similar to airline frequent flyer programs
Bilt
Bilt is trying to turn a renter's monthly housing payment into the anchor transaction for a broader loyalty network. The airline analogy matters because the real product is not just a card, it is a points system that starts with rent or mortgage, then pulls spend into nearby restaurants, fitness, rideshare, and travel redemptions. That gives Bilt a way to monetize both consumer card spend and landlord payment flow from the same member relationship.
-
Airline programs work because a large recurring spend earns a currency people want to keep using. Bilt applies that logic to housing, with points earned on on time rent in 4M+ homes in its network, plus mortgage and neighborhood spend, then redeemed through travel bookings or 1 to 1 airline and hotel transfers.
-
The local commerce piece makes the network more than a rent rewards card. In the app, members can link cards and get benefits at 40,000+ merchants, including dining, pharmacy, fitness, and rideshare. That creates more frequent engagement between monthly rent payments, similar to how airline programs keep members active outside flights.
-
On the supply side, landlords use Bilt inside existing resident portals from systems like Yardi and RealPage. Bilt has said this now reaches 70% of the top 100 multifamily portfolios, and landlords can use points for renewals and referrals instead of giving away one or two months of free rent. Bilt collects a 0.6% to 0.9% take rate on that payment volume.
The next step is to make housing loyalty persistent across life stages, from renting to mortgage payments to neighborhood spending. If Bilt keeps extending the point currency into more housing workflows, it can become less like a single card program and more like the default rewards layer attached to where people live.