Sadly, the Bilt drama continues to chug along, as the company seems unable or unwilling to make things right for its Day 1 customers.

We previously spoke to the implementation mess that Bilt found itself in–a problem of its own doing. Somehow things have gotten worse.

Bilt offered a special bonus for The Points Guy for a day

Recall that earlier this year in January 2026, Bilt announced a new “2.0” version of credit cards. Bilt’s relationship with Wells Fargo was ending and customers would be transitioning over to a Cardless product. To commemorate a new set of credit cards, you’d think that it would only be natural to stir the pot a little with some great limited-time sign-up bonuses.

Having a special promotion for the launch of a card is only natural. Almost every credit card does it at launch these days as a way to get customers to drop everything and pay attention. Think of the 100,000 sign-up bonus on the Chase Sapphire Reserve back when it launched a decade ago, which was almost unheard of at the time.

So, naturally, Bilt seemed to be using that playbook by offering a special bonus. Not only could you get a decent sign-up bonus on the card, but you could also get a total of 5X points on every purchase up to $10,000 in spend for the first six days (February 7 to 12). That’s on top of any sign-up bonus you might get, making it rather lucrative to spend a lot right away. This special spending bonus applied to all three of their cards.

This promotion was only available through The Points Guy, which creates some public bias on why Bilt favors one blog over all others. There could be potential further fallout from this down the road for the bank as it plays favorites. But the promotion seemed so popular that the offer had to be pulled in a day. That should be good news because that’s what you want–a lot of immediate engagement with fanatics ready to use their cards.

So, you apply and wait a few weeks before you can start using the card.

Customers need to confirm they have the offer

Within a week before customers received their Bilt 2.0 cards, Bilt sent out an email to a subset of applicants that they are eligible for 5X purchases. That’s great, right? With an email in hand (or in inbox), you know everything has gone well and that the process will be nice and smooth.

But the problem is that not all customers who signed up for the promotion received the email. Oops. And some people who didn’t apply for the TPG offer received it. Oops again.

Customers who then tried reaching out to Bilt about this have received mostly canned responses from their AI bots. Once they bypass the bots to get to a real, live person, things aren’t as smooth as hoped. Despite applying for the card at The Points Guy during the promotional window, Bilt says you’re not eligible. They appear to give a myriad number of reasons:

• “It appears your promo application wasn’t fully completed, as we don’t see you listed on it.”
• The timestamp on Bilt’s side can be a day later than the actual application date.
• Crickets, because they stopped talking.
• “The TPG promo list was provided by our partner. Seems like your name was not on list.” (This one was from Dan, one of the co-founders of Bilt.)
• Can’t do anything, but we can cancel your card instead (also from Dan).

The CEO weighs in… to offer no consolation

You’d think that higher-ups would do the right thing and extend the promotion for everyone eligible. After all, this is now a heavy PR hit with so many people having the same issue. So, naturally, Bilt CEO Ankur Jain then weighed in to one customer with a rather lengthy response (unedited).

Sorry we can’t accept anything on TPG. This was a TPG offer not us. And we were given a list of participants.

In the past few days I’ve received thousands of people claiming to have participated with hundreds using the same identical screenshots (clearly all shared in online groups), many also sending doctored images etc

Not saying that’s your case here. But the attempt at showing good faith to a few people early on has clearly backfired and thousands of people online sending in fake requests has meant we can’t honor anything beyond what TPG provided us.

Sorry not a better answer. Have always tried taking care of Bilt members first but seeing the extreme levels of gaming and false inbounds has hurt our ability to make exceptions for good customers like you.

There will be plenty of ongoing promos that you be able to take advantage of.

Thanks for understanding and for being a bilt members

OK, let’s unpack what the CEO is claiming:

• Thousands of people reached out asking to be added to the TPG promo
• All of these are fraudulent requests from Bilt’s point of view (except, of course, the one person he wrote this message to)
• Hundreds of these people have used the same screenshot, validating their view of fraudulent activity
• The issue is really with The Points Guy as its their promo, not Bilt’s

It’s not fraudulent on its own that people use the same screenshot

Imagine you’re applying for a credit card from a bank. You found an offer that at the time seemed good, so you applied. You received immediate approval on the card and closed the application window. Great, everything looks fine.

But then you find out the application you legitimately applied for and was approved for didn’t get attached to your account. You panic as they ask for proof that you applied under the qualifying offer. So you reach out to your buddy, who also applied. Your buddy sends you the screenshot he took from the process and use it to confirm the exact offer you applied for.

Using the same screenshot isn’t fraudulent in this case. No one is claiming to have received an offer they truly didn’t apply for. Except the CEO seems to be unable to validate the authenticity of the application and is claiming everyone else is at fault. Perhaps Bilt should have done a better job on their end tracking this promotion? They had weeks to do so before members received their cards.

The moral of this story is to always screenshot your applications to confirm the offer attaches to your account.

The Points Guy is thrown under the bus unnecessarily

Look, I’m not a normal defender of The Points Guy. But here Bilt is way out of line blaming the handling of the promotion on anyone but themselves.

People are signing up for a Bilt credit card, not a The Points Guy credit card. The Points Guy isn’t the one paying Bilt cardholders the 5X points promotion. Sure, it was a special link found only at The Points Guy and not other blogs, but Bilt is the one honoring it. They have sole responsibility on who they admit to the promo and who they don’t.

This level of non-action from a company is infuriating. Rather than own the reputational risk, they made a half-hearted attempt at passing blame to another entity. I wonder how The Points Guy feels about the goodwill hit that Bilt now is causing them? You can’t throw your partners under the bus publicly and expect there to not be financial implications down the line. This might come back to haunt them at some point.

Thousands are without resolution

Yes, a company should protect itself from fraud. With anything out there on the internet or elsewhere, some people choose to engage in fraud. So it seems reasonable to deny those people who provide doctored images or provide incorrect details. Every company should be doing that to preserve the integrity of the business.

But what about the thousands who have not shown to engage in fraud? Bilt seems to not care enough to make things right. I’m sure Bilt had a marketing budget that likely hit limits so quickly it forced pulling the offer within a day of it going live. At the same time, it seems unfair that people apply for a promotion only to find it not honored because of internal accounting.

Angering thousands doesn’t seem like a good business practice, especially considering all the other mess the company found itself in. Also, it sure seems like people are outspoken about wanting to fight back with a potential class action suit. Lovely.

Those who received the promotion were hit with other problems

Let’s say you were one of the “lucky” people who got notice from Bilt that you have the TPG 5X offer. You’re all good to go, right? Again, this is where things get complicated.

Some people haven’t received their cards

Everyone was supposed to be mailed their cards by February 7th–the start date of the 6-day window. However, there are reports of people not getting their cards in the mail that day. Each and every day that ticks by during this promotional window limits the spend someone can charge and earn the bonus. Almost seems intentional at this point, doesn’t it?

Imagine yourself knowing that you have a limited window to use the card as much as possible for a few days after you get it. So you plan as many purchases as possible around that date. You wait anxiously by the mail only to find it’s not here, and not here the next day. Those purchases you need to make might end up on other cards.

Again, this isn’t generating any goodwill for affected customers.

Some who have the card have had them locked

Let’s say you got confirmation of the 5X offer and actually received your card. Home free now, right? Unfortunately, no, not for some. There are reports out there of some people getting their cards frozen on the first purchase.

Your security is our priority, so we have suspended your account while we conduct an investigation. To assist in our investigation, we need additional verification of your identity. Please send the following items in a reply to this email:

**- A current picture of you while holding** your valid state or government-issued photo ID
– Review your account and let us know if you see any unauthorized activity

Once we receive the requested information, please allow up to two days for our review to be completed.

Your account will remain suspended until we complete our investigation.

Thank you,
The Cardless Team

Eh? You need to take a selfie with your driver’s license? It’s amateur hour over here from the Cardless team. We get wanting to make sure there’s no fraud with people providing validation. But do they not understand how fake IDs work? You put your own face into the ID because otherwise no one will believe its yours. So what does showing your face with the fake ID prove that an ID on its own doesn’t prove?

And send it over email? They can’t get you to at least provide a more secure connection to provide documentation?

With a promo like this one, you might think that people are just charging large purchases immediately up front to get that juicy bonus. But it seems like even small purchases are getting flagged, forcing the entire account to sit in purgatory for days while the clock ticks away. Customers might try their best to speed things along, but they’re at the mercy of all other stakeholders.

If you’re dealing with this nightmare, we really do feel for you. We’d recommend continuing to push back with Bilt if you signed up in good faith and Bilt isn’t holding up their end of the bargain. Their proposed resolution doesn’t seem like it’s well thought out (but then again the same could be said about everything Bilt 2.0 so far).

Honestly, we’re glad to have sat this one out. Bilt has a long way to go before it can be considered one of the big boys.

Suggested reading:

• Rakuten is a Great Points Generator (Now Including Bilt)
• Everyone Gets Free Point.Me And You Might Not Know It
• Uh Oh: Transferable Points Currency Mesa Shuts Down