{"id":138061,"date":"2026-02-18T23:01:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T23:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/138061\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T23:01:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T23:01:21","slug":"i-chase-credit-card-points-bilt-changed-my-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/138061\/","title":{"rendered":"I Chase Credit-Card Points. Bilt Changed My Mind."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I hate it when people ask if I have any hobbies. I know they are well-intentioned, just trying to get to know me, but how can I explain my hobby is \u2026\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/opinion\/articles\/2025-09-22\/ai-price-setting-how-much-did-you-pay-for-your-seat\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">collecting credit card points<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>I am\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/opinion\/articles\/2023-09-28\/frequent-flyer-programs-such-as-delta-skymiles-need-to-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">embarrassed to admit<\/a>\u00a0how many hours I spend reading blogs, watching videos and mentally plotting out my non-linear objective function. I don\u2019t have the words to describe how much sweeter the Prosecco is in business class when it comes from a hard-won upgrade. It would be so much easier if I just played pickleball.<\/p>\n<p>Still, my embarrassment had never been so bad that I would reconsider my priorities. Until now: The story of Bilt, as told in a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/features\/2026-02-05\/bilt-2-0-credit-cards-tweaked-after-new-rewards-calculations-irk-customers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Bloomberg Businessweek story<\/a>\u00a0earlier this month, may be what breaks me. Bilt, which became known for offering a credit card that enables users to earn rewards on their rent or mortgage, shows what can happen when people feel compelled to get points on every transaction.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/opinion\/articles\/2026-02-17\/bilt-mortgage-payment-saga-shows-the-dark-side-of-rewards-economy\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Continue reading the entire piece here at Bloomberg Opinion\u00a0(paywall)<\/a><\/p>\n<p>______________________<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.city-journal.org\/contributor\/allison-schrager_1488\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Allison Schrager<\/a>\u00a0is a\u00a0senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute\u00a0and a contributing editor of\u00a0City Journal.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Photo by Scott Olson\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I hate it when people ask if I have any hobbies. I know they are well-intentioned, just trying&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":{"0":"post-138061","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-manhattan","9":"tag-manhattan-headlines","10":"tag-manhattan-news","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-nyc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}