Head to head · issuer terms as read 2026-08-30
Bilt Palladium vs Sapphire Reserve
Bilt Palladium charges $495 a year; Sapphire Reserve charges $795 — a $300 gap the earn rates and credits have to close. Bilt Palladium earns Bilt Points; Sapphire Reserve earns Ultimate Rewards points. Both have a cash floor we can stand behind at 1.0¢, so the receipts below compare them in the same unit.
On the published earn tables, Bilt Palladium leads on dining & restaurants, rent, mortgage & hoa, everything else; Sapphire Reserve leads on travel booked direct, travel booked through the issuer's portal. Credits, as the issuers state them, add up to $600 a year on Bilt Palladium and $2,128 on Sapphire Reserve — if you would have spent that money anyway. Monthly credits have breakage; count only the ones you'd really use.
Bilt Palladium Card
Chase Sapphire Reserve
The terms, side by side
| Bilt Palladium | Sapphire Reserve | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual fee | $495 | $795 |
| Foreign transaction fee | Foreign fee unconfirmed | No foreign fee |
| Earns | Bilt Points | Ultimate Rewards points |
| Transfers to partners | Yes | Yes · 14 on the official list |
| Credits stated | 3 · $600/yr if fully used | 12 · $2,128/yr if fully used |
| Welcome offer, as stated | 50,000 Bilt Points + Gold status after $4,000 in non-housing purchases in the first 90 days from account opening, plus $300 in Bilt Cash upon approval | Earn 100,000 points after you spend $6,000 in purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. |
Earn rates by category, as stated
| Category | Bilt Palladium | Sapphire Reserve |
|---|---|---|
| Dining & restaurants | up to 5X | 3X |
| Travel booked direct | base rate | 4X |
| Travel booked through the issuer's portal | 4X | 8X |
| Rent, mortgage & HOA | up to 1.25X | base rate |
| Everything else | 2X | 1X |
Green = the higher stated multiplier. Brand-specific, promotional and rotating rates are on each card page, not modeled here.
What each nets at sample spend
Three sample monthly budgets, every point at 1.0¢ (the Pay-with-Points floor we paid), fee subtracted, no credits counted. Estimates, not promises — your spend is the input that matters.
Run your own spendQuestions people ask
- Which has the lower annual fee, Bilt Palladium or Sapphire Reserve?
- Bilt Palladium: $495 versus $795, as stated on the issuers' pages on 2026-08-30.
- Does Bilt Palladium or Sapphire Reserve charge foreign transaction fees?
- Bilt Palladium: foreign fee unconfirmed. Sapphire Reserve: no foreign fee. Read off each issuer's page on 2026-08-30.
- Which earns more on dining?
- Bilt Palladium states up to 5X; Sapphire Reserve states 3X.
- Can I transfer points to airline and hotel partners?
- Bilt Palladium: yes. Sapphire Reserve: yes (14 partners on the official list).
- Which is better for me?
- It depends on where your spend goes. The receipts on this page use sample spend profiles at 1.0¢ per point; the Card Stack Optimizer runs your own numbers against every card we track, net of the annual fee.
- Bilt Palladium: biltrewards.com redirects to bilt.com (301); both are treated as the issuer's own domain.
- Bilt Palladium: Network name differs across fetched pages: the /card overview page's footer referenced general Mastercard licensing and the tier page (/card/palladium) explicitly states 'World Legend Mastercard' for this tier specifically (a step above the 'World Elite Mastercard' used for Blue/Obsidian) — used the tier-specific page's more precise wording.
- Bilt Palladium: Foreign transaction fee was not stated on the /card/palladium fetch (unlike Blue and Obsidian, which explicitly say 'no foreign transaction fees'); set to null rather than assume parity with the other two tiers. Note: third-party reporting (Doctor of Credit, Frequent Miler, threads.com) describes a since-acknowledged 0.2% Mastercard foreign transaction fee issue affecting all Bilt 2.0 tiers in early 2026 that Bilt called unintended and said would be refunded — this is reported by third parties, not confirmed on the fetched issuer page, so it is not used to fill the field, only noted here.
- Bilt Palladium: Overview page additionally mentions a general '4% back in Bilt Cash on everyday spend' for Palladium not explicitly restated on the tier page.
- Sapphire Reserve: Per-authorized-user fee stated on issuer page: $195 for each authorized user.
- Sapphire Reserve: Network confirmed as Visa Infinite via direct quote on issuer page: "eligible U.S. issued Chase Sapphire Reserve® Visa Infinite cards."
- Sapphire Reserve: Several credits are time-limited promotions active as of verification date (Apple subscriptions through 6/22/2027; DoorDash, StubHub, Peloton through 12/31/2027; Lyft through 9/30/2027) and may change or expire.
- Sapphire Reserve: The '$300 in DoorDash promos' credit is stated on the issuer page with a monthly cadence but the total/monthly split was not fully itemized in the fetched summary — verify exact structure against the live page before publishing a precise number.
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