Well, the day has arrived when I can officially earn points by paying my mortgage. Although the launch of Bilt 2.0 has Absolutely After all the twists and turns, I’m not going to lie, it’s been pretty exciting to see Biltong posted on my account.
While Bilt 1.0 had millions of members paying rent and earning Bilt points, the Bilt 2.0 program marks the first time homeowners can do the same.
Now that I’ve done that, here’s what you need to know and the steps to take if you want to pay your mortgage with Bilt and earn points on your big monthly purchases. Note that this is based on my own experience and how it works for me, but since this is a new setup it wouldn’t be surprising to see some things change a bit over time.
Related: What you need to know to set up a Bilt account to pay rent
Set up your Bilt account to earn points when you pay your mortgage
Before we get into the actual steps of paying your mortgage through Bilt to earn Bilt bonus points, you need to set up a few things.
First, if you want to earn Bilt points on your mortgage payments, you need to join birt rewards program and have one of three Bilt 2.0 credit cards.
The only way to earn Bilt points on your mortgage payments is to have a Bilt card. You’ll also need to link your bank account to your Bilt account in the Wallet section.
Mortgage payments are processed as an ACH transfer and ultimately debited from your bank account. Unlike the Bilt 1.0 program, where rent can be charged to your Bilt credit card, now it’s an ACH transfer, which may show up as pending on your Bilt card for a day or so, but will eventually be withdrawn from your bank account.
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How to pay your mortgage with Bilt
Once you have a Bilt credit card and a linked bank account, you can make your mortgage payments to earn points. You’ll have a few different options here, depending on whether your mortgage is available for a fairly automatic direct link with Bilt, or if you need to do it manually.
First, go to the “Home” option in your Bilt account and select “New Mortgage.” You can also select “Pay a different bill” or “Want to pay a different house payment?” if you’re setting up a second or new payment.
Bilt may have determined your mortgage and payment amount based on available credit report information. If this is the case, you can continue to use this option to link your mortgage so that you can make payments to that mortgage from Bilt.
If not, you will manually search for your mortgage or click “Find Other Loans” at the bottom of the screen and follow the steps to search for your issuer, account number and/or address.
Once you’ve linked your mortgage, you should be able to initiate a payment on the Bilt side for any amount you enter, if you wish.
If you want, you can even do a smaller test amount before the full month’s mortgage is due, which I personally recommend doing if you’re nervous about the whole thing. For example, I have a test payment of $50 as shown below.
This is also where you can make sure you have selected your desired points earning option. With the flexible Bilt Cash option (shown below), Bilt Cash utilization rates are $30 for every $1,000 of mortgage payments, earning 1 point per dollar. If you choose the tiered option, you won’t earn Bilt Cash, but you can earn up to 1.25 points for every $1 you spend on rent or mortgage payments, depending on the amount of non-housing expenses on your card.
Related: Comparing 2 Ways to Earn Rewards with Bilt
You can change your settings by clicking on the “Use $1.50 Bilt Cash” section in the example shown below and selecting a tiered earnings structure. However, changes will not necessarily take effect until the next billing cycle.
Another way to earn points is to pay your mortgage through Bilt. You can actually initiate the payment on the mortgage provider’s side rather than Bilt.
To go this route, you can select “View payment instructions” from the same “Home” section of your Bilt account, highlighted below.
Once you click here, you will see your BillPay account information, including routing number and account number.
Please note that this is not the bank account information you entered when linking your bank account for an ACH transfer. This is an account operated by Bilt, and you enter these routing and account numbers on your mortgage servicer’s website to make payments, similar to how you would use your own checking account.
Simply click “Show” to display the numbers, which you can then post to your mortgage provider’s website.
Once you’ve done this, you should be able to make payments through your mortgage servicer’s website as usual – except instead of being charged to your bank account, the payment will go through Bilt’s account before it reaches your account. My test payment took approximately 24 hours to complete all steps.
In my experience, you should be able to set it up with your mortgage provider to not only make a one-time payment, but also set up automatic payments.
I earned 3,000 points by paying my mortgage for the first time with Bilt
I followed the steps above and made my first mortgage payment using the routing and account number Bilt provided under the “View Payment Instructions” method on my mortgage servicer’s website, and…everything seemed to work.
My mortgage was paid the same day I scheduled it with my lender, and about one business day later, the amount was debited from my bank account linked to Bilt. I earned 3,000 Bilt points by using $90 in Bilt Cash, earning 1 point for every $1 spent, which was also posted to my Bilt account that day.
bottom line
Because things like your home and mortgage payments are obviously very important, my personal advice is that if you want to unlock points for your mortgage payments through Bilt, don’t wait until right before your payments are due to start setting them up.
I know I’ll sleep better at night knowing this is all going smoothly before my payment is due next month. Even if you can’t make next month’s entire payment upfront, it makes sense to make at least a small test payment to make sure everything is working properly for your particular account.
As for me, I successfully paid off a mortgage and gained 3,000 Bilt points in the process. With my success at the bank, I’m going all-in, at least for now, on earning Bilt Cash through Bilt to unlock earned points on my mortgage payments.
