The Piñata App Rewards You for Paying Your Rent on Time

Paying rent is a drag. It’s your biggest bill of the month, and it’s absolutely unavoidable. Month after month, rent day comes around and takes a big chunk of your bank account.

And the worst part? You get nothing back. If you spend money on a hotel room or a plane ticket, you get perks and rewards. Same thing with a lot of credit cards. Restaurant chains do it too.

No rewards for rent, though — not even a boost to your credit score for paying on time — until now. A new, free app called Piñata will reward you for paying your rent on time.

When you pay on time, Piñata rewards you with gift cards, cash and exclusive deals and member perks. Between all the deals, discounts and rewards, you could save up to $4,500 a year.

If you sign up now, you’ll get a welcome gift, including $30 to spend at local businesses.

How to Earn Rewards and Build Credit Just for Paying Rent

On rent day, Piñata will ping your phone and ask if you’ve paid rent. When you say yes, you earn “Piñata cash” that you can redeem for gift cards or even cash. You can also have your rent payment reported to the credit bureaus and get a credit boost for the biggest bill you’re paying every month.

The app is available to all renters in the U.S., whether or not their landlords or property managers are participating. If your landlord isn’t participating, you’ll just need to provide your rent information, like the amount and due date.

Piñata is coming along at just the right time, because housing costs are a crisis these days. According to the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard, a record 11.4 million Americans are spending more than 50% of their income on rent.

Think of Piñata as a link between landlords, property managers and renters. It’s like a loyalty program for property owners, encouraging tenants to pay their rent in full and on time.

It takes just a few minutes to download the app and sign up, and you can finally start getting rewarded for your biggest monthly expense.

Mike Brassfield ([email protected]) is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder. He was a renter for many many years, and never once got rewarded because the Piñata app didn’t exist yet.

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