How did we do for 2022? Results of FM’s predictions . . .

At the beginning of 2022, Greg, Stephen, and I made predictions about what we would see in the points and miles game in 2022. The short story is that we are far better at analyzing what happened than we are at anticipating what will happen. Still, it’s always fun to make predictions and even more fun to look back and see how we did. Which of us did best? You tell me.

Want to read our 2022 predictions in full?

As a reminder, if you want to read our 2022 predictions with full explanations, you should read the post: FM Predicts: Here’s what will happen in 2022, published in January 2022.

Stephen: A total strikeout

Stephen made my favorite set of guesses in that he didn’t go for any easy wins and he came up with some really creative ideas that managed to be both completely different than ours and yet totally plausible. Unfortunately for him, they didn’t happen.

Stephen made four predictions:

1. Aeroplan will go for a clean sweep of transferable currencies (i.e. they would become a Citi transfer partner)
2. Wyndham Rewards will introduce at least one more category level
3. Marriott Bonvoy points will be worth a fixed ~0.55-0.6cpp
4. Pay Yourself Back will be added to another Chase card

Literally none of them came true. Better luck next year, Stephen.

Final score: 0 correct predictions.

Greg swings for the fences, but . . . 

Greg fared better than Stephen, but he hit no home runs. As a reminder, Greg predicted:

1. Etihad Apartments will return with great award availability
2. Amex & Marriott will roll out the pricier new Bonvoy Brilliant card
3. Capital One will finally add Virgin Atlantic as a transfer partner
4. We’ll earn AA Executive Platinum elite status without flying
5. Chase will make Travel a Sapphire Reserve Pay Yourself Back category

Greg was almost close with #1 as Etihad confirmed a couple of weeks ago that they will bring back the A380 in 2023. But it didn’t return in 2022 — and great award availability on that remains to be seen.

Amex & Marriott did indeed roll out the pricier Bonvoy Brilliant card, much the the surprise of…..well, maybe this wasn’t the toughest of Greg’s predictions. Still, score 1 for Greg.

Capital One did indeed add Virgin Atlantic as a transfer partner. Greg is up to 2 correct predictions.

Sadly, none of us earned Executive Platinum status. We all kind of ran out of gas. I feel like I still have a fighting chance at Platinum Pro, but I don’t think any of us is likely to get to Executive Platinum (and we certainly didn’t in 2022).

Prediction #5 was that Chase would make “travel” a CSR Pay Yourself Back category. Ouch. Not only did this not happen, Chase kind of ruined Pay Yourself Back altogether and without fanfare at the tail end of 2022. This one stings so bad that I almost want to take half a point away from Greg and leave him at 1.5 correct predictions, but I’ll go ahead and let him keep his points.

Final score: 2 correct predictions

Nick: Did I beat Greg twice in one year?

Fresh off a successful run at the 2022 Frequent Miler 3 Cards 3 Continents challenge championship, I would love to take another “W” with my 2022 predictions. How did I do? You decide.

These were my predictions in reverse order from the original post:

1. Aeroplan will add full partnership with Cathay Pacific
2. Chase won’t make PYB as good on Ultimate Rewards cards as it is on the Aeroplan card
3. Bank of America will devalue Platinum Honors
4. Virgin Atlantic will become a Capital One transfer partner
5. Capital One will run the most transfer bonuses
6. Amtrak will join up with a transferable currency
7. No AA Devaluation in 2022

Prediction #1 didn’t happen.

Number 2 was clearly correct, much to Greg’s dismay. Score 1 for me.

Bank of America did not devalue Platinum Honors.

Virgin Atlantic did indeed become a Capital One transfer partner, so that +1 put me even with Greg’s score of 2 correct predictions.

Amex ran 12 transfer bonuses in a single month, so I didn’t count things up but Capital One clearly didn’t have the most.

Amtrak is still a lone wolf.

So that boils things down to #7: There would be no American Airlines devaluation in 2022. I feel like this was mostly right. The partner award chart has gone unchanged for another year: you can still fly Etihad, Qatar, Cathay Pacific, Qantas, Japan Airlines, and American’s many other partners for great values using American Airlines AAdvantage miles.

Of course, if you listened to last weekend’s podcast about our 2022 Bonvoyed awards, you may be tempted to point to the fact that I crowned AA my pick for winner of the Bonvoyed awards specifically because they had made most of their own flights completely unavailable to partners, making it impossible to book most AA awards through any program other than AA. That doesn’t quite seem like fair play.

Still, while I think that American is taking some of the fun out of loyalty programs by making it harder and harder to book their own flights with partner miles, I don’t think that really marks a devaluation to the AAdvantage program.

And so I think I get one more point here for successfully predicting that despite the crazy SimplyMiles deal and the Loyalty Points game that American Airlines wouldn’t make any changes to its award chart.

If you agree with me, that means…..

Final score: 3 correct answers

The winner is…..Nick?

The year 2022 was a close race for predictions. That said, are two or three correct predictions enough to write home about? I don’t expect that any of us will hear from any headhunters about a position as a clairvoyant any time soon (but then what are the odds that I could even predict that correctly?). At least, we won’t hear from those headhunters until we see what happens with our 2023 predictions. Speaking of which  . . . .

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