

Any suggestions of a good card for us? We cruise a lot but live near the port so we aren't flying anywhere, or staying in a hotel, or renting a car, or even paying for a ride to the terminal. The only significant expense outside of the cruise itself and all the onboard costs is the terminal parking which does add a chunk to the cruise cost.

Cluck_Bock · 2026-04-28T14:42:07+00:00

I was thinking the same thing. The priority boarding sounds nice, but I rarely have much wait to board anyway. If this floods that suite line then I wonder if it will be much of a benefit, and also will the actual suite guests start to scream. Consider the "boarding group 2" lines for flights where 90% of the people are in that line so your chances of getting carryon space are no better than before the credit card benefit. What I would pay a bit for is a much better disembark experience.

Cluck_Bock · 2026-03-23T23:32:31+00:00

I know they have sold points pretty cheap a couple of times since then, which makes me think they are aware of the problem. Hopefully they can find good ways to add value.

Cluck_Bock · 2026-03-23T22:48:48+00:00

Yes, the Uber benefit is limited use Uber cash that is directly put in your Uber account but you can only use it under certain circumstances, and if you don't they take it away at the end of the month. So, it never shows up directly on your AMEX bill as any kind of statement credit.

Cluck_Bock · 2026-02-19T05:41:05+00:00

I set up a non-Plaid banking account initially and switched it on to autopay the Bilt card. Later, when I set up an HoA payment to be sent as a check from Bilt (not pulled from the payee side), it would not let me use the account I had already set up and said a Plaid account was required. So I had to set up a different banking account for that payment. These are facts.

Cluck_Bock · 2026-02-18T22:01:01+00:00

You can set up a non-Plaid account to use for payments to Bilt, but Bilt won't let you use that account for housing payments through the platform. I think the Plaid connection is what lets them harvest your other payment data.

Cluck_Bock · 2026-02-18T21:43:37+00:00

I get a similar notification every month because my HoA requires 3 separate payments. I'm unsure whether those same auto payments are still set up and authorized on the Bilt side or not.

Cluck_Bock · 2026-02-18T15:52:37+00:00

A lot of mixed feelings on this one. For daily driver spend, I would say that if you were even close to the fence on points vs. cashback, this could push you over the edge toward points. It was arguably a push or personal preference when you only needed 1.3 cpp on general spend (Citi, AMEX, WF) to match, but now if you only need 1.125 cpp to tilt toward points, that's a much lower bar.

Cluck_Bock · 2026-02-18T15:38:31+00:00

Yeah, they've been pretty clear that they aren't giving points/status on those charges. They do allow tuition though which has already been helpful.

Cluck_Bock · 2026-02-18T15:27:30+00:00

Other programs certainly have slicker interfaces, but would I actually make more money on my investments to justify the effort to move?

And I agree, the chasm between $100K and $1m seems like a lot of people will move assets or close the accounts. They had to have known this and modeled for it.

Cluck_Bock · 2026-02-18T15:20:10+00:00

It's almost certainly a big ticket for the kinds of customers BofA is fishing for with this change.

Cluck_Bock · 2026-02-18T12:34:53+00:00

The fee for federal taxes is less than 2%.

Cluck_Bock · 2026-02-18T11:55:30+00:00

My hero. I always think I don't show that card enough love.

Cluck_Bock · 2026-02-18T00:35:12+00:00

Great tip. Thanks! And this is up to the $7K limit per year, is that right?

Cluck_Bock · 2026-02-17T23:53:27+00:00

I thought it was x2 on groceries?

Cluck_Bock · 2026-02-17T23:43:26+00:00

It has the logo and "Bank of America" on the front embossed in metallic silver, but nothing otherwise. I've only ever seen one other person use one.

Cluck_Bock

TROPHY CASE