The Atelier setup: three cards and one portal

Most people with a pile of unused points did not choose badly. They chose one card at a time, for one reason at a time, and ended up with balances in five programs that never add up to a trip. A setup works the other way round: a few pieces, each with one job, all feeding currencies that move to the same airlines and hotels.

This is the combination Points Atelier would hand a busy professional starting today. It is not the only good one, and it is not cheap. Each piece is explained below, with who should leave it out.

New to points? Start with Points, explained.

The setup at a glance

Bilt Palladium

Annual fee $495Welcome offer 50,000 points + $300 Bilt Cash

The catch-all: 2x on everyday purchases, points on rent or mortgage with no fee, and Bilt’s transfer partners.

Full review →

American Express Gold

Annual fee $325Welcome offer As high as 100,000 points

The food card: 4x at restaurants worldwide and at U.S. supermarkets.

Full review →

American Express Platinum

Annual fee $895Welcome offer As high as 175,000 points

Optional, for frequent travelers: 5x on flights booked with the airline, lounges and hotel status.

Full review →

The fourth piece costs nothing: Rakuten, a shopping portal that pays Amex or Bilt points on top of whatever card is used at checkout. It has its own guide: Rakuten: cash back or points?

Which version fits

The setup comes in three versions. The year below works through all three with one household’s numbers. As a first steer:

Core

Bilt Palladium + Amex Gold

For anyone who pays rent, eats out often and flies a few times a year.

$820 a year in fees

Light

Bilt Obsidian + Amex Gold

For lower spending, or anyone who wants to keep fees down.

$420 a year in fees

Full

Core + Amex Platinum

For frequent travelers who would use lounges and travel credits anyway.

$1,715 a year in fees

Fees are before credits.

Why these pieces fit together

Two currencies, one map. Bilt Points and Amex Membership Rewards both transfer to airline and hotel programs, and they overlap where it matters: Air Canada Aeroplan, Air France-KLM Flying Blue, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and Marriott take both. Each also opens doors the other cannot. Only Amex reaches Delta and ANA; only Bilt reaches Alaska’s Atmos Rewards, United and World of Hyatt among these two. Holding both means almost any award worth booking can be paid for.

Each card covers a gap in the others. The Gold earns 4x at restaurants and U.S. supermarkets, where the Palladium earns 2x (up to 5x at Bilt’s partner restaurants). The Palladium earns 2x where the Gold earns 1x (everything else) and adds rent, which no Amex card earns on without a fee. The Platinum adds 5x on airfare and the travel benefits the other two lack.

One portal multiplies the online spending. Rakuten pays points per dollar on top of the card, so a single purchase earns twice.

Which card to use where

Worth per $1 assumes 2.0¢ per Membership Rewards point and 2.2¢ per Bilt Point, typical values for points transferred to airline or hotel partners. Redeemed for statement credit, Amex points are worth 0.6¢ each, according to American Express.

What a year can look like

An illustration, not a promise. One household, spending like this:

Here is what each version of the setup earns from that spending in a year, before welcome offers and credits:

Points are valued at 2.0¢ for Membership Rewards (MR) and 2.2¢ for Bilt, TPG’s estimates for points transferred to airline and hotel partners. Rent earns 1x here because everyday spending on the Bilt card is 80% of the rent; see the rent rule above.

Two conclusions follow from the household’s own numbers. First, the Platinum does not pay for itself through earning: its 5x on flights adds about $160 a year here against an $895 fee, so its case rests entirely on credits and lounges that would be used anyway. Second, the Palladium’s edge over the $95 Obsidian is narrow before credits (about $130 here); its $400 hotel credit and $200 of Bilt Cash are what tip it, for anyone who books through Bilt Travel.

The gap with cash back is real, but it only exists for someone who transfers points to partners and books. Kept in the account, or cashed out at 0.6¢, the same points are worth less than the cash-back card. That is the whole bargain of this hobby, and the reason the guides on what a point is worth and transfer partners exist.

The pieces, one by one

Bilt Palladium: the catch-all

The Palladium is the setup’s catch-all, and one of the strongest catch-all cards available. Every purchase that falls outside another card’s bonus category earns 2x, where most premium cards earn 1x, and Lyft rides earn 4x once the Bilt and Lyft accounts are linked. Bilt Cash comes on top of the points: $200 a year with the card, plus 4% of everyday spending for anyone who picks Bilt’s Flexible Bilt Cash option (which changes how rent earns; see the rent rule above). Rent or mortgage paid through Bilt earns points with no transaction fee.

Its $495 fee is offset by a $400 hotel credit for bookings through Bilt Travel ($200 every six months) and $200 of Bilt Cash a year, and it includes Priority Pass lounge access with two guests. The welcome offer is $300 of Bilt Cash on approval plus 50,000 points and Bilt Gold status after $4,000 of purchases (excluding housing) in 90 days.

Status matters beyond the card: Rakuten pays Bilt members with Silver status or higher 100 Bilt Points per $1 of cash back, double the Blue rate, and the Palladium’s welcome offer brings Gold.

Leave it out if: there is no rent or mortgage to put through Bilt and everyday spending is modest. The $95 Bilt Obsidian earns the same housing points and 3x on dining or groceries.

Amex Gold: the food card

4x at restaurants worldwide (on up to $50,000 a year) and at U.S. supermarkets (on up to $25,000 a year) makes the Gold one of the fastest ways to turn ordinary spending into flights. The $325 fee comes with $424 a year in monthly and half-yearly credits (Uber Cash, Grubhub and partners, Resy, Dunkin’), which only count if they match habits already in place.

Leave it out if: food spending is low, or the monthly credits would go unused. Without them, the extra points over the Palladium’s 2x (about 3.6¢ per dollar at typical values) only cover the fee at around $750 a month of dining and groceries.

Amex Platinum: only if the lifestyle is already there

The Platinum is a travel card with a long list of credits: about $3,000 a year at face value, from hotels booked through Amex Travel to streaming, Uber, lululemon and an airline fee credit. It adds Centurion and Priority Pass lounges, 10 Delta Sky Club visits a year when flying Delta, and Hilton Gold and Marriott Gold status. It earns 5x on flights booked directly with airlines and 1x on almost everything else, so it is not an everyday card.

Leave it out if: the credits do not describe how life already runs. At $895, the honest test is to tick only the credits that would be used anyway: the Platinum review has a calculator for exactly that.

Rakuten: the free layer

Rakuten is a shopping portal: click through it, or use its browser extension, before buying at a participating store, and Rakuten pays a percentage back. Set to pay in points instead of cash, each 1% becomes one Amex Membership Rewards point per dollar, or one Bilt Point per dollar for Bilt members with Silver status or higher (half that at Blue). It costs nothing and stacks on top of the card used to pay, so a single purchase earns twice: once from the store through Rakuten, once from the card.

It is one of the easiest sources of points in this setup because it asks for no change in habits, only a click before checkout. Rates run from about 1% to 5% at most stores and climb much higher on special days. New members who join through a referral link and spend $50 within 90 days earn a welcome bonus of 5,000 Amex Membership Rewards points, or 5,000 Bilt Points for Bilt members at Silver status or above. The details, and the catches, are in Rakuten: cash back or points?

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The order to open them

1. Start with Bilt Palladium or Amex Gold

   Either can come first. Open one card at a time and meet its spending requirement with purchases that would happen anyway: $4,000 in 90 days for the Palladium (rent does not count), $8,000 in six months for the Gold, according to the issuers’ pages.

2. Gold before Platinum

   American Express limits welcome offers by card family. The Gold’s offer terms exclude anyone who has or has had a Platinum card, so opening the Platinum first means giving up the Gold’s welcome offer; the Platinum’s terms do not exclude Gold holders. Opening the Gold first keeps both offers available. Amex shows whether an applicant qualifies for the offer before the application is final.

3. Link Rakuten on day one

   It is free and pays on purchases already planned. Choose Bilt Points once Bilt Gold status arrives with the Palladium offer, or Membership Rewards before then.

4. Add the Platinum last, if at all

   Its offer is the largest (as high as 175,000 points after $12,000 in six months), and so is its spending requirement. It makes sense once travel is frequent enough for the credits and lounges to be used.

Where the points go

The setup is built to reach the redemptions most worth booking. A few of the most useful routes:

Atmos earns its place near the top for the cash it leaves in the pocket: its partner awards carry a $20 fee plus taxes and any carrier-imposed fees, which Alaska shows before booking, so on many routes a business-class seat costs little beyond the points. Partners and ratios as published by American Express and Bilt. The full map is in Transfer partners, explained.

Airline, hotel and card names and logos are trademarks of their owners, used only to identify their programs. Points Atelier is not affiliated with or endorsed by them.