Good morning everyone, I hope you had a great New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day! One of my yearly traditions is to write my predictions for the coming year and you can check out how I did in 2022 here: Let’s Review my 2022 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions.  I plan on doing a mid-year review in July to see if I am on track, but without further ado, here are my predictions for 2023…

My 2023 Airline Predictions

• American Airlines or Alaska Airlines will be added as a transfer partner from a transferable points currency.
• British Airways will change their award chart to calculate the number of Avios needed on a combined distance flown, not on a segment by segment basis.
• Delta 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).
• Southwest Airlines will work very hard to make up for their December 2022 travel nightmare by offering a transfer bonus from Chase and spending offers on their credit cards in January 2023.

My 2023 Hotel Predictions

• Best Western or Sonesta will be added as a transfer partner from a transferable points currency.
• Choice will convert Radisson Hotels Americas points on a 2:1 basis (ex: 100K Radisson Hotels Americas points = 50K Choice Privileges Points).
• Hilton Free Night Certificates will be capped at 100,000 points, but you can top them off to book higher priced properties.
• Hyatt will increase annual free night certificates to category 5 and allow them to be topped off.
• IHG will eliminate Ambassador Elite Status and Kimpton Inner Circle Elite Status and combine everything into IHG One Rewards.
• Marriott or IHG will allow free points transfers / pooling to combine points.
• Wyndham will allow you to book Vacasa Vacation Rentals online, instead of calling.

My 2023 Credit Card Predictions

• American Express will create a “Pay Yourself Back” feature to get more than 1 CPP.
• Bank of America will introduce a premium Alaska Airlines credit card with new perks and features.
• Barclays will revive the Barclays Arrival Credit Card family and add Wyndham Rewards as a transfer partner.
• Capital One will increase the annual fee on the Capital One Venture X Credit Card to $450 and charge for additional guests to visit their Capital One lounges.
• Chase will expand “Pay Yourself Back” to multiple cobranded credit cards.
• Citi will increase the annual fee on the Citi Premier Credit Card, but bring back travel protections and introduce new perks.
• Discover It Miles Credit Card will rebrand and offer 2x everywhere and 3x at particular merchants.
• US Bank will allow product changing to the US Bank Shopper Cash Rewards Credit Card.
• Wells Fargo will introduce a new credit card that has a transferrable points currency.
• FinTech companies like Brex, Nearside, and Point Debit Card closed / removed unprofitable customers.  We will see similar actions by Betterment, Axos Bank, RelayFi, or Oxygen in 2023.

If you have any predictions you want to share, please leave a comment below.  Have a great 2023 everyone!