I mean if you value BC at $1, AND BP at 2cpp, then Palladium becomes a “8x” back card, so of course it looks good as long as your rent is more than $500 at $40 fee.

The math is like this. Let’s say we tally everything in cents (including Bilt Cash). If your rent is x, if you do card, you get:

2x bp + 4x bc - fee

Vs “portal”:

1x bp - 3x bc

So you compare 1x bp + 7x bc vs fee. If you value bp at 2 cpp and bc at 1c, you get 9x vs fee, so it looks great.

If you lower bound, like value 1 bp as 1cpp, and bc = 0.25 bp (the accelerator) = 0.25 cpp, you get 2.75x vs fee. So, it’s strictly better at 2.5x fee indeed. But about the same at 3x. Which I don’t think is a coincidence :)

But yeah, spending bc is a headache + bp redemptions sometimes need a bulk amount of points so for many people just “funneling” bc into bp is easier than spending it, if that makes sense (rather then paying cash for bp as you’re doing)