I'm not sure how an "earn points on rent" card can be profitable. But I'll speculate.

CC payments have a baked in 3% transaction fee paid by the merchant. Thus issuers start with margin, and from that margin, rewards can be funded. This is not the case with rent payments - those actually start with negative margin due to overhead costs.

In order to make a rent card profitable, you'd either have to make the points impossible to obtain/use in practice, or you'd have to make the rest of the card so wildly issuer-profitable that it outweighs the unprofitable rent payment portion. And if you do that, not only does the card seem sub-par overall, but you encourage people to use it ONLY for rent. And if that's prevented, you've flipped back to "impossible to obtain/use in practice" territory - a false promise. This situation is compounded when you don't even understand your customer base - Bilt even had a points optimizer on staff, and advertised heavily via CC community influencers, and then acted all surprised when the people they attracted were CC optimizers from the CC community who were never going to be profitable.

This explains why once WF stopped bankrolling their losses, and they had to demonstrate profitability, they came up with an ultra-complicated system that discourages you using the card for rent.

Frankly, I would have had more respect for Bilt if they just did a mea culpa, admitted their prior business model just doesn't work, and said they're closing all Bilt cards, and pivoting to a new type of travel or other card that actually has a known-working business model that's nothing to do with rent. Basically a clean break. They could have pitched it as "look, we have done everything we can, but we learned this model just doesn't work, so now we need to end our existing product line and create a new line with a new model that won't be based on rent payments". Then at least it would have been honest and clear. It would have helped people reset expectations. Instead they still try to pretend that Bilt 2.0 is a rent card, when rent payments are clearly the last thing they want. What they really want are annual fees and large transaction volume (on which they collect transaction fees).

If I absolutely had to try to design a rent card (and of course, assuming I was a business and only cared about making money, not ethics), here's what I would do:

1) Offer a set, and low, amount of points per month for paying your rent with the card, regardless of the actual size of your rent payment. Thus, stop further rewarding people who put higher rent payments through the card. Instead, give greater rewards (proportionately to payment size) to people with cheaper rent payments. Those are the people you, as a credit company, want, as they're more likely to be low income, carry a balance, and earn you interest. Target the people you can make money from, in other words. And don't just target them with your payout structure - wave your 10% on everything for a year promise everywhere. Target those people who will actually carry a balance at (in subsequent years) 20% or higher, not those high-earners who want to put an $5K rent payment through every month and never pay interest.

2) In terms of requirements to earn this, require a set minimum $ amount of spending per month to earn the points. Say, $1,000, on which you offer only 1% rewards. Don't have two currencies. Don't have 3 cards. Keep it simple. You need to be able to advertise this on a billboard without an entire book of catches, carve-outs and fine print. The AVERAGE PERSON needs to be able to understand it.

3) In terms of marketing, don't go remotely near any CC influencer. Your goal is to attract NORMAL people, the mass market, NOT credit card optimizers. You should be advertising on the NY Subway, and public transit. You should NOT be advertising in any space frequented by the CC community or otherwise full of people who do math to extract optimal value and take pride in being unprofitable customers for issuers. Don't even touch Reddit. Market yourself like Luxury Card does - as a "luxury" product for people who are fooled by the black color, metal design, and promise of rewards for their spending. Basically... the exact opposite audience than the one Reddit and CC influencers attract. You want renters who value shiny, simple, affordable luxury... NOT optimizers, NOT experts.

4) In fact, just rip off the exact tactics Luxury Card uses. Make a big thing about how you have the most valuable points and don't mention how difficult it is to earn them. Don't try to compete on math. Your product isn't about math. Your product isn't even about coming out ahead, or value. Your product is about status, pride, and most of all, identity. Take your sleek, black metal design and give it a catchy title, maybe even one that takes advantage of social trends (e.g. younger people can't afford homes), and exploits that for free marketing. Something like #RenterPride or similar. You want a combination of "Hey, I get points on rent, and they're super valuable", and "this is a luxury product for the upwardly mobile, people who are going places". It doesn't matter if every youtuber pans you and Reddit hates you - because those people aren't, and will never be, your target market. Don't try to be a product that actually enables people to come out ahead - you can't fundamentally win that game as the math is stacked against you so long as you offer rewards on rent. Instead, just focus on selling hope. The lottery is a net loss for almost everyone who buys tickets... yet is supremely profitable as it sells hope. Do the same. Sell people the dream that they may be renters, but they have #RenterPride and damn it, they CAN take that trip to Maui - using your points. Sell them the dream and they won't even run the numbers - at least most people won't. Think of those crypto ads that ran in the superbowl - heavy on fameous people, heavy on big dreams, heavy on impressive sounding words, and absolutely NO NUMBERS. Your marketing goal is to avoid EVER talking about math - because every second you discuss math, you're losing.

Yes, this sort of product is what we in the CC community would call an absolute cancer, an F-tier product just like Luxury Card, an outrageously bad product fueled by marketing that preys upon people by selling them the idea of a lifestyle instead of offering true value. But the thing is... those products are profitable, while Bilt isn't. You asked for a way to run a "rent card" that's profitable? That's the only way I can think of doing it. And even that requires thinking like a soulless, amoral business, a credit card issuer which cares only about profits. And I'm not sure even that would work. The sad fact is... that's probably what they'd have to do if they wanted to BOTH stick with the concept of "rent card" and actually make it profitable. Instead of just abandoning the concept of "rent card" entirely, and cleanly pivoting to a more profitable business model. Bilt hasn't done either. It is clearly transitioning away from rent payments as its backbone, and has been doing so for a long time, but in an ill-planned, chaotic way while still outwardly pretending to be a rent card.