Bilt Adds Walgreens Benefits
I’ve said it a million times but the Bilt Mastercard is hands down the best card if you are a renter. Even if you aren’t, there are a ton of reasons to use their rewards ecosystem. Bilt just announced yet another great perk. I don’t think this partnership will earn you enough points to be able to fly to Australia in first class but there’s a cool functionality that I think will be very useful to people.
Earn Bonus Points on Walgreens Spending
Effective immediately, Bilt Rewards members can earn bonus points on Walgreens purchases. You don’t even need to have the Bilt Mastercard to earn bonus points. Personally, I don’t have the card since I fortunately or unfortunately own my home but I still love Bilt Rewards even as a non-cardholder.
Earn 2x points on Walgreens branded products
Earn 1x point on all other purchases
Earn 100 points for each prescription filled
You don’t even need to pay with your Bilt Mastercard, just use any card linked in your account.
Use any of the cards linked in your Bilt Wallet
Automatic Healthcare Savings
Bilt also introduced another really cool feature where you can automatically apply your FSA/HSA benefits when shopping at Walgreens with any linked card. All you need to do is add your FSA/HSA card into your Bilt Wallet to use this new feature.
How it Works:
Shop at Walgreens for everyday items using any card linked to your Bilt account
Earn Bilt points on your spend
Within 24 or 72 hours (there’s conflicting info on their website), they’ll identify any eligible items and you can automatically apply your FSA/HSA funds to those items.
They’ll credit your original form of payment and charge your FSA or HSA card for the eligible amount.
Bilt's New Automatic Healthcare Savings
I think this is a really unique feature which allows you to earn points on FSA/HSA purchases that normally wouldn’t earn points if you used your FSA/HSA card. This also eliminates the need for you to carry that card in your wallet. And if you’re anything like me and have a Costanza wallet, any card I can take out will help!
What is an FSA and HSA?
A Flexible Spending Account is a tax advantaged account that allows you to put a specific amount of pre-tax money into your account and use those dollars for eligible healthcare purchases like doctors visits, medicine, and other approved over the counter items. You do have to use all of your FSA money by the end of the year or you will lose it. I would recommend only putting in money that you know you will spend each year for things like prescriptions, regular doctors visits, dental visits, etc. as if you put too much money into it, you’ll lose it at the end of the year.
A Health Savings Account works similar to an FSA but you don’t lose the money in the account at the end of each year. Only those with a High Deductible Health Plan are eligible to open an HSA. The big benefit of an HSA is that you can keep it for life, so typically I don’t recommend people using their HSA each year, but continue to fund it and use the account after retirement when your healthcare expenses are likely going to be much higher than today. But at the end of the day, everyone’s finances are different, so do what is in your best interest.
Both of these accounts are great ways to use pre-tax dollars to pay for qualified healthcare expenses.
Wrapping Up
Bilt Rewards is out with a great new feature where you can not only earn bonus points at Walgreens but also automatically apply your FSA/HSA benefits for any cards linked in your Bilt Wallet. You likely won’t earn a ton of points, but it is certainly a great feature.
