Dine at a Restaurant, Get Help With Your Rent

Bilt Dining Rewards can help members earn points toward travel, workouts, and even rent

This bowl of pasta can help you pay your rent. Photo by Ben Lei on Unsplash

If you’re a renter in New York City (or any major city, for that matter), you’re keenly aware of how expensive it is to simply have a roof over your head.

According to Rent Hop, New York rentals average $3,300 for a studio rental to $7,495 for a 4-bedroom rental, with a median rate of $4,263. According to the 2021 U.S. Census, the average household income for New York City residents is $75,157.

If you enjoy dining out, a new program actually can help you enjoy a bowl of pasta while contributing to your rent.

Bilt Rewards’ “Bilt Dining” program recently launched in New York, allowing diners to earn “Bilt Points” and more than 1,300 New York City restaurants. These points can be used for travel, shopping, and even paying your rent.

Bilt Dining is part of Bilt Rewards, the program that rewards members for paying their rent. Bilt Dining is available only in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, and New York City for now, but expect that list to grow in the future.

The program works like most rewards programs: you sign up and connect your credit card to the Bilt Dining wallet. When you dine at a participating restaurant, you’ll receive five Bilt points on the total bill. Sign up for the Bilt Mastercard, and you’ll get three extra points (but you can use any card you like, so don’t feel pressured).

Those points can be redeemed for travel, shopping, or even rent at one of Bilt’s 2.5 million rental units that recognize the program. Amazon recognizes the program, so your next dinner at your favorite restaurant can even fund your midnight Amazon binge, and various fitness clubs like SoulCycle and Rumble accept Bilt points, so feel free to add fries to that burger (you’ll burn it off with a workout tomorrow).

The best part? Well, the participating restaurants seem to be places that you’ll actually want to dine at. New York City restaurants include Carbone, Torrisi, Blue Willow, Emmett’s, Black Ant, Fausto, Bar Tulix, the Lambs Club, and more.

In a world where everything requires you to pull out your credit card, you might as well get whatever perks you can.