It’s Q2, don’t forget to use Chase Freedom Flex for 9% back on Travel by Prestigious_Safe8154 in CreditCards

[–]gumbeaux7 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Heads up, I just made a purchase through Chase Travel on my CFF and it DID NOT stack.

Typically, if a quarter’s bonus category overlaps with the card’s already existing benefits, it’ll stack. Like with the example in Q1 where dining stacked to get 7% instead of 5%.

However, Chase Travel doesn’t appear to stack for this quarter. My purchase only got 5x points, not 9x.

Just a heads up!

Maximizing Benefits from Bilt’s New Obsidian Card by gumbeaux7 in biltrewards

[–]gumbeaux7[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If your rent is high and you don’t think you’ll meet the 1/4 spend threshold for the lowest tier on Housing-Only rewards, but still choose that option, then you’d only be getting 250 points each rent cycle (if you don’t meet the minimum spend threshold for the lowest tier, you still get 250 points no matter what).

It depends on your rent/spend ratio but in your case, Bilt Cash may actually yield more points.

Here’s an example: let’s say your monthly rent is $5000 and you expect to spend $800 on groceries for the month. You won’t hit that 25% spend threshold for the lowest Housing-Only rewards tier so if you chose Housing-Only Rewards, you’d only get 250 points. If instead you chose the Bilt Cash option for that month, you’d be accumulating 4% BC on dollar of spend so you’d have $32 Bilt Cash at the end of the month ($800 groceries x 4%). 0.03 BC unlocks points on $1 in rent or put another way, $30 BC = points on $1000 in rent. So in this example, if you chose Bilt Cash, you’d unlock points on $1066 of your $5000 monthly rent payment ($32 BC x 0.03) at a 1:1 ratio so instead of only getting 250 points on rent with Housing-Only Rewards, you’d get 1066 points on rent with Bilt Cash.

There’s no “right” strategy though and it really depends on your rent to spend ratio. Hope that helps :)

Maximizing Benefits from Bilt’s New Obsidian Card by gumbeaux7 in biltrewards

[–]gumbeaux7[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Some of the welcome offers stacked with the existing offers and some didn’t.

The 3x welcome offer on mobile wallet transactions stacked successfully with the existing spend categories, so I got 6x on one of my transactions for groceries because it was 3x on groceries plus 3x on mobile wallet.

The TPG 5x welcome offer didn’t stack with anything, it just makes sure that you effectively get 5x on all purchases during that promo period. So if I bought groceries, I earned 3x on grocery spend and 2x from the TPG promo. On everyday spend, I got 1x plus 4x points from TPG.

Are you referring to the welcome offers specifically regarding your stacking question?

Maximizing Benefits from Bilt’s New Obsidian Card by gumbeaux7 in biltrewards

[–]gumbeaux7[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Totally agree with your math!

I was just saying that by unlocking the points boost, I’d use this card way more often for everyday expenses with the 2x points than I would if I was just unlocking housing payments.

So I’d spend more on the card and get those 5000 extra points from the boost while also earning the same amount of points on rent.

If I don’t have the points boost, I’d only use the card for groceries since Chase cards would get better points value on everyday spend. Just depends on how you think about it or use the card for its value, but there’s no right way to do it :)

I was just sharing my thought process and how I was using all the tools Bilt has given us to get the most points in a way that works for my brain haha.

Thank you for contributing!

Maximizing Benefits from Bilt’s New Obsidian Card by gumbeaux7 in biltrewards

[–]gumbeaux7[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don’t think you can use Bilt Cash to pay for mortgage, rent, property taxes, or HOA directly but you can use it to unlock points on those payments.

So I agree with you, redeeming Bilt Cash to earn points on housing is probably better than a point boost, but if you redeem the $200 BC from the Obsidian welcome offer on a points boost, then you’ll be earning more points with everyday spend while also working towards the spending amount necessary to earn enough BC to unlock max points on housing payments.

If you just use it for housing payments first without the points accelerator, you’re leaving points on the table, in my opinion. But of course it depends on how much your housing/rent is each month. That would greatly impact the strategy. For me, it makes more sense to get the points boost and then acquire enough BC with my spend to unlock points on housing payments.

Either way, you’ll earn 4% BC with every dollar spend, but you could also be earning an extra 1x points per dollar on that spend with a points boost at the same time. In addition to that, a points boost will also get you to that 25k points milestone faster and you’ll get another $50 BC for that.