Scoring the Frequent Miler team’s 2024 predictions

At the start of 2024, all five members of the Frequent Miler team looked into our crystal ball to determine what the coming year would bring us, particularly with regards to points, miles, hotels, airlines, etc. and we each made a list of predictions.

As the year progressed, I looked forward to this retrospective of our predictions because I knew that at least some of my predictions had come true. That was particularly pleasing because my predictions usually suffer from premature prognostication – they’ll come to pass, just not in the year that I said they will (e.g. IHG offering complimentary breakfast for top tier elites.)

When reading through all the predictions, I was surprised to see quite how accurate one of us had managed to be with their set of predictions, blowing the rest of the team away.

So, which of us were Nostradamus and which of us were Not-so-damus? Read on to find out.

Greg

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

Greg predicted 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” on the Business Green card. That was incorrect – surprisingly (considering all Amex’s other card lineup changes recently) that didn’t happen.

Chase to make Ink Premier a real Ink card

As a recap, the Ink Premier card earns Ultimate Rewards, but they’re not transferable to travel partners. In 2023 Greg predicted that would change and he was wrong. He therefore predicted the same thing again in 2024…and was wrong again.

Alaska’s Hawaiian Air purchase won’t be challenged

We’ve ended up covering Alaska Airlines’ purchase of Hawaiian Airlines a lot this year due to all the opportunities that’s presenting with regards to earning and transferring miles between the two, status matches, etc. The reason we’ve had a chance to cover that substantially is because the purchase was approved – one point for Gryffindoreg

Choice will crack open the 100 day window

One of the most frustrating aspects of the Choice Privileges program is that they only allow you to redeem points for award stays up to 100 days ahead of time. Greg suggested that they might extend the window for everyone, but more likely it’d be extended for those with elite status.

Choice did announce a couple of months ago that they’d let all Choice Privileges members book almost a year out rather than 100 days. However, that change won’t take effect until 2025. In the (belated) spirit of the holidays though, we’ll award Greg half a point.

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

At the start of 2024, you could only transfer points to Finnair from Capital One – no other programs. According to Greg, his prediction that more transferable currencies would allow you to transfer directly to Finnair was “a slam dunk”. Unfortunately for him, it was more of a damn slunk as that didn’t happen. Nul points (said in a French accent a la the Eurovision Song Contest (IYKYK)).

Greg’s Total – 1.5/5

Nick

Chase will add a transfer partner

Nick hasn’t been impressed with Chase’s lineup of transfer partners, especially with the emergence of Bilt and Capital One as transferable currencies. He thought that Chase needed a new transfer partner and, while that may well be correct, it didn’t happen – zero points.

Alaska Mileage Plan will become an unofficial transfer partner

Nick admitted that this was low-hanging fruit, but there’s a reason people choose low-hanging fruit – it’s easy to get what you’re looking for. In this case, it’s earned Nick a point – several months ago it became possible to transfer to Mileage Plan from American Express Membership Rewards via Hawaiian Airlines. If he’d wanted, he could’ve reached for even higher fruit seeing as Alaska Airlines became an official transfer partner of Bilt in 2024.

Virgin Atlantic will devalue Delta awards to Europe

Considering Virgin’s past overnight, no-notice devaluations, this was probably other fruit that was hanging low and swinging to and fro. It was so ripe for the picking that Virgin did indeed devalue Delta awards to Europe, primarily through the addition of high taxes and fees on business class award flights. One point for Nick.

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

This was Nick’s “gimme” prediction – that Delta would make it harder to earn status in 2025 after initially announcing that they’d be doing that for 2024, but subsequently rolling it back.

Delta does appear to have been in the giving mood, but to SkyMiles members rather than to Nick. As of now, there haven’t been any announcements as to whether they’ll be making elite status harder to attain in 2025 or not, so that certain point becomes a nil point.

Nick’s Total – 2/4

Tim

Alaska and Hawaiian will be allowed to merge

Greg earned a point for this one which means that Tim’s predictions also start with earning a point.

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

In the last 2-3 years, Amex has added family rules to certain card lineups that restrict – in theory – your ability to earn the bonuses from welcome offers on other cards in that family.

There had been concerns that the range of Hilton Amex cards would be next up on the restricted list, but that didn’t happen which means Tim earned another point.

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

Wells Fargo launched the Autograph Journey card in April 2024 and with that came the ability to transfer those points to travel partners. We’d known at the start of 2024 that this ability was coming, but we didn’t know which partners they’d add.

Unfortunately the list of transfer partners launched with a whimper rather than a bang, so Wells Fargo is more of a cheetah sprint away from Bilt than a kitten whisker. That unfortunately means no points for this prediction.

Hyatt will finally make it possible to transfer points online

I imagine this prediction would be on most people’s ‘love to have’ lists, but the objects of our desire sometimes go unrequited and that’s sadly the case here – zero points.

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

Greg recently published our most popular posts, videos, and podcasts of 2024. That post contained, among some other lists, a list of our 10 most viewed new posts this past year. Greg had several on that list, as did Tim. Nick had one, while me and Carrie both brought up the year with no posts on that list. In fairness to Carrie (and, by extension, Tim’s prediction), she’s had less time to write posts about her own travels as she took on responsibility for editing the extra podcasts we launched in 2024, as well as writing the posts where we share those podcasts on the blog.

However, that does means there’s no points for this prediction either.

Tim’s Total – 2/5

Stephen

Airline loyalty programs will consolidate

In my prediction I mentioned a couple of possibilities, such as Royal Jordanian or Oman Air joining Avios or SAS joining Flying Blue following Air France/KLM’s 20% investment and the fact that SAS would also be joining SkyTeam. Thankfully that latter prediction didn’t come true because otherwise we never would’ve gotten the awesome SAS EuroBonus Millionaire promotion and our subsequent Million Mile Madness challenge.

That said, I didn’t get this wrong. American Airlines announced that both Fiji Airways and JetSMART would be joining its AAdvantage program, so one point to me.

Choice Privileges revamp

Greg earned half a point for his prediction that Choice would expand the award booking calendar beyond 100 days because although it was announced in 2024, it won’t be happening until 2025.

I predicted that they’d revamp their loyalty program in 2024, perhaps by updating elite benefits but also by expanding that 100 day award booking window. I was much more specific at the end of that prediction, stating that “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.” That’s exactly what happened, so another point to me.

Wells Fargo co-branded credit card

Tim and I – and no doubt some of you – had high-ish hopes for Wells Fargo in 2024. It felt like they were wanting to become more competitive in the travel credit card space. They added Bilt and Choice in 2023 and I thought that co-brand card trend would continue in 2024, but that didn’t come to pass. No points.

Update: Jayson reminded me in the comments that Wells Fargo partnered with Expedia to launch the OneKey credit card in 2024, so I do earn a point after all.

New Amex airline fee credit option

Considering how Amex likes to rejig things, I thought they’d add a new airline that would be eligible for its airline fee reimbursements on various cards. That didn’t end up happening, so zero points for me.

Amex Gold dining benefit changes

On that same thing, I also pictured Amex rejigging the lineup of restaurants and websites with which you can redeem the Amex Gold card’s $10 monthly dining benefit. While there were no changes to eligible airlines for that other benefit, this dining benefit (and others) did change in 2024. Milk Bar and Shake Shack were dropped, but Five Guys was added – one more point for me.

Stephen’s Total – 4/5

Carrie

Greg will get corrected every time he says “Qatar”

Any time that Greg has mentioned Qatar Airways in a video and/or podcast episode, there’s almost inevitably a comment or email that comes in letting him know that he’s pronouncing it incorrectly. Did this happen every time in 2024? I haven’t kept track, but it’s happened frequently enough that Carrie deserves the point.

Nick will lose this year’s annual challenge

We ended up doing not one but two annual challenges in 2024 – Flying By The Seat Of Our Points and Million Mile Madness. In a bigger upset than Manchester City only winning two games out of their last ten, Nick ended up coming last in both of those challenges. What’s disappointing for Nick though was positive for Carrie as she foresaw bad things for him (or maybe it cursed him?!) and so earned another point.

Tim will win this year’s annual challenge

Tim was a judge for the Million Mile Madness challenge, but he was a contestant for Flying By The Seat Of Our Points. That was his first time as a solo challenger (we were in teams for the Party of 5 challenge) and he really did fly by the seat of his points as he won the challenge by one point. That means that Carrie also earned one point for her prediction.

Stephen will *gasp* settle down

My wife and I have been on a 50 state road trip for the last seven years, but it officially ends tonight (we’re in Hawaii right now which was our 50th state.) Carrie’s prediction for me was that by the end of 2024 Shae and I would’ve picked a place to settle in 2025.

Our brains said to move to West Virginia to make use of the Ascend program that Carrie and her husband used as that made more financial sense, but our hearts were calling us to the Finger Lakes region of New York seeing as there are beautiful waterfalls, great wineries, the magical Watkins Glen State Park, surprisingly low cost of living (particularly when it comes to housing) and much more.

We’d been eyeing up Geneva, NY as a place to settle, but we made a massive change to our plans last month as we decided to move back to the UK for an undecided amount of time. So while the end result was much more unexpected than any of us thought it would be, Carrie’s prediction was indeed correct – we will be (somewhat) settling down in 2025 in that we won’t be moving every single week like we have been. One more point for Carrie.

Carrie’s Total – 4/4

And The Winner Is…

Carrie, with a perfect score of four out of four. Following Jayson reminding me that I’d gotten another of my predictions correct, that puts me level-pegging with Carrie at four correct predictions, but I’ll still award her the overall win seeing as she had a 100% success rate with her predictions. Nick’s in the middle of the pack (percentage-wise) with 2/4. Tim and Greg bring up the rear with 2 and 1.5 points out of 5 respectively, but I’m sure both of them winning a team challenge in 2024 is more than enough consolation.

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