Good afternoon everyone, I hope you had a great weekend. Much like the corporate world with midyear reviews, I thought it would be fun / embarrassing to do a midyear review of My Wild and Crazy 2022 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions. I copied the list from the previous post and will see how many predictions I got correct and how many were dead wrong. But remember, there is still 6 months left in the year for the remaining predictions to come true…
My 2022 Airline Predictions (1 / 7)
- Alaska Airlines or Southwest Airlines will bring back their “convert travel funds to airline miles” feature. – I still cannot believe this feature exists but Alaska and Southwest are not using it.
- American Airlines will return as a Citi ThankYou Points airline transfer partner. – I still cannot believe that Citi can’t get American Airlines to come back to the ThankYou Points portal.
- Avianca will give Turkish Airlines a run for their money for domestic Star Alliance awards.
- British Airways will let you use Avios to pay the taxes, fees, and fuel surcharge portion of award tickets.
- Delta Airlines, Southwest Airlines, or United Airlines will introduce a “Miles and Cash” payment option for award tickets (pay 10,000 miles or pay 8,000 miles + $40).
- JetBlue will partner with another US airline for award bookings. – Yes, you can book JetBlue flights using American Airlines miles.
- United Airlines will be a transfer partner with Brex, Citi, or American Express.
My 2022 Hotel Predictions (1 / 8)
- Best Western will be added as a Citi ThankYou Point transfer partner.
- Choice will allow you to book award stays online for Preferred Hotels & Resorts properties. – Still only bookable over the phone.
- Hilton free night certificates will be valid all days of the week going forward (not just weekends).
- Hyatt or IHG will allow you to use a cash copay or points copay to book rooms at higher category hotels than what free night certificates will allow. – Yes, IHG will allow you to top up an award to book a higher category hotel.
- IHG Spire Elite Members will get free parking and waived resort/destination fees on stays. – New IHG One Rewards Diamond Elite Member, but no free parking or waived resort fees.
- Marriott free night certificates will increase to 40K and 60K levels.
- Radisson Rewards will finally allow their free night certificates for spending $10K, $20K, and $30K to be valid at international properties. – I didn’t see the Radisson Hotels Americas being sold to Choice Hotels in my crystal ball.
- Wyndham will devalue the Vacasa Vacation Rental booking option by charging more points or adding a cash copay for cleaning (but I really hope this doesn’t happen).
My 2022 Credit Card Predictions (2 / 11)
- American Express will raise the credit card limit from 5 to 6 credit cards. – Yes, Doctor of Credit reports some people have 6 credit cards.
- Bank of America will allow you to spend your way to another Alaska Airlines Companion Fare.
- Barclays will provide good upgrade offers to upgrade from the old Barclays Wyndham Visa Credit Card to the Barclays Wyndham Earner Credit Card.
- Bilt will be rewarding for members who do not pay rent and do not have the credit card – with a possible shopping portal or card linked offer network.
- Brex will come out with another bonus to reactivate all dormant Brex users. – Uhh, actually Brex is planning on closing a lot of accounts for small businesses without VC funding.
- Capital One will offer good upgrade offers to upgrade from the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card to the new Capital One Venture X Credit Card.
- Chase will roll out the “Pay Yourself Back” feature on other credit cards, besides the Chase Air Canada Aeroplan Credit Card.
- Citi will bring back the 1.25 CPP value when booking travel through the Citi ThankYou Point travel portal.
- Discover or Wells Fargo will introduce a premium credit card that has an annual fee.
- Point Debit Card will introduce a no annual fee debit card. – Technically not a new debit card, but Point removed the annual fee on their only debit card.
- US Bank will allow moving / combining points and cash back across various credit card products.
4 out of 26 is pretty bad, but there is still time for some of the other predictions to come true. If I missed anything, please let me know and I will update the post. If you have any questions about my predictions or where to buy your own crystal ball, please leave a comment below. Have a great day everyone!
I really wish that Citi would ink a deal with AA to bring back the TYPs to AA transfer. I mean, Bilt was able to come in and get a deal done which means it’s possible…so the person I’d have to guess holding things back is Citi. And while Citi is at it, they really need to bring back some travel protections…at least to the Prestige. I keep holding on to my Prestige hoping one day they’ll do something interesting with those who still have the card.
I agree with you on the Citi and AA partnership. You would think that Citi and AA have a good relationship since Citi issues AA CCs and probably has bought hundreds of millions of AA miles.
My only guess is that having the ability to transfer Citi TYPs to AA would cannibalize people spending on AA CCs.
I got rid of my Citi Prestige CC a long time ago, but I’m surprised that Citi doesn’t have any travel protections on their “travel” CC.
I’m sure you’re right about the spend on AA cards would drastically decrease if TYPs transferred to AA because I can’t think of many people in this hobby would actually put spend on their Delta cards (unless chasing status) but instead transfer MR to Delta when SkyMiles are needed.
Didn’t think about it that way, Grant…but I bet you’re spot on as to why we’ll probably never see a permanent TYPs to AA transfer…but here’s to hoping, right?
We can always hope :)
Chase and United have a good partnership and so do AMEX and Delta, so theoretically it is doable :)