Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is happening now! Follow us as Greg, Nick, and Stephen compete to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines before November 23rd. Who will complete the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
In the past month or so there have been huge changes related to points, miles, and loyalty. Each week, Nick throws in his 2 cents about these things in his Week in Review series, but now it’s my turn. Below you’ll find a list of the big things happening, along with my quick take on each one.
- American Airlines Loyalty Points: American Airlines announced a new and simpler scheme for earning elite status in 2022 and beyond. This will make it possible to earn elite status not just through flying, but also through credit card spend and other means. My take:
- I’m surprised that other major programs haven’t already done this. Elite programs that require a combination of elite qualifying miles and elite qualifying dollars are just too complicated. Will Delta and United follow?
- Yay! We are spared from a devaluation of AA miles for another year! No devaluation yet! See the now less relevant post: Spending 580,000 AA miles, just in case of devaluation.
- Hyatt Peak & Off-Peak Awards: Hyatt has rolled out a new award chart that includes peak and off-peak pricing along with their original standard pricing. My take: While this is arguably a devaluation since we’re seeing more peak than off-peak awards, it is a very minor one. My prediction is that the real devaluation may come next year when Hyatt may re-categorize hotels (mostly) upwards. See: Hyatt Peak/Off-Peak Analysis.
- Hyatt’s award calendar: Hyatt has introduced an award calendar. My take: I was excited that Hyatt finally introduced an award calendar until I learned that it’s really just an award-price calendar. Unlike Hilton and Marriott’s calendars, Hyatt’s doesn’t show whether or not awards are available.
- Hyatt Business Card: Hyatt introduced the new World of Hyatt Business Card. My take: We were expecting so much, but got so little. In many ways the new $199 business card is not as good as the old $95 consumer card. But, for those who like to manufacture Hyatt top tier status, a good option is to use both cards. See: Manufacturing Hyatt status with the new business card.
- Marriott extends certs: Marriott has announced that expiring free night awards and suite night awards will be extended to June 30, 2022. My take: This is great news (but a little awkward for summer 2022 planning). I really hope this puts pressure on Hilton, Hyatt and IHG to extend their free night certificates again.
- Marriott free night top-offs: Marriott has announced that in early 2022 they’ll introduce the ability to add up to 15,000 points to a free night certificate to book free nights. My take: This is huge! Repeatedly I’ve found that the hotels I really want to stay at are just out of reach without this feature. When trying to use 35K or 50K certs, the places I want to stay cost 40K or 60K. In my opinion, this makes Marriott’s free night certificates far more valuable than before because they’ll give you much better access to the most desirable hotels.
- Marriott abandoning award charts: Marriott has announced that they’ll move to dynamic award pricing in March 2022. Award prices will closely align with cash rates. My take: Overall, I’m very disappointed because this will likely eliminate most opportunities to get outsized value from points. That said, I predict that this will make Marriott’s free night certificates even easier to use for solid value (especially when combined with free night top-offs). For example, if they pin Marriott point values at 0.6 cents each then we should be able to count on 35K free night certificates delivering about $210 in value.
- Marriott credit card offers: Amex’s enhanced Marriott credit card offers are scheduled to expire November 3rd. Each of these offers come with both free night certificates and points. My take: Since I am more bullish on Marriott certificates than before (see above), I think that these offers are more worthwhile than ever.
- Hilton 72 hour upgrade confirmation: Hilton has announced that they will start automatically processing Gold and Diamond elite upgrades up to 72 hours in advance. My take: Those who like sweet talking desk agents to get upgrades may be out of luck, but I love the idea of avoiding that conversation altogether and knowing what to expect in advance.
- Citi transfers to Choice 1 to 2: Citi now offers Premier and Prestige cardholders the ability to transfer ThankYou points 1 to 2 to Choice Privileges. My take: This is huge! I love this. Choice has many hidden gem award options which are made so much sweeter when they cost half as many Citi points. For example, Nordic Choice hotels which usually cost 16K Choice points per night, will cost only 8,000 Citi points per night! I’ve only just started digging into the possibilities in these posts: Choice’s Ascend Collection Gems, The worlds best Preferred Hotels bookable with Choice points, Preferred Hotels & Resorts via Choice: Value unlocked. Frustration assured.
- Citi transfers to AA: Citi is offering point transfers from ThankYou Rewards to American Airlines through November 13th, 2021. My take: American Airlines has some fantastic award sweet spots (especially with international business class awards on partner airlines) and so this was a great development. The big question is whether this will extend past November 13th? My guess (and it’s just a guess!) is that the option will go away, but return sometime in 2022.
- Capital One 1 to 1 transfers: Capital One has finally joined Amex, Chase, and Citi in offering 1 to 1 transfers to almost all of their transfer partners! My take: This makes Capital One a serious contender for best transferable points currency.
- Bilt Rewards: Bilt Rewards is a loyalty program and credit card that makes it possible to earn rewards, with no extra fees, when paying rent. In September, they already announced positive changes to their new program. My take: With no fees, I think that Bilt is an obvious choice for anyone who pays rent (why not?). And I love that they offer up some of the best transfer partners around: Hyatt, AA, Turkish, and more. The Hyatt option alone makes me bullish on Bilt.
- X1 Card: The new X1 Card is (very slowly) rolling out to customers. It offers 2x rewards base, 3x rewards for those who spend $15K per year, and 4x rewards after referrals. My take: With points worth 1 cent each towards many types of spend (including all major U.S. airlines, Airbnb, and more), this looks like a great option for anyone who will easily spend $15K per year. A cool fee-free combo would be to use Bilt (above) to pay rent and for spend within its bonus categories (3x dining, 2x travel) and use X1 everywhere else.
- BOA Elite Visa Infinite card: Information has leaked that Bank of America is unveiling an ultra-premium $550 card on November 22. My take: We’ll do a full review if/when this becomes real. My quick reaction is that most people would be better off with the $95 Premium Rewards card or the fee-free Unlimited Cash Rewards card.
- New BOA Preferred Rewards Tiers: Bank of America has sent out fliers saying that they are adding new tiers to their Platinum Honors program. My take: Currently, BOA offers a 75% bump in rewards for many of their cards for those with $100K in assets with BOA, Merrill Edge, and/or Merrill Lynch. This makes their credit cards among the most highly rewarding around. It looks like BOA will be adding new much higher tiers beyond $100K. If they do this without devaluing the $100K tier, that would be great. My guess, though, is that we’ll need a million dollars in the BOA ecosystem in order to maintain that 75% bump. If true, that will be very bad news for many. It looks like we’ll learn more on or after November 12th.
- Amex increases Platinum fees and justifies with “coupons”. Amex has increased their consumer card annual fees to $695 and will soon do the same for their business cards. In exchange, they’ve added many more rebate opportunities (see our Platinum Complete Guide for details). My take: I don’t like it, but I’m not surprised. Amex has doubled down on “sponsored perks” (see: The Platinum Age of Sponsored Perks). The weird thing is that they now offer Walmart+ credits with their consumer Platinum cards. That just doesn’t fit the elite image that they’ve long tried to convey for their Platinum cards.
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
I received a bonus spend of 80K Citi Thank You Points with the intent of transferring them in November to AA. Given the new “Loyalty” program, should I still transfer the points?
I believe that the changes that AA made mean that they’re likely to keep their miles just as valuable as they are today for another year at least. So, if it made sense before to transfer your Citi points to AA, it probably makes even more sense now. That said, Citi has other useful transfer partners and if you transfer now you’ll lock yourself out of the other options.
More Stephen Pepper please….he save me money every day!
I’m going to be quite upset in the BOA tiers change which they almost certainly will for the worse. Nothing gets better with this types of things. I think it may be something like 50% with 100k and 75% with 250k and 100% with a million. Lots of people will be leaving Merrill Edge with this changes as it isn’t really a preferred brokerage. Not sure I want to tie up 250k at ME if it’s that high just to keep my same return. Really going to be disappointing.
My guess is it would be mutual (not being snark, just guessing they wouldn’t mind weeding out the few playing the program)
Is there a credit card that gives rewards for mortgage payments instead of rent?
Not that I know of, no. Bilt might add that option someday, but for now they only do rent. An alternative is to pay mortgage through Plastiq with a Mastercard, but the 2.85% fee wipes out the value of the rewards in most cases.
Greg,
I am also hoping that Hilton, Marriott’s direct competitor, also extends if Free Night Certificates!
Added. For some reason I had in mind that Hilton had already extended their certs, but I guess not!
still hoping the B of A Elite card has a card 100k SUB, for obvious reasons : )
On the Citi points transfer page, it no longer has an end date listed. Is it possible it has become a permanent feature?
IIR, it never did show the end date on that page. You have to click through to the terms & conditions to see the end date. I checked over the weekend and the end date was still there.
Hi Greg, I like these bite size reviews. Keep them coming.
PS if this was right before Halloween, you could have named them “fun size reviews” 🙂
LOL
Re: Amex offering Walmart+ credits with their consumer Platinum cards.
It’s been reported that Amex is changing course and seeking to sign up lower-income individuals, so this isn’t totally expected.
To me when you pair the Marriott Dynamic Pricing with the set value of current certs at 25k or 35k they are forced to have the ability to add points to free nights as an “out” on those. They will be so devalued or lack the ability to outsize the value that they think that will be a way to keep people from screaming about how bad they have become. I think this could bite them long term when people start cancelling credit cards that feature annual free nights unless they make that perk more valuable and not set at say 35k.