Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
Every year, the Frequent Miler team makes predictions about what we think will happen in the points-and-miles-verse in the coming year. None of us has a functioning crystal ball, but it is nonetheless good fun to make guesses about what we think we might see happen in the year to come. As we wind down 2023, let’s take a look back at our predictions and see which of us scored the most points by forecasting the future of miles and points.
Where to find our full 2023 predictions
We always post our predictions at the beginning of the year, so you can find our 2023 predictions in this post: FM Predicts: Here’s what will happen in 2023…
Below you’ll find a bulleted summary of each team member’s predictions along with my recap / analysis / scoring in bold.
Greg
- Chase to make Ink Premier a real Ink card: Nope. You still can’t transfer these points to partners (though for a hot minute some people did).
- Hilton Aspire annual fee will increase: Yes! Greg said that this prediction was “practically a gimme”, and sure enough Amex gave it to him. Still, he didn’t predict that changes to the card benefits might make it just as good.
- Amex will make their business checking bonus even bigger. Nope.
- Choice will announce end of Radisson Rewards Americas Yes! Radisson Rewards Americas met its demise in 2023. However, Greg explicitly predicted that the merger would only be announced in 2023 (wrong) and wouldn’t happen until 2024 (wrong) and that points would convert 1:1 (wrong). I’m going to be generous and give him half credit.
- Delta will make Diamond status worth pursuing again. No, but yes? Greg’s intent here was that Delta would add benefits and that definitely didn’t happen. On the flip side, they did make it worth pursuing status via credit cards and they made it easier than ever to earn or roll over in 2024. Half credit?
- Bonus Prediction: Hyatt’s category 1-7 awards will become more expansive (probably not until 2024). This isn’t happening, though Hyatt is introducing an “Ultimate” Free Night Award in 2024 that is essentially what this idea was. Unfortunately, Cat 1-7 awards aren’t becoming more expansive, they just added a new kind of award that requires 150 elite nights to earn. Still, I’ll give half credit here.
I’ll give Greg a total of 2.5 points given three half-credit predictions — and despite the optics, that’s actually not half bad.
Nick
- Virgin Atlantic will devalue Delta awards to Europe. Not yet, but I think we just got saved by the bell when Virgin Atlantic recently increased redemption rates on many Delta awards. This is coming eventually.
- United will make partner awards more dynamically priced. United certainly did increase partner award rates on many popular route combinations, but they didn’t go fully dynamic on partner awards. No dice here.
- Aeroplan will reach 50 airline partners. So close, yet so far. Aeroplan ends the year at 47 partners with which you can redeem your miles…if you count Etihad, which is a stretch. They do have more than 50 total airline partners, not yet 50 redemption partners.
- Capital One will not increase the annual fee or decrease the $300 travel credit on the Venture X card.
Boom! One point for me. Granted, this may have been a gimme because it was a prediction about what wouldn’t happen rather than what would happen, but nonetheless I’m glad to see this card continue to be a great value. As Mantis points out in the comments, while Capital One did not decrease the travel credit, I had forgotten that they devalued it when they began applying it during the booking process as a discount rather than afterwards as a credit. You no longer earn 10x on that $300 in spend and now if you cancel after the credit has expired (for example, if you use the credit now for a trip that happens next year after the credit would have expired), you lose the credit. I still managed to use mine within 7 days of the credit coming available after anniversary this year (on economy class flights within Europe), but the change here is obviously far more restrictive. I’m going to give myself half a point here because they did not increase the fee or decrease the dollar amount of the credit, but I can’t get a full point since the value of the credit effectively dropped for many people. - Radisson Americas points will become Choice Privileges points with a 1:1 conversion. Swing and a miss. Radisson points converted at 2:1.
- The Amex points parade will get an “Everyday” float. Much to my surprise, Amex continued to totally ignore the Everyday cards in 2023. I guess Amex must be seeing much better performance from their Platinum and Gold cards and they just can’t be bothered with their traditional credit cards.
Well, I got one gimme….and only halfway….to finish with just half a point. Ouch.
Stephen
- Airline loyalty programs will consolidate. Stephen would almost pull out a win here since Finnair is joining Avios, but that’s not happening until 2024. Then there’s the fact that Alaska is trying to buy Hawaiian, but that hasn’t happened yet. No dice here, Stephen.
- IHG will announce they’ll do away with Ambassador and/or Inner Circle status. I’m surprised that Stephen didn’t get this one right. At this point, I don’t really understand what Ambassador or Inner Circle are or what the value is in having a loyalty program within a loyalty program centered on one of a bajillion brands in your portfolio. I guess IHG sees things differently, because neither of these have gone away.
- Radisson points won’t convert to Choice on a 1:1 basis. I’m going to give Stephen a point here despite the fact that he hedged all over the place and within a single paragraph managed to guess that points would convert at 1.5:1, then maybe at 2:1 and possibly at 1:1. Ultimately, he’s right that they didn’t transfer 1:1.
- Choice will run a Radisson brand-specific promotion. If they did this, I didn’t notice. Then again, I wasn’t more glued to the opportunity to stay at Radisson brands after the merger than I was before, so maybe I missed something?
- Bilt will add another transfer partner. Bingo! Bilt added both Marriott and Avianca LifeMiles in just the past couple of months.
- Marriott Bonvoy points will be worth a fixed ~0.55-0.6cpp. Sorry, Stephen. I am typing this post while en route to a Marriott where I’m getting 1.18c per point tonight against the best cash rate I can find.
- Airbnb will launch a loyalty program or credit card. Frankly, when I saw this prediction, I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of it and why it hadn’t happened before. I’m really surprised that the folks behind Airbnb haven’t worked out the numbers to run a loyalty program and sell points to banks. Unfortunately for Stephen they haven’t.
- Barclays will relaunch the Arrival Plus card or launch a new transferable currency card. Nope. I still have no idea why Barclays added transfer partners. Stephen’s guess here was entirely reasonable, but Barclays is weird.
- Delta will add another useful partnership. Not unless you want to count the way they partnered with Alaska and JetBlue to give their members a reason to jump ship on Delta? Sorry, Stephen.
- Something will go awry with at least one crypto debit card. Did this happen? It looks like the Coinbase card Stephen references is still going strong — and with Bitcoin up about 160% year to date, I’m thinking it was a relatively good year to be in crypto.
Unless there’s something I’m forgetting, I think Stephen got 2 predictions correct this year — otherwise known as four times as many as I guessed correctly.
Tim 
- Citi will “venture” back into premium cards. Citi lives to disappoint on this prediction. Despite rumors teasing an ultra-premium Citi card for years, it hasn’t happened. I should have predicted that this wouldn’t happen because I’ve been confident for years that Citi just isn’t interested in the premium card market.
- The Office Depot/Office Max/Staples 5x train will be partially derailed. Well, Tim’s not really wrong here. We’ve definitely seen the limit of 5 a number of times. That said, either it’s been inconsistent or most stores I frequent just don’t know about the 5-card limit, so how far derailed your train has gone is likely regional. Before you argue that Tim only deserves half credit given the fact that this really started last year and may not universal, I’ll add that limits on swipes at grocery stores have been a contributing factor to the derailment for many, so I think Tim gets full credit here.
- We’ll continue to see massive credit card bonuses…for the first half of the year. I could see someone making the argument for this if you compare the wide prevalence of no lifetime language cards at the beginning of the year, but I’m not really sure whether those have dried up or those of us who were taking advantage of so many of them finally hit the wall. We’ve still seen a really generous 90K Ink offer all the way to the end of the year and some were still getting targeted for big Business Gold and Business Platinum offers in the back half of the year. Sorry, Tim — I don’t think this slowed down the way you thought it would.
- Marriott will devalue, but it won’t be as bad as we fear. The Marriott devaluation certainly wasn’t as bad as we feared, Tim was spot on here. Sure, some of the top-end places became essentially untouchable with points, but the old award chart is kinda still kicking around for most places.
- Bonus Prediction: The over/under on the number of free cruises that Nick will take in 2023 is two. And I’ll take the over. Royal Caribbean in February, MSC in July, and Holland America in August = winner, winner, chicken dinner! The over hit.
In Tim’s inaugural full-time year, he managed to outpoint the rest of us to the future with three points! Congratulations, Tim!
Overall, none of us have endangered the jobs of your favorite local fortune tellers, but Tim definitely proved to have the strongest connection to the future to start 2023. In a few days, we’ll publish our predictions for what to look out for in 2024 — here’s hoping somebody can crack four for ’24.
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I think the Barclays prediction isn’t bad. He meant Wells Fargo! Half point.
Great post Nick! Quick question, is there anyway to get some extra points paying off the balance due on a Carnival cruise? The only thing is I need to use my Alaska airlines business card in order to get enough spend to get the 50k bonus miles. The only things I found are Raise and Card Cash at 5% and 3% respectively. I know you’ve been on some cruises, is there another way to get more points/discounts? Thanks!
AARP Rewards sells them for 10% off https://www.aarp.org/rewards/redeem/#sort-by=default
You have to be a member, but you can join AARP at any age and it’s only $12 for the first year, or even less if you click through from a shopping portal. There’s also sometimes an AARP Chase Offer giving $8 back.
For 2024:
– Delta Reserve cards will follow the lead of the Citi AA Executive Card with 10X on its hotel and rental car portal. (Are we becoming aroused?)
– Delta will adopt the first in a new series of annual incremental lounge access restrictions.
– Another airline will adopt Avios as its loyalty program currency.
– British Airways will (finally) afford earning tier points via credit card spending. (Think OW status.)
– Wells Fargo’s awards program will be a private-label implementation of Bilt Rewards.
Hasn’t delta already started that? With 15 visits on reserve and 10 on amex plat, restrictions for basic fares, and restrictions on who can purchase lounge membership? Or since these start Q1 of 2025 we’re not counting these? I’m excited to see what happens with WF transfer partners, IF they add hyatt, aa, and ua at 1:1 I’d be very interested, though I’ll believe it when I see it.
Regarding Delta’s lounges, I’m suggesting that the slated changes will be the first in a string of annual changes that incrementally restrict access. Delta’s CEO publicly stated that the initial (disastrous) changes were where they ultimately wanted to be. He also publicly stated that they realized ripping the band-aid off was the wrong approach. My sense is that Delta still has the original changes in mind but it will take a gradual approach.
I thought that in reference to where they ultimately want to be was the thresholds of MQD’s needed for status and less to do with lounges.
Unfair to Stephen Pepper! Those loyalty program consolidations should count. Announcements that fulfill predictions should count even if the implementation is delayed into the next year.
Agree! That’s a bold guess and it’s one that can’t be made now for 2024 because they have been announced. Mergers and consolidations take time to implement. If he had just said loyalty programs will “announce consolidations” he would have been right. This at the very least should be half credit.
Have to agree Delta also add El Al partnership and on that same note since credit was given becaise “its not happening til 2024 -the same could be said for the Aspire AF – doesn’t start till 2/2024.
El Al expands flight options to Africa/Asia as a code sharing partner.
I hate to throw shade at Tim (we all love Tim!), but I believe his OD/OM/Staples train derailment prediction was based on the fact that we saw a couple of Staples VGC limits of 5 @ $100 in late 2022:
https://frequentmiler.com/staples-visa-gift-card-promotion-fee-free-100-visa-gift-cards/
Throughout 2023, it seems OD/OM/Staples had just as many $15 off of $300 and 8 @ $200 promos as we saw in 2022. Also, my 2023 liquidation techniques were unchanged from 2022.
While I’m extremely happy that Tim’s prediction didn’t come to pass, I think it’s extremely generous to give him credit for this prediction.
Don’t hate the player, hate the game! 😉
What about deltas partnership with Elal
How is that considered “useful”? It’s sky high pricing as is typical with delta.
Fair. But I think it’s worth .1 points for the contest, about what you’d get in cpp.
CPP? CPP only matters when you’re comparing to cash you would pay to determine if one a currency is below either its typical value or replacement value.
Even then book thru AF/KLM or turkish or somebody else.
Over/under on Nick cruises in 2024 is 7. I’ll take the over.
Looking forward for the 2024 predictions.
I think for 2024 we will see:
I doubt we’ll see Amex drop Grubhub as a partner since they just added a Grubhub credit to the business gold card a few months ago. As long as Grubhub/shake shack/saks/walmart/equinox/CLEAR/etc. are paying Amex their kickbacks then there’s no reason for Amex to shake things up. Much more likely to see category-focused things change than retailer-specific ones.
I think we could likely see Plats change Airline/FHR/Clear to a Member year instead of a Calendar year or follow Aspire with quarterly credits (which makes it a member year credit with higher breakage – ending the double/triple dip. I guess it depends on the retention/breakage rate past first year – when everyone gets a double dip and they just paid a large SUB.
I also think Hilton will join the Family language- unless Hilton has a say.
I wouldn’t mind VenX raising AF to $525 but adding a $200 Premier collection credit – we are using our two Premier collection $200 credits, tonight thru New Years. The VenX
card has been amazing since launch.
We got a few 25K referrals when they were offering 90K/$4K spend (I was shocked one person was a former Cap1 customer).
Agree on the venture X and CSR. The CSR is kinda stuck in the middle after the last $100 AF hike. It gets undercut but VX and USB AR, but doesn’t offer enough to compete with amex plat. Ultimately, chase’s entire ecosystem is based on portal uplift for flights. Something needs to change or chase will keep being mediocre, except for hyatt. They hiked the AF more than 20% and added basically nothing, no one should be surprised the CSR isn’t competitive.
Agreed: The CSR is overdue for a refresh.
Disagree with Nick on C1 not devaluing the travel credit. They obviously did, in a way that made the card no longer a no brainer keeper. Come on, be honest. Making it only a C1 travel portal credit that doesn’t earn 10x and you can’t game with a refundable booking is a deval. Not only 0 points, but -1 points for dishonesty.
Actually, I forgot all about that. You’re right! Will update.
Updated. Funny enough, I logged in to check and I managed to use our credits within 7 days of the date they posted this year (economy flights within Europe). Better still, apparently one of those flights dropped in price (we already took the trip), so I actually got a ~$9.XX credit back from their price protection without needing to do anything — so this year’s $300 travel credit is actually becoming a $309.XX credit for us. Kinda cool!
Don’t get me wrong, I get that its a devaluation from using it on whatever travel you want — just shared that extra tidbit because I literally just discovered it and thought that was cool.
Meanwhile, after signing up for the card mid 2023, I regret not gaming the credit, thinking I could easily eventually get 10x on it. Now I both regret missing the higher SUB and also not cashing out the credit.
The $300 credit has had to be used through the Capital One portal from day one. It has never been for “whatever travel you want.” The only change this yearis in how the credit is applied, which makes it harder to game.
Is the correction correct? I thought it was always only credit for travel through the portal. The devaluation was that it went from being a $300 credit applied after you were charged to a $300 “coupon” applied to the total at the time of purchase.
No, it wasn’t. That’s what I get for correcting it late at night. I’ve re-fixed it, thanks!
I used my credit a week before the change on an upcoming hotel stay In AKL. That said the card is still a $5 net winner if you only erase travel and don’t transfer the annual 10K points to FF program.
Even losing PP experiences ($28 x2) this year, the card has been amazing since launch and remains.
Yes the portal can be more expensive and they did change the matching to travel credit rather than refund (devaluation?).
Cap1 taketh and giveth.
I wouldn’t mind VenX raising AF to $525 but adding a $200 Premier collection credit – we are using our two Premier collection $200 promo credits, tonight thru New Years day. But I also love FHR so much that we hold multiple plats – because I have managed to get great value out of everyone – we have typically paired with FNC/A certs for long wekend trips using 4PM late check-out for evening flights home.
On aside note we booked a Kimpton (IHG) with our Premier Collection credits from the promo and the Cap1 booking had a IHG reservation number and I added both to the IHG app (even my wifes) are showing with my other IHG reservations. Will report back if they trigger promos/nights/points like FHR sometimes does.
But also all those Cap1 Portal discounts some were amazing I just wished I could have jumped on the EU ones for a teip in 2025.
The Premier Collection needs to grow considerably or many like myself would view that as simply a $230 fee increase. I won’t claim to have done a count but my anecdotal experience is there are far less property options compared to FHR when I’ve looked in a few areas like Arizona, Hawaii, and the Canadian Rockies. Notably I haven’t seen any Fairmont properties in the Premier Collection.
It would only be $130 – I also kinda of forget that the PC doesn’t have quite the footprint the FHR – it does take more precise searches than FHR – also the lack of guaranteed 4PM late checkout is also a downgrade – but PC does allow back-to-back booking (gives the $100 amenity credit – but my Kimpton stay was definitely not on par with my FHR stay. So after the fact $100 AF increase is for $300 credit on a PC stay is probably more in line for value.
Ah yes I messed up the math on that, was thinking it was a $295 annual fee with the $300 credit.
UPDATE:
The stay did count for IHG nights and triggered 2X promo – points were only on part of the spend during the stay they had a weird way of some spend counting and some not counting (never seen such weird accounting but 10K IHG for 2 nights (not including the IHG CC charges) – was OK I guess first IHG stay in years and with the IHG card. It seems similar what we have earned on Bonvoy/Hilton FHR stays.
While the loss of the 10x on the $300 does hurt (although I remain convinced that it was an oversight on C1’s part ever to allow it) I also think the loss to the small number of people who were taking the credit out in cash is offset by the increased ease-of-use for beginners. Certainly the 95% decrease in the number of questions about when the credit will post and how it works across years benefits us all.