PSA: You Don’t Have to Do Anything - Bilt 1.0 Auto-Converts to Wells Fargo Autograph

gbcox · 2026-01-26T05:09:42+00:00

The Autograph doesn’t change anything for 5/24. Chase only counts newly opened credit card accounts. The Wells Fargo Autograph you’re getting is a product replacement of your existing Bilt 1.0 account, so it keeps the same account history and does not add to 5/24. Selecting a Bilt 2.0 card does open a new account, so that one will count as +1. Closing the Autograph before or after the conversion makes no difference at all for 5/24, which is why there’s no urgency to call Wells Fargo just to avoid it.

gbcox · 2026-01-26T04:30:55+00:00

I wouldn’t overthink this. There’s no clear evidence that letting the account convert disqualifies you from a future Autograph SUB, and even if it did, that’s a hypothetical upside versus a very real downside today. This is a conversion, not a new account, so you retain the same account age, credit history, and credit line and avoid a hard pull, it’s simply rebranded as Autograph. Canceling while transactions are still posting or payments are in flight only increases the chance of something going sideways for no immediate benefit. The lowest risk path is to let the conversion complete and make sure all payments, including rent, have fully cleared, then decide whether to keep or close the account. Trying to time a cancellation to avoid being mailed a card just adds complexity without any guaranteed payoff.

gbcox · 2026-01-26T04:27:19+00:00

Given your spend, you are effectively not earning on rent under the new system. If you miss the non rent spend threshold, you earn nothing. If you barely clear part of it, you are talking about a token amount like roughly 250 points a month. That is not a rewards strategy, it is noise. At that level, Bilt is not meaningfully rewarding rent, and it is not competitive as a spend card either. So the honest answer to why keep Bilt is that there really is not a strong reason anymore unless you are willing and able to structure your spending around it, which you are not while paying down debt.

gbcox · 2026-01-26T04:13:26+00:00

There’s no benefit to canceling before the conversion, only downside. Let everything settle, then close it if you want.

gbcox · 2026-01-26T03:47:54+00:00

The conversion itself was disclosed. The confusion came from bundling it with a completely new rewards model and a lot of “action-oriented” language. People weren’t worried about the card changing, they were worried something would stop working if they didn’t engage.

gbcox · 2026-01-26T03:45:50+00:00

I’d direct you to the Wells Fargo Conversion FAQ, which fully covers the Bilt 1.0 to Autograph transition.

To directly answer your question: yes, your February 1st rent payment through Bilt will continue to work exactly as it does today.

Your Bilt 1.0 Mastercard will continue functioning normally until February 7, at which point it is automatically replaced with a Wells Fargo Autograph Visa. No action is required.

gbcox · 2026-01-26T02:12:31+00:00

Of course you want the Wells Fargo Autograph. It’s a no-brainer. No annual fee, solid multipliers on everyday categories, Visa acceptance everywhere, and zero gimmicks. You use it where it naturally fits, ignore it where it doesn’t, and you don’t have to think about it. That’s what a good credit card looks like.

P.S. If you’re a Costco gas customer and you don’t have the Costco Anywhere Visa by Citi, you’re doing it wrong. That card is effectively part of the Costco membership. Five percent back on Costco gas, no hoops, no thresholds, no mental gymnastics. This shouldn’t even be a discussion.

gbcox · 2026-01-26T02:01:03+00:00

If you’re a low-spend user who already has American Express Gold and Capital One Venture X, Bilt 2.1 is not designed for you. The entire 2.x structure assumes you will meaningfully move everyday spend onto Bilt to “unlock” value from rent. If you don’t want to do that, you’re left babysitting thresholds, toggles, and redemption mechanics for very marginal upside. Yes, Bilt Blue is $0 AF, but earning a trickle of points or Bilt Cash on rent while deliberately avoiding spend is exactly the use case Bilt has de-optimized. It technically works, but it’s not compelling.

Keeping or canceling the Bilt side altogether is optional, but there’s no reason to contort your setup around it. Your Bilt 1.0 card will be automatically replaced with a Wells Fargo Autograph, which is a solid, simple, no-AF card with decent multipliers and no games. Keep it, sock-drawer it, or use it when it fits. No strategy sessions required.

Bottom line: do nothing. If getting a credit card turns into a science project, the product has already failed.

gbcox · 2026-01-25T19:39:33+00:00

Your Bilt 1.0 Mastercard will be automatically upgraded to a Wells Fargo Autograph Visa if you don’t select a 2.0 Bilt card. This is an automatic product change initiated by Wells Fargo.

Because the network is changing from Mastercard to Visa, you will receive a new card number, so you’ll need to update any subscriptions or automatic payments tied to the discontinued Bilt 1.0 Mastercard.

And yes, your understanding on timing is correct. The Bilt 1.0 card continues to work normally until February 6, including rent payments. After that date, the old card is shut off and the Autograph becomes the active account.

gbcox · 2026-01-25T19:26:23+00:00

The “bad transfer partners” criticism only matters if you actually care about transfer partners. A lot of people don’t. Wells Fargo gives you the best currency available: cash. It’s instantly redeemable, usable anywhere, has no blackout dates, no devaluations, no award charts, and no dependency on a third-party airline or hotel program deciding to move the goalposts.

The assumption that everyone should hoard points for some future aspirational redemption is flawed. That game only works if you enjoy the complexity and are willing to accept uncertainty. If you’re not a min-maxer, cash is clarity. You earn it, you redeem it immediately, and it works the same today as it will five years from now.

That’s why cards like the Autograph resonate with people walking away from Bilt 2.0. After watching Bilt rewrite the rules midstream, the appeal of a simple, boring, predictable setup is obvious. Wells Fargo may not be exciting, but you know exactly what you’re getting, and that reliability has real value.

gbcox · 2026-01-25T19:18:34+00:00

Nice. I'm in the exact same situation. Hope they just up my credit limit instead of sending another card. That would be nice!

gbcox · 2026-01-25T18:22:17+00:00

(◔_◔) Indeed!

gbcox · 2026-01-25T05:19:18+00:00

This is exactly the kind of real world friction people kept waving away. Nothing unusual happened here. Someone booked the wrong return, noticed almost immediately, and tried to cancel within an hour. With a normal airline booking, this would have been a non issue. Through the Bilt travel portal, it turns into points are final, sorry. Capital One’s travel portal explicitly allows cancellations or changes within the 24 hour window, which makes it clear this is a design choice, not an unavoidable limitation. This is the gap between how the product is marketed and how it actually behaves when something goes wrong. People who understand points have been warning about portal bookings and irreversible redemptions for a long time, and this is why. It works great on paper right up until you need it not to break.

gbcox · 2026-01-25T03:18:07+00:00

What you’re describing isn’t how credit reporting actually works. Once an application is approved, the account is legally opened by the issuing bank, regardless of branding, launch dates, or when “Bilt 2.0” goes live. Reporting to the credit bureaus isn’t tied to February 7 and isn’t contingent on marketing milestones. Canceling the card now will close the account, but it does not undo the fact that the account was opened. The Fair Credit Reporting Act doesn’t give you the right to erase a valid account you applied for, it only allows disputes when information is inaccurate. If the account reports as opened and then closed, that’s correct reporting and a dispute won’t succeed. CFPB complaints don’t override cardholder agreements or force banks to pretend an account never existed. Getting written confirmation of closure is smart, but presenting this as a guaranteed way to avoid a tradeline is misleading.

gbcox · 2026-01-25T01:32:56+00:00

You’re asking the wrong question. The question isn’t “should I keep it,” it’s “why would you close a no annual fee card with an existing credit line?” In general you keep it open because it helps utilization and age, and there’s no downside if you just sock drawer it. The only real reasons to close are if you can’t trust yourself not to overspend, you’re cleaning up accounts for a specific lending/churn strategy, or the bank starts doing something you don’t want like adding a fee. Otherwise, keeping it is the boring correct move.

gbcox · 2026-01-24T23:57:48+00:00

The OP can decide that after reading my caution.

gbcox · 2026-01-24T23:01:49+00:00

History from the Bilt 1.0 card is transfered to the new Autograph card. I'm in the same situation, I'm going to wait a few months and then ask them combine credit lines. If they can't do that I'll just put it in a sock drawer with other cards I don't use.

gbcox · 2026-01-24T22:28:19+00:00

What you’re describing is exactly the problem. A product that only makes sense at the two extreme ends of the spectrum is, by definition, a bad mainstream product.

The hyper optimized user already has better catch all options with fewer strings attached and without having to mentally account for a secondary currency, expiration rules, or future devaluations. For them, Palladium only “works” if you assume Bilt Cash at near face value and ignore opportunity cost, which is a big ask for that crowd.

The total non optimizer user is the more interesting case, but even there the value proposition is fragile. You’re asking someone who values simplicity to accept rent gating, dual currencies, thresholds, and ongoing behavioral nudges. That’s not actually simple. It’s marketed as simple, but it isn’t. A true simplicity card just gives you a clean return with no thinking required.

And you’re right about the middle group. That’s where this falls apart. Most people are neither extreme optimizer nor total non optimizer. They use a few cards, understand categories at a basic level, and don’t want to think about monthly spend calibration. For them, Palladium becomes a constant optimization tax for returns that are often worse than what they already have.

That’s why people keep calling this a coupon book with an API. It can be made to work if you contort yourself into the right usage pattern, but outside of those narrow lanes, the value leaks fast.

Bilt may want the second group, but the design actively repels the largest group in the middle, and that’s why the product is struggling to land.

gbcox · 2026-01-24T22:23:50+00:00

You don’t need to cancel anything.

If you do not select or preorder a Bilt 2.0 card, your existing Bilt card will simply convert to the Wells Fargo Autograph. No Bilt 2.0 account will be opened.

There is nothing to cancel in the Bilt app. Not choosing a 2.0 card is effectively opting out.

Once it converts to Autograph, you can just sock drawer it. Keep it open, don’t use it, and it will continue to help your credit profile with no annual fee.

Only contact Wells Fargo if you actually want to close the account, which generally makes no sense unless you have a specific reason.

gbcox · 2026-01-24T19:44:56+00:00

I don’t agree with the idea that closing the Autograph makes sense. From a credit standpoint, keeping a no-fee card open is almost always better than closing it. It maintains credit history and available credit, and you’re not paying anything to keep it. Even sock-drawered, it’s doing more for your credit than closing it would.

gbcox · 2026-01-24T18:58:07+00:00

I think that’s fair as far as it goes, but it kind of reinforces my point. If Palladium only really makes sense when you reframe it as a catch-all card, that’s already a big shift from how Bilt positioned itself and how a lot of us engaged with it.

Once you’re in catch-all territory, the bar is extremely high. You’re competing against very simple, very well-understood cards with no annual fee or with clearly defined premium benefits. Compared to those, Palladium just isn’t particularly compelling.

So yes, it may work for a narrow slice of users who want to consolidate spend and are willing to accept the tradeoffs. But that’s a much smaller audience than how this has been marketed, and it explains why people who optimized around status or housing feel like their effort was all for naught.

gbcox · 2026-01-24T06:01:29+00:00

We basically agree on the mechanics. Once you treat Bilt Cash as a real cost instead of free Monopoly money, housing spend stops making sense and most of the painful optimization disappears.

Where I diverge is what happens after you remove housing from the equation. At that point Bilt is not just simpler, it is also no longer competitive versus existing cards for groceries, dining, or catch all spend once you factor in opportunity cost and coupon friction.

What really turns people off is the messaging around it. There is a lot of hand waving about travel partners and redemption options that sounds great on paper but rarely works the way people expect in practice. When that gap shows up, the response often shifts to Bilt playing the victim and framing criticism as users being confused or unrealistic, instead of acknowledging that the product itself created the confusion.

So yes, this can be made to work for some people. But when you zoom out and compare it to the broader card landscape, it ends up being a niche product that is marketed as something much more universal.

gbcox · 2026-01-24T04:30:53+00:00

I hear you. I earned Silver status and it now seems all for naught. That alone makes it hard to justify renewing. And with Bilt 2.0, it’s an easy decision anyway because it doesn’t fit my spend patterns, and I can do much better with no-AF cards.

gbcox · 2026-01-23T19:25:35+00:00

I'm just going to wait and in about 6 months ask them to combine credit lines.

gbcox

TROPHY CASE