Good morning everyone, happy Friday!  I know it is a few days before the end of the year, so technically, all of these predictions could come true, but I am going to call it now.  At the beginning of the year, I wrote My Overly Ambitious 2024 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions.  The original predictions are in black, correct predictions are in green, and incorrect predictions are in red.  Without further ado, here are the results of my predictions for 2024:

My 2024 Airline Predictions

• Alaska Airlines or Southwest Airlines will introduce a “family pooling” benefit for miles or travel credit. – Technically, Alaska Airlines doesn’t allow “family pooling”, but it is possible (right now) to move miles into a single account.  If someone in your family has a Barclays Hawaiian Airlines Credit Card, you can transfer Hawaiian Airlines Miles between accounts for free and move those miles to and from your Alaska Airlines account for free.  Read this post for step by step instructions.
• American Airlines will allow Web Special awards to be changed online (currently, they can only be cancelled). – Nope, you cannot make changes to American Airlines Web Special awards.
• British Airways will add another airline (besides Finnair) to the Avios family. – Nope, Qatar and Finnair were the most recent additions to the Avios family.
• Delta will change their 15% SkyMiles discount for Delta credit cards holders. – Nope, the 15% discount for credit card holders hasn’t changed.
• United will allow you to combine multiple travel bank funds and future flight credits for the same reservation. – Nope, it is not possible to combine travel bank funds and future flight credits for a single United Airlines reservation.

My 2024 Hotel Predictions

• Best Western will become a transfer partner with a transferrable points currency. – Nope, no transfer partners want to partner with Best Western :(
• Choice will allow you to book award stays more than 100 nights in the future. – Nope, even though Choice made the announcement that they will let you book award stays up to 50 weeks in advance, that change won’t happen until 2025 :(
• Hilton Free Night Certificates will be allowed to be turned into Hilton points. – Nope, but FNCs can be used for properties costing up to 150K points / night.
• Hyatt Free Night Certificates will be allowed to top up with points. – Nope, they do not allow toping up FNCs with points.
• IHG will allow transfers to or from any member that has IHG Platinum status. – Nope, this is only available for IHG Diamond members or those with IHG Business Rewards.
• Marriott will allow you to top up Free Night Certificates with more than 15,000 points. – Nope, the top up limit is still 15,000 points.
• Marriott will make major changes to their “credit card matrix” and allow members to have more Marriott cards. – Nope, the credit card matrix is still as confusing and complicated as ever,  But as for good news, I did close my old Chase Marriott Bonvoy Business Credit Card and opened an American Express Marriott Bonvoy Business Credit Card.
• Wyndham will allow Vacasa Vacation Rentals to be booked entirely online. – Nope, you still need to call to book Vacasa Vacation Rentals.

My 2024 Credit Card Predictions

• American Express will remove Hawaiian Airlines as a transfer partner before the Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines merger is finalized. – Nope, but I am very happy I was wrong here.  I have transferred ~800K AMEX MR points to Hawaiian Airlines and moved them over to my Alaska Airlines account.
• Bank of America will introduce a 5x rotating category credit card to compete with the Discover It Credit Card and Chase Freedom Flex Credit Card. – Nope, they have not introduced a rotating cash back card.
• Barclays will come out with a premium Wyndham Rewards credit card that offers higher bonus categories. – Nope, Barclays has not announced any new credit cards and they are going to sell their American Airlines card portfolio to Citi next year.
• Bilt will offer a debit card that rewards “non-renters”. – Nope, Bilt has not created a debit card.  It’s been a few months since I was last excited about my Bilt points or my Bilt Credit Card.
• Capital One will start charging for Capital One Venture X Credit Card guests at Capital One Lounges. – Nope, you can still bring in up to 2 guests per visit.
• Chase will introduce a 4x and 5x bonus category on the Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card. – Nope, Chase has not introduced 4x or 5x categories on the CSR.
• Chase will introduce a premium IHG credit card that comes with IHG Diamond Elite Status. – Nope, there is no premium IHG credit card.
• Citi will add American Airlines as a transfer partner of Citi ThankYou Points. – Nope, not yet, but I think it will happen once the Barclays AA credit card polio is sold to Citi.
• Citi will start allowing product changes to the Citi Dividend Credit Card or Citi Prestige Credit Card. – Nope, you still cannot product change to those 2 cards.  I don’t understand why Citi won’t allow product changes to the Citi Dividend Card.
• Discover will offer referral bonuses above $100 per referral. – Nope, the referral bonus fluctuates between $50 – $100.
• US Bank will change the US Bank Cash+ Credit Card into a 5x rotating cash back card. – Nope, there have not been any changes to the US Bank Cash+.
• Wells Fargo will have a unique transfer partner once their transferrable points currency is live. – Nope, Wells Fargo does not have any unique transfer partners.

Based on the bloodbath of bright red above, I failed miserably at predicting what would happen in 2024.  My memory is not perfect, so please let me know if I actually got any of the above predictions correct.  Thanks for reading and have a great weekend everyone!