Yes, it will work.

In this month’s Wells Fargo/Bilt statements, a notice of a change to the program T&Cs:

Effective immediately:
The sentence in the section titled "General Terms" dealing with redemption values is deleted and replaced with: "At any time and for any reason without notice to you, Bilt may change the amount of points required for redemption."

To be honest I was a bit surprised this language wasn’t already in the T&Cs because I’m so used to airline and hotel loyalty programs having similar no notice language regarding program changes.

However, I have to wonder if they’re just tightening up the language for good practice, or if they are already contemplating changes to the program.

It might not be a bad idea to move points to a program of your choice.

I'm curious why people on here would think they are not sustainable? IMO they don't have a sustainability problem at all. Bilt only has a pseudo-sub, which only hardcore credit card enthusiasts will go out of their way to max out. The majority of users might put their daily spending on it for 5 days, or maybe plan ahead for a purchase or two. Overall Bilt still comes out way ahead compared to other comparable cards that have SUBs. If you benchmark it to no AF cards, those are usually out a $200 SUB out of the gate. If you benchmark it to mid-tier luxury cards, those are out $500/50k points from the start, minus a $90-100 AF which some cards even waive for the first year. For a cardholder living in an average US city, it will easily take 1-3 years of earning rent-based points just to breakeven with a card with SUB.

i also heard the argument that people will only make 4 de minimis transactions just to earn rent points. Honestly this is not terribly different from people earning a SUB with other cards then sock-drawering it. Min-maxers are going to min-max, whether it's Bilt or a different card. The unsustainable argument seems to assume Bilt's customer base consists of a lot more min-maxers than other cards, which i'm not sure is something that can be substantiated.

I think the part that is unsustainable is giving points for rent, for people whose buildings aren’t part of the Bilt Alliance (I’m assuming Bilt gets some upside from the buildings in the Alliance). Someone putting $3,000 per month in rent is getting 36,000 points a year, for which Bilt is getting no interchange whatsoever for those charges.

But then some portion of those people will choose to make a minimum payment and therefore begin to incur finance charges on their rent. That's good money for Bilt.

Another difference is that the earn rate is better than the typical $0 annual fee card. The only other 3x dining card that I know is the Chase Freedom Unlimited. However, the difference between Bilt and CFU is that CFU is cashback only unless you hold another Ultimate Rewards earning card that can transfer externally. Bilt is having to pay out a dining transaction that earned 3x to a transfer partner without collecting an annual fee.

Wells Fargo Autograph once it gets transfer partners

My guess is WF would migrate Bilt cardholders to a product like this in the event that Bilt exits the credit card business.

Add me to those who think Bilt is not sustainable (and thus I maintain a small Bilt points balance). The basic reason is their expenses may very well be greater than their revenues.

People undoubtedly prioritize paying rent so Bilt is probably making less in finance charges on balances due to rent payments. Bilt is a more sophisticated card than most other cards, Bilt cardholders are probably less likely to carry a balance (and thus pay finance charges).

I’m a good example. Met the quasi-SUB (pseudo-SUB) with tax payments, paid the balance in full, Bilt gave me over 62,500 points on my first statement which I immediately transferred (speculatively) to Hyatt, a value of $600-$1000. I don’t know how much of a swipe fee Bilt got, on $12,500 charges even 2% is only $250. Every month I get almost 2,000 Bilt points for an ACH rent (condo) fee payment and 5-6 small charges totaling $50-$100, not much in swipe fees.

We may be seeing the start of Bilt cost cutting as recent reports indicate the quasi-SUB is no longer being offered.

(BTW, my recent prediction track record is pretty good :D. I accurately predicted Aaron Rodgers would suffer a season ending injury within his first 2 Jets games.)

Extrapolating from FT to the rest of the population is almost always a mistake. We come here to analyze and maximize. Most people get a card for any of a number of reasons, and then use it, and then ignore the details.

As someone still dawdling on the sidelines without a card… where are those reports? On Reddit?

(I almost jumped on the card a few months ago when some blog reported that everyone gets the quasi-SUB, even though I don’t have any rent - or similar - monthly payment. Up by the time I had made up my mind, Bilt had let it known that that was in fact not the case after all… and I really don’t feel like getting a new card without a guaranteed SUB)

exactly. i consider myself moderately up-to-date on credit card min-maxing tactics, and yet when it comes to the Bilt's pseudo-SUB, the only thing i got out of my way to do was to pay that month's phone and cable bills with it. The earlier FTer who charged 12.5k to the card during the 5-day period has got to be an exception rather than the norm, I have zero doubts about it.

the majority of any credit card company's customer base is nothing like the typical participants of forums like FT or r/churning on reddit.

There are two in this thread. Scroll back to posts 429 and 431.

Sorry, I was aware of those (participated in the discussion even). Should have asked if Doc was aware of data points beyond what we saw reported here.