Frequent Miler’s 2024 Predictions for Points, Miles and Travel

Before going further, it should be noted that we’re not always terribly good at this. As proof, look no further than our predictions for 2023. Let’s just say that Nostradamus isn’t losing any sleep (especially since he’s dead).

However, we’re an optimistic bunch here at Frequent Miler. Just like Charlie Brown, we’re always willing to line up and take another swing. This year, Carrie’s also joining the fun and, being the smartest one of the bunch, will be making predictions about each of the other Frequent Miler team members instead of just holding her thumb out to gauge the fickle winds of points and miles.

We’re bold, we’re audacious and we’re probably not going to prove ourselves right. Regardless, here’s our sure thing predictions for points, miles and travel in 2024.

Greg’s Predictions

Amex will refresh, couponize, and reprice the Business Green card

Judges, I’d like to double down on this one. In recent years Amex has updated their personal and business Platinum cards, their personal and business Gold cards, and their personal Green card. The Business Green card, meanwhile, has been sitting out in a field somewhere all alone, untouched and unloved. It’s entire reason to exist in its current state is simply to have a cheap (currently $95 per year) downgrade option from a Business Platinum or Business Gold card.

I predict that Amex will increase the annual fee, add coupon-like credits, and maybe even add a feature or two that actually makes the card worth considering for some. I doubt this will become a must-have card for many, but it will be better than today’s Business Green card which seriously has nothing going for it.

Chase to make Ink Premier a real Ink card

I predicted this in 2023, but was mostly wrong (there was a very brief period where transfers via phone were possible, but Nick gave me no credit for it). Now I’m going to try this again…

In 2022, Chase introduced a new Ink Business card: Ink Business Premier.  At first glance, the card is fantastic. It earns 2 Ultimate Rewards points for all spend, and 2.5 points per dollar for purchases of $5,000 or more. But there’s one huge problem. Unlike the Ink Business Preferred card, Ink Premier points can’t be transferred to airline and hotel partners or used for extra value towards travel. And unlike the Ink Business Cash and Ink Business Unlimited cards, Ink Premier points can’t be moved to other cards to make the points more valuable.

Each year I throw in at least one prediction that’s really more of a wishful thinking than a real prediction. This is that. My prediction wish is that Chase will allow points to be moved from the Business Premier card to other cards that earn Ultimate Rewards points…. or allow point transfers to airlines and hotel partners. With either little adjustment, the Business Premier will become very interesting.

Alaska’s Hawaiian Air purchase won’t be challenged

The Justice Department has been working overtime challenging JetBlue-related partnerships (AA) and purchases (Spirit). Based on past behavior, the smart money is on them doing the same with Alaska’s purchase of Hawaiian Airlines. But, who needs smart money? I’m predicting the opposite. The DOJ has its hands and feet full with more important matters. I predict that they’ll look at this deal and shrug their shoulders and move on. These are two regional-ish airlines in which the merger shouldn’t cause major ripples in the time-space-airfare continuum.

Choice will crack open the 100 day window

Choice’s rewards program can offer great value whether for booking partner stays through Preferred Hotels, or more directly with Ascend Collection hotels, Strawberry Hotels (previously Nordic Choice), Cambria hotels, etc. The single biggest and most irksome problem with Choice Privileges, though, is the 100 day window. You can’t book an award stay more than 100 days into the future. I predict that Choice will crack open that window… somehow. Maybe they’ll extend the window for everyone. More likely, maybe they’ll extend the window for elite members. We’ll see! And we’ll hope.

Finnair will be added as a transfer partner to at least one more program

This one is a slam dunk. Currently only Capital One offers transfers to Finnair, but with Finnair adopting Avios as their rewards currency (currently scheduled for March 2024), I predict that others like Amex and maybe Chase will join the party.

Carrie’s Predictions

Greg will get corrected every time he says “Qatar”

Our keyword data can be pretty surprising. Last year for example “Qatar pronunciation” beat out “frequentmiler” as one of our top keywords…which is very uncommon. (Most websites will find that variations of their site name are the top keywords for their site. (Poor 7-eleven for example probably has their top 5 keyword slots filled with name variations).  This weird little fun fact (and our own curiosity) motivated Greg to try and learn the proper pronunciation from Qataris themselves when he visited last year. Despite his genuine efforts to pronounce “Qatar” properly…I predict that he will still get corrected by someone every time he says “Qatar”.

Nick will lose this year’s annual challenge

My prediction is that, for the first time in 3 years, Nick’s going to lose the annual challenge. He’s put himself in a bit of a pickle where readers are so used to him shocking them with his annual challenge antics that I think at this point it would take a private dinner with the Pope to surprise us. (My back up prediction is that he will actually arrange dinner with the Pope, and will secure another annual challenge win.)

Tim will win this year’s annual challenge

I think Tim will score the annual challenge win this year. With us likely going back to individual travels instead of a full group trip, he won’t have that pesky requirement of making sure his boss doesn’t starve as he travels, which will open up a world of possibilities for securing an annual challenge win.

Stephen will *gasp* settle down

Stephen and his wife and pup will finish their 50-state road trip and pick a place to settle in and plant roots! Not only do they have a new, exciting project in the works, they’re also getting that itch to wrap up this chapter of nomadic life. With only ~9 states left, I think they’ll have a new, stationary home in mind by this time next year.

Stephen’s Predictions

Airline loyalty programs will consolidate

I made a similar prediction last year and some believe I was unfairly denied a point. I’m making a similar prediction for 2024, but will add the caveat that there’ll at least be an announcement that this’ll be happening, even if the implementation of it won’t happen until 2025.

I’m not going to make any firm predictions as to which airlines will join which programs, but likely candidates (IMO) include Royal Jordanian or Oman Air joining Avios or SAS joining Flying Blue following Air France/KLM’s 20% investment and the fact that SAS will also be joining SkyTeam.

Choice Privileges revamp

Now that Choice has integrated Radisson Rewards Americas properties into their portfolio, I wouldn’t be surprised if their next step will be for them to revamp their loyalty program. I wouldn’t have high hopes about them introducing anything groundbreaking, but they will hopefully introduce more worthwhile elite status benefits and – perhaps most importantly – will let you book award stays more than 100 days out.

This would take a bit of time to implement, so my prediction is that we’ll get an announcement – and some limited details – of the revamp in 2024, with the changes to actually take place in 2025.

Wells Fargo co-branded credit card

In 2023 Wells Fargo added the Choice Hotels and Bilt credit cards to their lineup. In 2024 I’m predicting that they’ll add at least one more co-branded card to their portfolio.

New Amex airline fee credit option

At some point in the last year or so Amex removed Frontier as being an eligible choice for redeeming your airline fee credits. I have no reason to think anything will change, but despite that I’m predicting that they’ll add a different airline as an option for this credit.

A return of Frontier is a possibility, but also possibly something like Breeze or Avelo. Given Breeze’s dire financial straits, I can imagine Amex being able to negotiate a decent deal on their side.

Amex Gold dining benefit changes

American Express seems to enjoy making changes to the benefits it offers on its cards. Back in June 2022 they made some adjustments to the eligible restaurants and services where you can use the $10 monthly dining credit and I’m predicting that there’ll be a further change to that lineup in 2024. Nothing major, just one or two restaurants added or removed.

Tim’s Predictions

Alaska and Hawaiian will be allowed to merge

In one of 2024’s most surprising moves, Alaska Airlines has announced that it plans to acquire Hawaiian Airlines. The airlines expect the merger to take between 12-18 months, depending on how the Biden Administration feels about the consolidation. The government hasn’t been a big fan of either the JetBlue/Spirit merger or American’s attempted alliance with JetBlue and has contested both vigorously through the legal system. I think Alaska/Hawaiian will be different and will sail through with relative ease.

The two airlines overlap on 43% of Hawaiian’s mainland – Hawai’i routes and neither currently controls the most seats to/from the islands (that’s United). After the merger, the combined carrier would control only about 50% the of mainland-Hawai’i market. That sounds like a lot, but compare it to other airlines that actually maintain hub captives: Delta has a ~75% market share in Atlanta; AA controls a ~90% share in Charlotte and an ~85% chunk of DFW. United has almost a 70% market share in Newark and in Washington-Dulles. There’s really no risk of market dominance here and the two airlines when combined will still be small compared to the big four. The Biden administration has bigger fish to fry this year and Alaska/Hawaiian won’t be in the pan.

The Amex Hilton cards won’t become part of the family (rules)

There was a blight that swept the country in 2023, affecting credit card holders far and wide: Amex “family rules.” It started with “once in a family” language being suddenly added to various flavors of the Platinum cards, then spread to the Delta credit cards, the consumer Gold card, and even to cash back cards. The latest casualty is the Marriott Bonvoy Bevy card.

This rapid advance led Nick to question which cards would be next, with Hilton at the top of the list. I’m skeptical. Amex is clearly trying to encourage folks to trade up into, and keep, more expensive cards while discouraging downgrading. This fits hand-in-glove with Delta’s stated long-term strategy, as well as Marriott’s way of managing cardholders with its labyrinthine eligibility “flow” chart. Hilton is different. It already provides top-tier status via the Aspire card without spending and makes a ton off of its two lower-tier cards…both of which have a path to spending towards higher status. Hilton would have to sign-off on any new family rules and, in contrast to Delta and Marriott, I don’t think it makes sense.

The distance between Wells Fargo and Bilt transfer partners will be a kitten whisker

Wells Fargo has historically been a minor player in the points and miles universe, primarily due to its lack of cobranded cards or a currency that transfers to travel partners…until it got behind the Bilt card. When that was announced, many of us predicted that Wells would eventually use Bilt’s existing relationships to saunter into the world of transfer partners itself.

Over the last half of the year, Wells Fargo has been telling cardholders (via monthly statements) that the ability to transfer to partners would be added in some fashion to its points-earning cards. Originally, it said that this would occur on November 15th, then December 10th, then “sometime in 2024.” We still don’t know which partners will be added or what the transfer ratios will be, but the bank recently filed trademarks for two new Autograph cards and even briefly made an initial welcome offer and earning details public for one of them. Everyone thinks Wells will add transfer partners this year, but I’ll go a step further and say that it will bear a striking similarity to Bilt’s industry-leading portfolio of partners…let’s say 70-80% by the end of the year (12 or 13/17). If that happens, Wells Fargo could end up being a points and miles star in 2024.

Hyatt will finally make it possible to transfer points online (bold prediction)

Ok, going out to the very edge of the limb here. Everyone at FM likes Hyatt. A lot. We like that it still has a (good value) award chart, best-in-class top-tier elite benefits and is a 1-1 transfer partner with Chase Ultimate Rewards (and less consequentially, Bilt).

Hyatt recently made some changes to their elite program. While these were quite positive overall, the most irritating facet of its program still remains: an archaic process for transferring points from one member to another. It’s possible to do it, but requires a downloaded form, a fax machine, a notary public and a wax seal on the back of an envelope that’s sent by carrier pigeon…or something like that. In the year two thousand twenty-four, it seems like there should be an easy button to click that sends my electronic points to another person’s online account…sort of like the instant transfers from Ultimate Rewards to Hyatt! This is the year. Hyatt, I believe.

Bonus: Carrie will have one of FM’s top ten posts of the year in 2024.

Many old-school point and milers know Carrie Yoder (FM’s Creative Director) from “Travel is Free,” the excellent blog that she and her husband used to run. Drew was the primary author, while Carrie’s role was primarily creative/graphic. But folks who followed the site will remember that she also wrote as well…and was great. She’s been writing more for FM over the last couple years, showing off both a unique perspective on travel and terrific writing chops. This year, we’re lucky to have twice as much Yoder as we did previously and my hope is that will come with more posts as well. My prediction is that, this time next year, we’ll look back and see that one of her posts is among our top 10 of the year.

Nick’s predictions

Chase will add a transfer partner

Chase’s slate of transfer partners has been losing its luster over the past few years as it has been surpassed by Capital One and Bilt Rewards (I’ve long found it lacking compared to Amex). Even Citi fans can make an argument for gaining ground with the addition there of Leading Hotels of the World. Avianca LifeMiles seems like a likely candidate given that they now partner with everyone else and they sell miles cheaply enough directly to consumers, but whether Avianca or someone else I feel like Chase needs a new partner.

Alaska Mileage Plan will become an unofficial transfer partner

This prediction probably seems like low-hanging fruit, but this rides on Alaska’s purchase of Hawaiian going through and Hawaiian remaining partners with transferrable currencies after adopting the Mileage Plan plan. I actually don’t think that the adoption of Mileage Plan will come in 2024, but I’m predicting here that we’ll know during 2024 whether this is going to be possible. When I thought about this merger more, I realized that one of the hidden benefits for Alaska will be the ability to effectively sell miles to Amex and Bilt without stepping out on partner Bank of America, with whom they renewed an agreement for years to come. Given that airlines like American make more money by selling miles to banks than flying customers, I imagine that Alaska wouldn’t mind having its cake and eating it too in terms of having an “exclusive” agreement with Bank of America while leveraging Hawaiian’s existing partnerships.

Virgin Atlantic will devalue Delta awards to Europe

Let me be clear: I hope we don’t see this happen. However, I think the time has come that Virgin will finally hike up the cost of business class awards to Europe on Delta. We’ve seen them devalue all of Delta’s other routes over the past couple of years. We even briefly saw Virgin Atlantic devalue the awards to Europe as well before walking that back. At this point, Virgin has let enough time pass and set the expectation that Delta awards are going to be more expensive — I think they’ll take this one away in the new year. While I’ll be disappointed, I’ll only be moderately disappointed since it is has become so difficult to find availability on Delta anyway.

Delta is going to make elite status harder to get for 2025

This is my “gimme” prediction: After announcing that they would make it far more difficult to get status and then walking it back to make status laughably easy to get, I think that Delta is going to swing the pendulum back the other way. My bet is that they won’t allow the stacking of head starts, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they also or instead announce the increase the thresholds for earning status in 2025 by the end of 2024.

What do you think?

Which of our predictions do you think we got right?  Which of us will come out in the worst shape when we publish the end-of-year retrospective on our predictions at the end of 2024?

Even better, what do you expect in the miles and points game in 2024?

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