Bilt Obsidian: is the $95 fee worth it?

The honest math on the Bilt Obsidian Card: which credits you'd actually use, what its points earn beyond a plain 2% card, and what its protections would cost to buy — against the $95 annual fee.

Bilt / Column N.A. Bank · $95 annual fee ($95/yr; authorized users are $50 each (not modeled).) · earns Bilt Points

Where it ranks: #2 of 33 for dining · #2 of 13 for groceries

Earning rates

3x Dining or groceries (you pick one for the year) (Groceries: 3x on up to $25,000 per calendar year, then 1x. Dining: uncapped (this app applies the $25k cap to both))
6x Bilt Neighborhood Dining partners
4x Hotels via Bilt Travel
3x Flights via Bilt Travel
2x Flights (booked direct)
2x Hotels (booked direct)
2x Other travel (cruises, car rental)
3x Lyft rides
2x Rent Day: 2x on the 1st of each month (Bonus capped at 1,000 points per month — about $1,000 of spend on the 1st (≈$12,000/yr); promotion confirmed through 2027-01-01)
1x Everything else

Statement credits (1)

$100 Bilt Travel Hotel Credit — $50 per half-year (Jan–Jun, Jul–Dec) toward a hotel booking of 2+ nights made through the Bilt Travel portal.

Protections and perks (8)

Cell Phone Protection — Up to $800 per claim for theft or accidental damage when you pay your monthly wireless bill with the card ($50 deductible).
MasterRental Coverage (Secondary) — Secondary collision/damage coverage on rentals paid with the card, up to 31 consecutive days.
Trip Cancellation / Interruption — Up to $2,000 per covered trip ($5,000 per account per 12 months) for non-refundable common-carrier fares cancelled or interrupted by covered injury, illness, or death.
Trip Delay Reimbursement — Up to $300 per trip for expenses when a common-carrier trip paid with the card is delayed more than 6 hours.
Lost or Damaged Luggage — Up to $1,500 per incident to repair or replace checked or carry-on luggage lost or damaged by a common carrier, when the ticket was paid with the card.
Purchase Assurance — New purchases covered for 90 days against damage or theft, up to $1,000 per claim.
Extended Warranty — Doubles an eligible US manufacturer's or store warranty of 24 months or less, up to 24 additional months.
No Foreign Transaction Fees — No surcharge on purchases made abroad.

Recent changes to this card's data

2026-09-11 — Bilt Obsidian Card

Verified accurate — no changes. The Rent Day double-points promotion (2x on everyday spend on the 1st of each month, capped at 1,000 bonus points) ran again this month and is confirmed still active, per awardwallet.com and doctorofcredit.com. Fee, earning rates, housing rewards tiers, the Bilt Travel Hotel credit, and all insurance coverages re-confirmed against bilt.com and Bilt's own terms documents.

2026-09-04 — Bilt Obsidian Card

Verified accurate — no changes. Fee, earning rates and caps, housing tiers, the $100 hotel credit, and all seven insurance coverage ceilings re-confirmed against a freshly-updated Bilt Card Offer Terms PDF (Aug 28, 2026), the Bilt Rewards Points Earning Terms PDF, and bilt.com/card/obsidian.
Finding: Bilt's Aug 28, 2026 terms formalize a mandatory account-wide "Rewards Option" choice (Housing-only points vs. a new 4%-Bilt-Cash "Flexible" option). The default (Housing-only) is exactly what this card already models; the Flexible option isn't priceable yet and stays described rather than counted.
Flag: the "Rent Day" 2x-on-the-1st promotion (kept in the data, confirmed through 2027-01-01) could not be freshly reconfirmed as currently active — absent from both the new Offer Terms and the live product page. Added meta.recheckOn: 2026-09-11 for a focused re-check.

2026-08-21 — Bilt Obsidian Card (new card)

New file bilt-obsidian-card.json: the $95 middle tier of the Bilt Card 2.0 lineup (Column N.A. Bank / Cardless, World Elite Mastercard). Fee and $50 authorized-user fee per Bilt's Card Offer Terms PDF (updated 2026-07-28). (https://www.biltrewards.com/terms/bilt-card-offer-terms , https://www.bilt.com/card/obsidian)
Earning: 3x dining (default, auto-applied) OR 3x groceries capped at $25,000/calendar year then 1x (either/or, locked per year); 2x at airline/hotel/cruise/car-rental merchant codes (one rate per flights/hotels/other-travel bucket); portal-only 4x hotels / 3x flights via Bilt Travel; up to 6x Bilt Neighborhood Dining; 3x Lyft; 1x everything else. (https://www.biltrewards.com/terms/bilt-card-offer-terms , https://www.bilt.com/card/obsidian)
Rent/mortgage points: program-wide Housing-only tiers — 250 flat points under a 25% Everyday Spend Ratio, then 0.5x / 0.75x / 1x / 1.25x at 25/50/75/100%. Identical to Blue; confirmed from the Offer Terms' 'Bilt Housing Payment Options' table rather than copied. Flexible Bilt Cash path described, not priced. (https://www.biltrewards.com/terms/bilt-card-offer-terms , https://thepointsguy.com/credit-cards/bilt-2-0-new-tiers-points-rent-mortgage/)
Rent Day 2x as an opt-in bonus question, 1,000 bonus points/month (≈$12,000/yr of spend), through 2027-01-01, confirmed for all three 2.0 cards. (https://frequentmiler.com/bilt-rent-day-double-points-to-continue-transition-end-date-extended-to-2-1-26/)
Credit: $100 Bilt Travel Hotel Credit — $50 per calendar half-year on 2+-night portal bookings, primary cardholder only — no other card poses the same question, so the answer stays card-specific. (https://www.biltrewards.com/terms/bilt-card-offer-terms)
Coverages from the Obsidian Guide to Benefits PDF: cell phone protection ($800/claim, $1,000/yr, 2 claims, $50 deductible), MasterRental **secondary** CDW (31 days, $500 loss-of-use), trip cancellation / interruption ($2,000/trip, $5,000/yr, common-carrier fares only), trip delay ($300/trip, 6h, 1 claim/yr), lost/damaged luggage ($1,500/incident, 2 claims/yr), Purchase Assurance ($1,000/claim, $50k/yr), extended warranty (doubles ≤24-month warranties, $10k/claim), no FTF. (https://www.biltrewards.com/terms/obsidian-card-guide-to-benefits)
Source disagreement: bilt.com/card/obsidian markets "primary" rental coverage, but Bilt's own Guide to Benefits says it pays on a secondary basis — modeled as secondary (the guide's fine print beats the marketing page).
Points presets (0.55 / 1.25 / 2.2 cents) mirror Blue, re-confirmed against TPG's Bilt guide and August 2026 valuations. (https://thepointsguy.com/loyalty-programs/bilt-rewards-guide/ , https://thepointsguy.com/loyalty-programs/monthly-valuations/)
Out of scope / not modeled: $200 Bilt Cash welcome bonus, Bilt Cash 4% option, and the Bilt-Cash-priced "Point Accelerator" on bilt.com (absent from the Offer Terms).

Card data verified against Bilt / Column N.A. Bank on 2026-09-11.

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