Best No Annual Fee Card
Millions of people pay rent each month, and a fair number of them don’t earn any rewards for doing so. Enter the Bilt Mastercard, which has no annual fee (see rates and fees) and offers the ability to earn points on rent — even when your landlord doesn’t accept credit cards.
At a glance
- 3X Points 3x points on dining
- 2X Points 2x points on travel
- 1X Points 1x points on other purchases
- 1X Points Earn up to 1x points on rent payments without the transaction fee, up to 50,000 points each calendar year. When you make at least 5 posted transactions in a statement period using your Bilt Mastercard, you'll earn points on rent and qualifying net purchases.
- $0 Annual Fee.
- Earn up to 1x points on rent payments without the transaction fee, up to 50,000 points each calendar year.
At a glance
- 3X Points 3x points on dining
- 2X Points 2x points on travel
- 1X Points 1x points on other purchases
- 1X Points Earn up to 1x points on rent payments without the transaction fee, up to 50,000 points each calendar year. When you make at least 5 posted transactions in a statement period using your Bilt Mastercard, you'll earn points on rent and qualifying net purchases.
- $0 Annual Fee.
- Earn up to 1x points on rent payments without the transaction fee, up to 50,000 points each calendar year.
- 2x points on travel.
- 3x points on dining.
- 1x points on other purchases.
- Earn points when you make 5 transactions that post each statement period.
- When renting at a Bilt Alliance property, you can choose to have your rent payments automatically reported by Bilt to the three major credit bureaus each month; Experian™, TransUnion™, and Equifax™.
Our Take
TPG Editor's Rating
Overview
As a whole, the Bilt Mastercard® offers a unique value proposition: Earn transferable points on rent, fee-free. Not to mention, Bilt has world-class partnerships with many popular airline and hotel loyalty programs that can help you get outsize value for your points. Even better, your points will transfer at an easy-to-understand, 1:1 ratio, and instantly for almost all programs.
Cardholders need to make five transactions per month to earn points, but then you’ll earn 3 points per dollar spent on dining, 2 points per dollar spent on travel and 1 point per dollar spent on other purchases (including rent). The ability to earn up to 50,000 points on rent per year and use those points with an interesting and growing set of transfer partners can be very lucrative when building a diverse points portfolio.
Pros
- No annual fee.
- Offers the ability to earn points on rent — even when your landlord doesn’t accept credit cards
- Complimentary cellphone protection.
- No foreign transaction fees.
- Trip cancellation and interruption protection.
Cons
- You must make at least five transactions on your card each statement period to earn any points — but that should be easy given that cardholders will also earn 3 points per dollar at restaurants and 2 points per dollar on travel.