This is the moment you’ve been waiting for! On last week’s Frequent Miler on the Air, we announced our picks for the 2025 Bonvoyed Awards. Now it’s your turn. In the poll below, you can give your take on the most important award of all: the readers’ choice winner for loyalty Grinch of the year.
Read through the nominees and then vote for the loyalty program that you think was the most disloyal to its customers in 2025 – the program that Scrooged us so much that they out-Bonvoyed Marriott.
Who do you think deserves the nod for the People’s Choice 2025 Bonvoyed Award?
2025 Disloyalty Nominees…
- Airline & Hotel programs
- ANA ends Round The World awards
- British Airways devalues Avios
- Emirates makes multiple customer-unfriendly changes:
- Restricts first class awards to elite members
- Hikes surcharges on flights between US to Europe, and US and Colombia.
- Causes transferable points programs to reduce transfer ratios or drop them altogether: Amex, Capital One, Chase
- IHG limits free point transfers
- Hilton increases award prices. Top standard room point price now 250,000 per night.
- Marriott abruptly dumps Sonder – guests being chucked out of properties the next day
- Southwest changes from “People First” to “Profits First”: charges for checked bags, decreases point earnings, adds customer unfriendly expirations on travel credits, increases credit card annual fees.
- Turkish kills the Hawaii sweet-spot award.
- Wyndham splits with Vacasa. No more booking Vacasa vacation rentals with Wyndham points.
- Credit cards
- Amex reduces transfer ratio to Cathay Pacific. Is this signaling a trend?
- Amex restricts Business Platinum 35% points rebate to selected airline only
- Capital One eliminates Venture X free lounge guests and adds fee for authorized user lounge access.
- Chase complex-ifies, coupon-ifies, and cost-ifies the Sapphire Reserve card. Chase increased the annual fee, eliminated 3x for all travel, eliminated 1.5 cent per point redemptions via Chase Travel℠, added piles of coupons, and more.
- Chase ends The Edit’s guaranteed 2 cents per point value.
- Chase stops the Ink train (adds lifetime language to Ink cards)
- Chase eliminates Priority Pass unlimited guests for Ritz cardholders
- Citi botches Strata Elite rollout. New cardholders locked out of their accounts.
- Mesa abruptly shuts down all card accounts.
- US Bank nerfs Altitude Reserve.
- US Bank nerfs Smartly card less than 1 year after launch
Reader Dis-Loyalty Picks…
Drumroll please… The 2025 People’s Choice Bonvoyed award goes to… Please pick your choice below.
Loading ...Greg & Nick’s Picks
On the 2025 Bonvoyed Awards Podcast, the winners were as follows:
Nick’s pick: Southwest changes from “People First” to “Profits First”
Greg’s pick: Chase complex-ifies, coupon-ifies, and cost-ifies the Sapphire Reserve card
Past Winners
2024 Bonvoyed Awards
- Nick’s pick: Hyatt breaks our hearts with Mr & Mrs Smith
- Greg’s pick: Hyatt breaks our hearts with Mr & Mrs Smith
- Reader’s Choice: Hyatt breaks our hearts with Mr & Mrs Smith
2023 Bonvoyed Awards
- Nick’s pick: Aeroplan’s Etihad alliance goes astray
- Greg’s pick: Hotels.com becomes 5x less rewarding
- Reader’s Choice: Amex family rules limit access to points parade
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Biggest impact to me immediately was Hiltons’s absurd increase on their aspirational properties. I still gave the vote to Chase ending the Ink train as I think this will have the biggest long term pain on avid churners. I try to not fly Southwest, but if I did, that would probably be top. The Reserve debacle should be an embarrassment to Chase, but I never used it much for charges and it’s an easy downgrade to the Sapphire Preferred and ignore until Chase gets its act together.
Is this the most bonvey in a single year? Or has there been a worse year in the points and miles game? Maybe a good coffee break to reminisce of years gone by to help us put things in perspective.
I enjoyed many a (coach) flight from the west coast to London on Virgin. The miles were practically free and the surcharges were nominal. Now the miles may still be low but the surcharges ($300+ in coach!) total kill the value! Why wasn’t it among your choices? HT to Greg on the transfer recommendation from Wyndham to United once they trashed their value play with Vacasa.
Although the ink train derailing hurts more, it was bound to happen, was crazy it lasted that long. The CSR refresh (including the Edit “psyche!” makes sense to me since that’s part of it), is such an own goal. Don’t try to out-Amex Amex, Chase…you’ll never win that game.
Before I vote and see the results, I’m going to say it’s a close race to the bottom between Southwest and the fall of the CSR.