Good afternoon everyone, I hope your holiday season is going well. As we wrap up the year, it’s time to revisit My Overly Ambitious 2025 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions and see how my crystal ball actually performed. Correct predictions are in green, incorrect predictions are in red, and half correct predictions are in orange. Without further ado, here are the results of my 2025 predictions:
Airline Predictions (4/7 correct):
- Alaska Airlines or Southwest Airlines will bring back their “convert travel funds to airline miles” feature.
- No, this did not happen in 2025. I would love to see this feature in 2026.
- Alaska Airlines will let you use the Companion Fare to book Hawaiian Airlines flights.
- Yes! You can use your Alaska Airlines Companion Fare to book Hawaiian Airlines flights, but only on domestic Hawaiian Airlines flights (link). I would love to see this Companion Fare eligible for all domestic and international Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines flights in 2026.
- American Airlines will return as a Citi ThankYou Points transfer partner.
- Yes! You can now transfer Citi ThankYou Points to American Airlines (link)!
- 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).
