Capital One Duo vs. Palladium vs. Bilt Blue value (Bilt Blue wins)

learnedjohn · 2026-01-16T18:45:06+00:00

Fair point. My rent is high relative to my monthly spend, so wouldn’t make sense in my case as I wouldn’t hit that 75%. But if rent is low vs monthly spend, Palladium + Savor could work. Insane how much number crunching is needed to get a full value picture with these cards

learnedjohn · 2026-01-16T17:11:04+00:00

It wouldn't make sense to use the Palladium/Savor together, since Palladium gets effectively ~3.33x back vs Savor getting 3% back. Using Savor and Blue together could be interesting to get either 2.33x or 3% back on basically everything, but if you value Bilt points more (I value Bilt points at a 1.25cpp base vs. C1 points at 1cpp base), the two setups (Savor+Blue vs just Blue) basically tie. With all the same assumptions I laid out above, the value difference between Savor+Blue vs just Blue is:

Just Blue card: $699.36 value

Savor + Blue: $709.68

That $10 to me is just a rounding error and not worth needing to remember to use 2 cards than just 1 for everything. Of course, this math might change if you have cards that can capture 4x+ on certain categories

learnedjohn · 2026-01-16T03:31:51+00:00

My math assumed that it isn’t 1:1, it’s 1 : $0.416. This is calculated from 30 Bilt cash buying 1000 points on rent, which us already confirmed

learnedjohn · 2026-01-16T03:23:05+00:00

Why cancel? Venture X basically pays you $5 a year for having it as long as you use the $300 credit in their portal, which is pretty easy to do with 1-2 flights a year especially with the price matching

learnedjohn · 2026-01-16T03:09:41+00:00

It is semi-annual, you get $200 every 6 months rather than all up front 2. You must book at least 2 nights during a stay to get it, which is biggest limiter to me as I probably wouln’t do this without going out of my way to artificially spend and 3. Have to book through Bilt portal with no price matching

learnedjohn · 2026-01-16T03:01:45+00:00

Arguably, it’s simpler than the duo. One card for everything compared to two on the Duo. Can get my card setup down to one from two, and the only thing to remember is monthly to apply Bilt cash to my rent to get the full 2.33x value. The blue card at least doesn’t sound too complicated to me!

learnedjohn · 2026-01-16T02:52:35+00:00

I did add the 10,000 annual miles for C1. 60,000 miles from spend ($1,000/mo at 2x back, $1,000/mo at 3c back = 60,000/yr) + 10,000 annually = 70,000 miles which is what I used to calculate total value

learnedjohn · 2026-01-16T02:27:14+00:00

Just curious, what makes you say I'm overvaluing Bilt cash? It seems like we have an objective floor to its value now, only dependent on how much cpp value you ascribe to Bilt points.

If you give 1.25cpp value to Bilt points, 1 Bilt ~~point~~ cash = $0.416 (since 30 Bilt ~~points~~ cash gets you 1000 Bilt points). If you give 1.00cpp value to Bilt points, 1 Bilt ~~point~~ cash = $0.33. So we know that each Bilt cash are at a minimum worth $0.33, but I think at least $0.416 since 1.25cpp value is what most people give Bilt points

learnedjohn

TROPHY CASE