Good afternoon everyone, I hope your weekend is going well. As we approach the midpoint of the year, I thought it would be a good time to check in on My Overly Ambitious 2025 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions.  Correct predictions are in green, incorrect predictions are in red, and half correct predictions are in orange.  Without further ado, here is my midyear review for my 2025 predictions:

Airline Predictions:

• Alaska Airlines or Southwest Airlines will bring back their “convert travel funds to airline miles” feature.
  • No, these “convert travel funds to airline miles” have not returned yet in 2025.
• Alaska Airlines will let you use the Companion Fare to book Hawaiian Airlines flights.
  • No, but I am still optimistic that we will see this happen before the end of the year.
• American Airlines will return as a Citi ThankYou Points transfer partner.
  • No, not yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see this happen in the next few months.
• British Airways will lower their partner redemption prices for American Airlines and Alaska Airlines.
  • No, the redemption prices have not changed for American Airlines or Alaska Airlines.
• Delta will increase the annual fee on their credit cards and increase the Delta SkyMiles discount to 20%-25%.
  • No, but the rumored super-duper-ultra-premium AMEX Delta credit card could have this benefit (link).
• JetBlue will allow you to redeem points on a new partner airline (besides Etihad Airways, Hawaiian Airlines and Qatar Airways).
  • Yes! With the United Airlines and JetBlue “Blue Sky” partnership, you can redeem JetBlue points on United Airlines and vice versa (link).
• United Airlines will bring back their “family pooling” feature.
  • Yes! You can pool United Airlines miles, but they can only be used for United and United Express flights, not Star Alliance partners (link).

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