94. Expert Analysis: 2024 Points and Miles Winners, Losers, and Key Trends with Kevin Zanes
Dec 16, 2024What a year it's been in the world of points and miles! As we close out 2024, it’s time to take a look back at the biggest news, changes, and trends that shaped the award travel landscape over the past 12 months. And I'm thrilled to have a very special guest joining me for this year-in-review conversation.
Kevin Zanes, The Points Analyst, is here to share his expert take on the highlights and lowlights, the winners and losers, and the key developments that defined award travel in 2024. Together, we'll be unpacking the most significant events and digging into what these changes mean for points enthusiasts moving forward.
From major devaluations that stung to exciting new partnerships that opened up opportunities, this episode covers all the need-to-know news in the points and miles space. We share our predictions for 2025, our wish lists for the future of award travel, and our ratings for the overall state of the points and miles game.
Turn your expenses into points and save tens of thousands of dollars a year on your wishlist travel. Don't miss out! Click here to know more about my comprehensive online program, Points Made Easy.
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
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Why Alaska Airlines emerged as one of the biggest winners in award travel for 2024.
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How a slew of painful devaluations impacted sweet spot redemptions this year.
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What award space insourcing and super programs mean for the future of points and miles.
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Why transferable points currencies still reign supreme over co-branded credit cards.
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How new consumer protections are changing the game for airline passengers.
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What innovations we're hoping to see from credit card issuers in 2025.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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- 67. An Analytic Approach to Points Travel with Kevin Zanes
Full Episode Transcript:
Welcome to Point Me to First Class, the only show for employed professionals, entrepreneurs, and business owners who are looking to optimize their higher-than-average expenses to travel the world. I'm your host, Devon Gimbel, and I believe that your expenses are your greatest untapped asset if you know how to leverage them. Ready to dive into the world of credit card points and miles so you can travel more, travel better, and travel often? Let's get started.
Devon: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Point Me to First Class podcast. I hope you are ready because today we have a jam-packed episode ready for you as we bid farewell to 2024 with a year-in-review analysis of the biggest news, changes, and trends in rewards credit cards and award travel of the last 12 months.
I'm thrilled to be joined by a very special guest for this year-in-review conversation today, none other than Kevin Zanes, The Points Analyst. Together, Kevin and I will be diving into the year's biggest headlines in award travel, both the highlights that made us cheer and the lowlights that left us shaking our heads. We'll be crowning our top winners and losers in the points game and digging into the trends that defined award travel in 2024 and what changes are sure to impact how points are earned and used moving into 2025.
From the most disappointing program changes to the most exciting points announcements, this episode will have a little bit of everything. So whether you're a seasoned award traveler or just dipping your toes into the points pool, you'll walk away with insights to help you make the most of your points in the year ahead.
So grab a coffee or your favorite non-caffeinated beverage of choice, make yourself comfortable, and get ready to wrap up the best and worst of 2024 in points and miles, and join me as I welcome Kevin back to the podcast. Kevin, thank you so much for joining me today for this 2024 recap episode.
Kevin: Thank you for having me. It's great to be here. I always love doing these recaps as I look back over the course of the year and mostly try to remember what happened this year versus in previous years.
Devon: I know it can all feel like a little bit of a blur, especially as you've been in this hobby for a long time. So good thing is I know you're bringing the data as a data analysis. I'm going to bring my foggy memory and unfounded speculation, and hopefully we'll just have a really great conversation about all of the things that happened in 2024.
But before we get into discussing specific events in the award travel world that defined this past year, I'm just curious to hear from you. How would you rate this year overall in award travel? Like if you had to give the entire year with all of its news, changes, and trends on a scale of one to 10, how would you rate this year?
Kevin: That's a great question. I definitely think it's really hard to give a specific number, mostly because there's been so many things that have been really positive and so many things that have been really negative. So it's this interesting kind of pull and balance between really positive and really negative things. So I jokingly say the math would say oh, if you have a 10 and a zero, the average is five, right? So like I should say five.
So I probably would put it more like a six or a seven just in terms of what's happened in this specific year. You know, as we'll start talking, I think one of the interesting things is how some of those things that have happened this year will actually translate into future years. So I'm trying to just score this year in isolation from previous years and what I think will happen in the future, which is really hard for me to do.
Devon: Yeah, it's an unreasonable and impossible question, but I also think it's just kind of fun to hear, again, your overall gestalt. I mean, there's so many specifics that go into this. But just this feeling of someone who's been doing this for a little while, did it feel like a great year or not a great year? I think it's so interesting that you landed on around a six to seven because when I was thinking about this, my answer would be like a six as well. Like I think it was more good or better stuff overall than bad stuff. But I didn't actually walk away, so far, from 2024 in the world of award travel feeling like, wow, there were just so many incredible things that happened in terms of credit cards or award programs.
It felt to me more like a status quo year, like kind of more of the same. We'll talk about some of these trends that you and I are seeing and kind of more of the same trends that we've seen for a little while. I think there were some definite highlights that we'll get into, but this was not a year that overall just like knocked my socks off. But that actually gives me a lot of hope and optimism for 2025.
One of my predictions is that 2025 is going to be a really incredible year for award travel. I'm curious to hear later on when we talk about why that is, if you agree with me.
Kevin: Oh, we're going to have some fun with this conversation because I'm kind of the opposite.
Devon: Oh, I think that's so fantastic. So maybe, yeah, I am just wearing some rose-colored glasses right now, but we'll dive into all of that. But first, I thought it would be really fun. Just in full disclosure for folks listening to this podcast, you and I were chatting for just a few minutes before we hit record. This one first question that I was going to pose to you is the one that you said you kind of hated. So I think it's super fun. I'm still going to ask you anyway, and then you can tell me kind of why you hated this or why you think this is a bad question, and then we'll go from there.
One of the things that I was really curious to hear from you are basically, what are the top three announcements, changes, or award programs that you would consider the top winners of 2024? Then what do you consider to be the top three kind of losers in the world of points and award travel for 2024? So as our guest, I was going to let you decide. Do you want to start with the winners or the losers? But ultimately, as the guest, you can also decide you hate this entire question, and we can go somewhere else. So tell me where you want to start.
Kevin: Well, I think that the challenge in answering the question, right, is picking three kind of specific events. So like as an example, you could say on the negative side, like there were a lot of devaluations this year. There was the Avianca devaluation. There was the Turkish Airlines back in February. I think that was this year. You had some of the Alaska Airlines devaluations. You had all these devaluations. So I could list each one of those individually as a negative event. Or we could talk about the general trends in the industry and what's happened over the course of the year and how that translates into 2025.
So for me, part of the reason I didn't like the question was it would force me to choose kind of specific events versus talking more about general trends. Now, there are some specific events that I think happen in isolation that can be both good and bad that don't necessarily have a trend component to it.
So one of the things that I would put in the not great category is Amex coming out with the family language. So now there is a specific order to the cards that you need to take in order to be able to continue to get the signup bonuses. So basically going from the lowest level card up to the highest level card is what you need to do.
So I think that was a really negative thing for people in the points and miles world because it takes away a degree of freedom when you're thinking about what card to open next. Anytime you take away a degree of freedom, it's generally a negative thing.
But when you look on the positive side, some of the really interesting things that have happened are around the consumer side with the Department of Transportation and some of the changes that they've made over the course of the year. Really looking at how they can support the consumers, the flyers or the travelers, when things go wrong. I think there's been huge strides in that area.
This is where I kind of make my snide comment of congratulations. You are now at European levels of normalness for being compensated for any time something goes wrong. But I think that was a great step, and one that hasn't happened. No matter how many bad things we've seen happen over the last 10, 15 years. There's never been a change, but this year there was that change. So I think that's been something that is really positive that has happened.
The other thing that I'm increasingly excited about, and I think we could spend a portion of this talking about this is all of the changes that Alaska has done in the last two to three months. We're looking at the merger with Hawaiian, which finally got approved. That's awesome that they were able to accomplish that. We're looking at a slew of announcements recently, from Alaska coming out with a new premium credit card to Alaska announcing international flights to Alaska creating this flagship lounge concept in Seattle and other lounges across the West Coast. So there's a ton of exciting things that are happening with the Alaska program.
The most exciting thing for people in the points and miles world is with that merger, you're now able to take your Amex points and move them into Alaska via Hawaiian, which is crazy because the Alaska mileage plan program has always had so much value. But the challenge has always been earning those points.
But now you have this transfer opportunity, at least for the near term. Again, we can talk about that as well. That creates this great opportunity for people in the points and miles world, especially as they've made all these other announcements.
Devon: Yeah, first of all, I love the way that you kind of broke down initially when you were talking about conceptualizing this question, about what were winners, what were losers. That you separated into kind of like finite acute events versus overall trends. I love that way of thinking about points and miles. I also agree with you completely that there are certainly instances of both that we could dive into.
Since you started, or should I say you kind of ended on one of the more positive notes, let's dive into that a little bit more. Because I wholeheartedly agree with you. I'm a rule follower. So I made the rules and then I followed my own rules of picking my top three winners of 2024. But my top winner of the year was Alaska Airlines.
For all the reasons that you mentioned, just in terms of some of the really innovative changes that it sounds like they're going to be making that are really going to start impacting consumers, I think mostly 2025 and into 2026. The accessibility of this really incredible what has traditionally been, in my consideration, more of a niche program when they merged with Hawaiian Airlines that essentially did open up that pathway to, for the first time ever, transfer Amex points through Hawaiian Airlines and into Alaska Airlines and what that means now for folks who for a very long time probably had very limited access to that program.
So I absolutely agree with you that just Alaska Airlines as a program, as all of these things that have already changed and they've announced changing, really put them as one of, if not the top winner, of 2024. But let's kind of dig into that a little bit further. Then maybe we'll each throw out maybe some other events or trends that we consider to be positive developments for 2024.
But as it relates to Alaska Airlines, I have a couple of different questions for you. These may be just predictions, just your general recommendations for folks who follow you and like learning from you. First, I want to talk about that specific pathway of transferring American Express points to Alaska via Hawaiian Airlines.
Now, do you think this is a pathway that people can depend on, should depend on? Or what are you telling people in terms of should they consider maybe speculatively transferring over Amex points now if that door is not going to remain open or remain open for long?
Kevin: So I definitely think that it is more of a short term opportunity. I think that is the general consensus in kind of the points and miles world is that once the merger kind of becomes fully official, they integrate the systems, integrate the programs, that this kind of opportunity will disappear. That is largely my thinking as well. So while I don't think that people should speculatively transfer all of their points over to Alaska, I think that there are some good rules of thumb.
I think we've even talked about this on previous podcasts where we were saying, can you transfer 25 percent or 50 percent of your points from Amex over to Alaska to be able to take advantage of kind of the short term window and still maintain the flexibility with the rest of the Amex points that you didn't transfer to transfer those over to transfer those over to other programs like Air France or Canada or other great programs where you can take advantage of either a transfer bonus or some of the great award rates that they have.
So summary is I definitely think it's going to be short term. I think the window will close at some point in the next year is my guess. The second thing is that if you do transfer, you should not transfer all of your points over.
The third thing that I just remembered, and I actually personally did this as well there was a great opportunity about a couple of weeks ago to buy Hawaiian Airlines miles for essentially below cost. Again, below cost is, remember, your average redemption.
So if you even know what you're doing in a minor way, you can get outsized value out of that. So not only is it below cost for the average, but if you're, again, know how to maximize your Alaska Airlines miles, then you are getting cents on the dollar purchases.
Again, I personally did make a purchase of the Alaska Airlines or the Hawaiian Airlines miles because of that bonus and because of the value that it created and the value that I know that I can get from that program. I also did transfer my American Express points to Hawaiian and then over to Alaskan.
So this is not something I'm just telling people to do because I think they should go do it. This is something that I personally have done myself and that I think is going to generate a ton of value. Because as we've talked about before, I have six people in my family unit. So if I want to fly a business class, that's a lot of points. Even at 50,000 points per person, that's 300,000 points I need to do one way. So this is a great opportunity for me to transfer the points, get that value, as well as to buy the points and supplement that transfer and still maintain the flexibility of having the rest of my Amex points that I can use somewhere else.
Devon: Yeah, I agree with you completely about that. I also transferred over, I did not take advantage of the Hawaiian miles sale. I considered it, but I didn't take advantage of it because I had already transferred over a not insignificant number of American Express points over to Alaska Airlines. So I felt like I was kind of happy with the balance that I had there. Didn't feel like investing in the Hawaiian miles sale during the same calendar year.
But in terms of that program specifically, Alaska Airlines I think one of the things that I kind of talk to people about is, especially for people who are kind of beginning in the points and miles hobby, I think in general, for most people, it makes sense to first focus on getting the rewards credit cards that exist in the transferable points earning space, right?
So are some American Express membership rewards points earning cards or a Capital One Venture or Capital One miles earnings card or Citi card or Chase card or cards. It's usually not an airline or hotel co-branded credit card that I tell people kind of blanket statement oh, everyone should consider getting this, or that you should jump into the co-branded cards initially.
I'm curious with all of these positive changes that it sounds like Alaska Airlines is making. What is your philosophy? What are your recommendations around considering airline co-branded credit cards? Do you think this is a scenario in which acquiring Hawaiian Airlines or Alaska Airlines credit cards makes more sense now than it has in the past?
Kevin: It definitely makes more sense now than it has in the past, but that doesn't mean that people should go and open their first card as a co-branded credit card. I still think that there is more value in general from people opening up cards that have flexible point currencies because then you're able to take advantage of some of those other opportunities that come up. I mean, just one that has, again, happened recently, right?
With the Virgin Atlantic kind of dynamic pricing, you can now get some of your flights to Europe for 29,000 points from the East Coast to London. Recently, Virgin has had not one but two transfer bonuses of 40%. Plus, if we look at the one that happened at the very beginning of the year, actually beginning of the year, end of last year, with the Bilt 150% transfer bonus opportunity, you're looking at being able to fly business class on Virgin between the East Coast and London for between 10,000 and 20,000 points. Again, that's business class. That's not economy class.
So if you were to only open an Alaska card and only have Alaska Airlines miles, despite how much incredible value that program has and offers, you would not be able to take advantage of some of those other programs and the value that they create.
One other thing that I constantly like to throw out there, because I use it all the time, is when you look at the Air France KLM Flying Blue program. If you have kids, the kids automatically get a 25% discount on your award rates. So even if Alaska was offering the same award rates to Europe as an Air France KLM, which they don't, by the way, you're still going to win if you're traveling as a family because of that 25% discount that you get with the kids, at least until they're 11. So there's so many opportunities like that with other programs that you would be missing out on if you just focused on, again, Alaska Airlines mileage plan miles.
Devon: So Alaska Airlines, although clearly not a perfect program, still comes out as one of the best winners, one of the most positive kind of changes or developments in the award travel world for you and I for 2024. I think there's so many exciting things going on with that program. Let's talk about any other either specific events or trends that you would consider to be really positive or winners for 2024.
Kevin: I mean, again, I touched on it, but I just keep coming back to some of the consumer protections that are now in place in the U.S. for flights that are delayed, flights that are canceled. I think that's a huge win for consumers just across the board. I mean, it's still very early on, so we'll see kind of how it evolves over the next couple of months to years. But I think that even the fact that it got put in place and got so much press is already a huge win, like I said, for consumers. It's going to hold the airlines more accountable. It's going to provide those protections for the consumers.
The great thing is for those that don't know how to maximize or best leverage some of those same protections that people have through credit cards, when they have travel protection or baggage insurance and all those other insurances that some of the mid-tier and premium cards offer, they don't need those. So even the average person is going to benefit from this. I think that's the true value that you're going to get out of kind of that initiative is it applies to everyone.
Devon: That's a really great point. I'm glad that you brought this up as a winner. Because when I was kind of going through my list of things that happened this year and trying to pick out what did I think were the really positive things, I was focused very much on a more granular level about individual credit cards that had changed or individual award programs that were changing.
I was not thinking, again, about more kind of global things happening in the world of just travel in general that, like you said, is going to impact just the vast majority of consumers, whether or not they're people who are really learning how to maximize a specific award redemption. So I love that you brought that up as a winner, and I agree with you completely.
Some of the other winners that I thought of were the first one is going to be very, very specific, what you called more of like an acute event that I do think is actually a really positive change in the landscape of the overall points and miles earning world. That is most of these things were very recent. Even though I tried to look back over the entire year, I feel like a lot of stuff has actually really happened this year, the most significant stuff kind of since September like in the last two or three months. One of those things is involving Capital One.
So Capital One, for a while, has had their online shopping portal, which is a little bit, it's not that it's a misnomer, but it didn't function exactly the same way that we see like American Express's shopping portal with Rakuten and Chase's shopping portal where you need to hold a credit card within that ecosystem and that you can earn points in that ecosystem as your reward.
So Capital One Shopping Portal, you didn't need to hold a Capital One credit card, and you could still leverage their shopping portal, but you would earn cash back for your shopping. Sometimes significant amounts, 20, 30%. That was wonderful and great.
But as someone who really preferentially wants to earn points and miles for things like their online shopping, Capital One didn't have this great option for us to do that. That changed literally within the last couple of weeks that Capital One created, I call it an online shopping portal. That's probably very confusing because I don't think that's what they call it.
I think they call it Capital One offers where you do have to hold a Capital One Miles earning card. But when you log into your account, what you can see is what looks very much like a shopping portal for other points ecosystems where there are individual stores listed and they have a points payout amount two times points or nine times points where theoretically, if you shop through that store, you're going to be able to earn Capital One miles for your shopping.
The thing that I think was very exciting about this, at least when I first heard about it, is that some of the payouts were huge amounts. So whereas Chase, I'm used to more saying like one times bonus points or two times bonus points, the Capital One portal was showing 10, 20, 30 times points for some otherwise like very regular online retailers that were far, far, far outpacing what Rakuten was offering or what Chase was offering.
So I think that's a really exciting and positive development for people who hold Capital One miles earning cards to now have an avenue to earn extra bonus miles for their online shopping. That is just to me, always a good thing, just more opportunities to earn points, especially significant amounts of points.
I think one of the things that remains to be seen is since this is so new, what is this actually going to look like in reality? I know when I was kind of looking around at stores and investigating it, I didn't feel like yet that it is as robust as some of the other online shopping portals in terms of really being clear about what can you earn miles on. Are there exclusions for certain stores? What are their exclusions?
I had dug through some small print in some terms and conditions and found this one little line clause about rewards maximums that you could earn. So a maximum amount of rewards of $1,000 or its equivalent, which I think in the Capital One world, $1,000 equivalent would be 100,000 miles every three billing statements. That's an important thing to know, especially if you're a business owner, and you're about to make a really big shopping purchase for your business and you're expecting to get a certain amount of points. If there is a cap on the points earning, those are really relevant details.
So, I'm very excited about the fact that Capital One is releasing this ability to earn miles now for online shopping. I have a lot of just questions about what is this actually going to look like when we're six months into this year, into this in terms of what do we not know yet just because it's so brand new. But overall, I think that that's a positive thing.
Then the other winner that I had on my list is not actually something that has happened this year, but it's something that I think we can look forward to in 2025. That if this really plays out, and I think if it plays out truly for consumers the way that I hope it will, could be quite possibly one of the most impactful changes that we've seen in the award travel space, I mean, honestly, ever.
That is the announcement from a company, Mesa, that they are going to be releasing a credit card that allows you to earn points for paying your mortgage. I think this is one of those number one things that people have been asking about, clamoring for anyone who is really, really emotionally invested in maximizing their expenses to earn points.
This, for many folks, is one of their largest, if not the largest, kind of recurring payment they make every single month that has not so far been easy to earn transferable points, especially at no cost or a very low cost. I think Bilt really, really changed the game of rewards travel when they introduced the ability to earn transferable points for paying your rent. I think that really opened the door to then everybody saying when's it going to happen for the mortgage? Everyone who owns a home who is in this space, I think that is the most logical question that came out once Bilt came on the scene with their Bilt credit card.
So the fact that this company, Mesa, has announced that not only are they going to have a home buying program where you can earn points just on the purchase of a home. We already see some of those on the marketplace. I think that's great. But I think what is truly, truly revolutionary is this idea that we're going to be able to earn points for paying our mortgage. Not only that, they've announced that this credit card they're going to be releasing, the Mesa Homeowner's card, is also going to be able to earn three times points on home related charges.
So, again, charges that homeowners right now either cannot earn points for or if they're going to earn points for, it's going to be a low amount of points and they may have to pay a processing fee. So things like homeowners associations, contractors, homeowners insurance, property taxes. I think it's really, really exciting to think about what is the landscape of points and miles going to look like if and when this card does come out. If it does work the way that I think a lot of homeowners hope that it's going to work. I'm curious to hear what your thoughts are on that.
Kevin: Yeah, so here's the interesting thing about that. So Mesa obviously was the first to officially announce that they were coming out with a card. Now, that's not necessarily the interesting thing. The interesting thing is that within weeks of that announcement and their big launch party, Bilt came out with a letter from their CEO, Ankur, who basically said, we will be entering the mortgage space.
Not just, the first official announcement was when you buy a home, you will earn points on the purchase of the home. But again, you have to use the specific lender and you have to go through the Bilt program. But still, if you're buying a $500,000 home, you're going to get a ton of points with that. Then shortly after that, in the letter from the CEO, it said we're going to enter the mortgage payment space.
Now, I think that those two companies and how they're going to potentially capture the market is going to be very interesting to watch over the course of 2025. Here's why. If you're given a choice and you have your Mesa card and you have your Bilt card. So again, let's just make the assumption that you have to have the card in order to be able to earn the points on your mortgage payment every month.
Bilt has what is arguably the best set of transfer partners on the market of any program, not just ones that enter the mortgage, of any program out there. It is known. So you have Mesa, which is still a bit of a wild card. So it's fantastic that someone else is entering in this space. I love competition. It's consumers always benefit when there's competition.
The challenge is right now, there's still so many unknowns in terms of the Mesa program. How many points will you earn? What will those points be worth? What are the transfer partners? Now, I know Mesa has built a very strong team of people who have come from, I think one of their top executives was in the Amex Awards program and has come over to Mesa as part of their leadership team, which is great. This is where I make the joke comment that Amex never had Hyatt as a transfer partner. So we'll see how that plays out.
But I mean, when you look at this, I think there is going to be a lot of a known versus unknown component to it. Bilt just has those connections and has that infrastructure and has that, for lack of a better word, credibility at this point in terms of what they've been able to do and what their place in the market is and how they can deliver the value.
So Mesa is really going to have to outperform them and over deliver to get people to be interested in their program. So it's going to be really interesting to see how they can theoretically convince someone to choose Mesa over Bilt, assuming they come out with similar opportunities at roughly the same time.
Devon: Yeah, that's such a great point. I think so much about kind of the actual impact of this announcement is going to come down to okay so what is this going to look like? What are the details going to be when they're released? Like you said, what is Bilt actually going to do in response to this? But I think the fact that this is the first time that there are programs that are saying this is going to be a possibility.
I think that in and of itself is such a huge shift and such a huge change. I think that's one of the reasons that I am as uncharacteristically optimistic for me as I am about 2025. Because I think that just that announcement in and of itself and like you said, the competition that it spurred, and I think the innovation that's going to come from it, whatever it ends up looking like, I think is going to push the award travel hobby forward, especially for folks who are homeowners.
So I'm really, really excited about this change, even though nothing tangible has actually happened yet. I felt like it would be remiss for us to have a conversation about what were some of the biggest things that happened in 2024 in the award travel space and not even mention the whole conversation around Mesa, around this potential to be able to earn points specifically for paying mortgage.
But as you and I kind of alluded to earlier in this episode, this was not just a slam dunk year where it was all roses and sunshine in the award travel world. There were some significant downsides and disappointments of this year. So let's now start talking a little bit about what was it about this year that you see, again, either specific events or trends, that you would consider to be not positives for the award travel space?
Kevin: I mean, one of them is kind of a general cop out, which is the devaluations that happen. This is just something that happens every year. But I think from my perspective, and again, I don't have a perfect memory, but there were a lot of devaluations that very specifically hit a lot of the sweet spot redemptions this year that people loved to redeem for. So that's maybe why this year felt a little bit harder, especially on the airline side, versus previous years.
Because you have everything from I use the classic example, ANA's devaluation of Star Alliance flights to Europe. It went from 88,000 points roundtrip to 100,000 points roundtrip. Yes, that sucks. It costs more points. But it's really not that much in the grand scheme of things.
Versus you have some of the more significant devaluations. I always think back to the Turkish Airlines devaluation and how they not only devalued the individual routes, but they changed how you had, what the cost was for multi-stop routes. Because before it was just where do you start and where do you end and doesn't matter how many stops.
But they changed that to be it doesn't just matter where you start and stop. That got devalued. Plus, if you have stops, the amount of points you need is now cumulative. So it's from point A to point B and from point B to point C. You add those two numbers together. So on one stop routes, you actually got hit twice with the devaluation. That can create some really ugly scenarios and completely obliterated one of people's favorite options, which was using Turkish Airlines to fly to Greece with the one stop in Istanbul. That just got completely annihilated because of those devaluations.
You also have the Avianca ones, which, and again, I'm going to try to remember the exact numbers. Avianca was the best program to book the Lufthansa first class ticket. Yes, it was within two weeks. Yes, there was hard to find. But that was such a great redemption opportunity. It cost 87,000 points. Now it is 100, and I forget. Somewhere between 120, 130,000 points. So like a 50 percent devaluation in that Lufthansa first class award space.
There were some you know, the other one that got obliterated was 35,000 point. You know, I call it the secret award booking between JFK and Lisbon with TAP Portugal. That one got annihilated as well. That one's gone. So that program also got rid of some sweet spots. Some were added, not as many, but some interesting ones got added, like the 45,000 point East Coast to London route. There's some other weird ones that have kind of lowered somehow in that devaluation. But generally, it was just a pretty big devaluation.
Then, of course, you had the Alaska devaluation, which was about I'd call like a 50-50 devaluation because you lost a lot of good value, but you gained a lot of good value. I kind of jokingly remember people were freaking out about oh, I can't get the Cathay Pacific flight. I'm like, guys, there was never award space for that flight. Anything times zero is still zero. Like it does not matter. So that's why I call that one kind of a 50-50 because they created some interesting award opportunities, but also a lot of the previous sweet spots were kind of removed as well. I think those were the biggest devaluations.
I'd say, from a hotel perspective, Marriott continued what I call it. It's a marginal devaluation every year. When I look at some of the hotels we've stayed at each time, it's like 10% worse every year. Hyatt's actually wasn't as bad as the previous two years. Yes, some went up and some went down, and there were some things that I hurt a little bit that devalued.
But I still remember the biggest devaluation they did was when they introduced Category 8 properties and moved all the Park Hyatt's to the Category 8. That just hurt me deeply because not only did they become more expensive, but now you've removed my ability to use the Category 1 through 7 certificate to stay at the Park Hyatt's. So I think that one this year actually wasn't that bad personally.
The other thing, which I jokingly say it's not like an official devaluation, but it's kind of a devaluation, is two things on the hotel side. So one is Small Luxury Hotels moving from Hyatt to Hilton. I jokingly say this hurt me a lot because of the 15 hotels in Switzerland, I think 10 were Small Luxury Hotels. So it went from this very standard award chart with some great benefits to the Hilton award chart where it's just kind of the wild, wild west of crazy award redemptions.
So there were a lot of properties that I had as my aspirational properties that I was hoping to book that have now just become much more expensive now that they've entered into the Hilton program or disappeared completely.
The other one is when the Mr. & Mrs. Smith properties came into Hyatt. I love Hyatt. It is my favorite hotel brand. I think that they have a near flawless execution, but I think the Mr. & Mrs. Smith integration was a dumpster fire.
Devon: I'm laughing because I have almost an identical list to you. I'll start with just the last point that you brought up. As much as I also love Hyatt, I get so much value out of that program. I think that it's still a great program for a lot of people. I really think this was not a great year for Hyatt.
I think the loss of those SLH properties to Hilton, again, the gain of Mr. & Mrs. Smith properties, but they're dynamically priced. They're not using that standard award chart that we're used to with the rest of the Hyatt properties. I feel like for those folks who really make the effort to get globalist status in Hyatt, the utility of that in the Mr. & Mrs. Smith properties, I would argue, is really not that great compared to the overall Hyatt portfolio.
Kevin: I will tell you the thing that I'm angriest about.
Devon: Tell me.
Kevin: Is the lack of free breakfast at Mr. & Mrs. Smith properties. So even as a globalist, paying the ridiculous points number, I do not get free breakfast. That's like the straw that broke the camel's back for me.
Devon: Yeah, and that's why I think for those of us who have been so loyal to Hyatt, these losses actually feel really, really painful because we've really become accustomed to this program that a lot of us do spend a lot of time, energy, potentially spend to get our globalist status.
So to have a change where we lose access to so many amazing properties with the SLH properties, and then the properties that we technically gain access to, the actual experience and what's available at the globalist level is so much less than it used to be. For a chain that is widely known to suffer from a relatively limited global footprint to start with. It's not like we're talking about a Hilton or a Marriott that's just got 20 times the number of properties as a Hyatt.
So as much as it pains me to say, I don't think this was a winning year for Hyatt, but that does give me a little shred of hope that maybe it can only get better next year. I don't really know how much I believe that, but I was disappointed by that change.
But I think for me, the biggest loser of this year, you had mentioned more that overall trend of devaluations. I took it a step further, feeling particularly pessimistic. I think, for me, the biggest loser of this year in award travel, I literally just wrote on my notes award booking programs in general. Not only do we have the devaluations, which I think you touched on brilliantly, but I think there were also other significant negative changes in this space.
One of the sort of darlings of the points and miles world that you mentioned before is the Air France KLM Flying Blue program. This is a program that I, for years and years and years, could pretty reliably find really, really great what I would consider to be saver space. So those 50,000 to 55,000 point one-way business class flights from the U.S. To Europe. I feel like I don't know what happened this year, but that saver space on Flying Blue almost just disintegrated in a way that I cannot remember ever happening. I think that that is an enormous loss.
But this, to me, is unfortunately part of a bigger trend that, again, I hope is more limited to 2024 rather than something that we should just expect moving forward. That, to me, is just the overall shrinking of especially premium cabin award space, but also the expanding kind of restrictions, specifically around partner availability.
So I'm thinking about trends like even the beginning of this year back in January, you could still book Etihad premium cabin award space through Aeroplan. You could still book Emirates premium cabin space business and first class through Aeroplan for really, really great prices. Traditionally, you've been able to book Etihad award space and Qatar award space through American Airlines. Those were great partner redemptions.
Right now, when we look at just the availability of premium cabin partner awards across the board, I personally feel like it stinks, right? Like we are not seeing great JAL award availability through American Airlines like we used to. I don't think that is limited to one program. I think that there's this overall trend of award programs kind of pseudo-consolidating into semi partnerships.
So we're used to seeing sort of the big three airline alliances, but now we're seeing these little maybe not so little. We're seeing partnerships emerge from those alliances. Right. The airlines that share the obvious currency earlier this year, Fiji Airways announced that they're going to be adopting or they're going to be joining into the American Airlines program. Right.
We're seeing these programs that are starting to become little sub programs in and of themselves. I think the downside of that is kind of that traditional idea about hey, put yourself in a great position with transferable points. You're going to have access to potentially all these airlines and many of their partners. I feel like this year especially that award availability has just decreased and consolidated in a way that I'm not optimistic about. I really hope that's a 2024 thing and not a forever thing, but I'm curious to hear kind of what your take is on that.
I'm sorry I asked you a question, but there's like one other example I wanted to throw in there that I think is part of this trend, which is that Lufthansa first class award availability. It used to be that Lufthansa first class award space was available to partners on a very short time frame. So just within about 14 days, two weeks from the date of travel.
This was the year that we saw that shrink down to just first class award space on Lufthansa being made available to partners for just three days out, which some people are able to accommodate that in their travel planning. I don't know that three days versus two weeks, that's still very close in travel. But it's just that overall trend to me of less award space, more restrictive award space and decreased partner availability.
I hope, I hope that this is not going to be a permanent thing. But I'm curious if you have seen the same trend and if what you think is going to happen to this in 2025.
Kevin: Yeah. So I have different terms for it. But two of the trends you've identified are two of the ones that I've actually spoken about in other podcasts and I've mentioned on my social media accounts. So the term I use for one of them is I call it award space insourcing. So the insourcing of award space is exactly what you described, which is the programs are bringing in all of the award space into their own programs and not making it as available to their partner programs.
You had talked about some of the most famous examples, which is two years ago, finding Qatar Airways award space through American Airlines was fairly easy. Again, that's a relative term. Now it's next to impossible. I mean, I can tell you what the numbers are because I run them, and I actually have actually stopped looking for that specific example because it's got so bad.
Where I think it was between 20 and 30, basically, pockets of award space. So that is if you look at the unique combination of to/from date and the flight number, there were only like 20 to 30 options across the entire network, across the entire network of an entire year. So it's like less than one percent of the award space was there. So that's a great example of it.
I've seen it in United where a lot of the United award space is being insourced. I've seen it in the Avios program where they're insourcing a lot of those. There's a bunch of other ones that people really never talk about. But so like that have existed for a while, and I think it's just becoming more prevalent now.
So like EVA Airways is another great example where if you book through EVA Airways on EVA Airways, there's actually a ton of award space. But if you try to book through a partner and get those incredible rate options, there's almost none. Singapore has done it for a while where you can only book Singapore through first class. Then Cathay Pacific traditionally has more award space on their own flights versus other programs.
Of course, you have the most famous example, which is Lufthansa. If you go into the Lufthansa Miles & More award calendar, you have nearly like every day you can find award space. But if you look through a partner, it's next to impossible. That's business or first class, very specifically for all of those examples.
So I tend to be a little bit more pessimistic specifically on that one because it's something that already existed in a small amount before and has now gotten into bigger and bigger and bigger amounts. As award programs look to increase their own value, I think they are coming to this realization that, oh, man, all these other programs are kind of stealing our value. So how do we bring it back in?
I actually have a very interesting thought experiment. I did how to create the ideal award program and create like tons of value. So I'm happy to talk about that at a different point in this conversation. But I did have an idea about how you actually solve this problem and align incentives.
But the other one that you were talking about is the creation of what I called super programs. So these super programs are things like the Avios program is obviously the most famous one. But you have the Miles & More, which, again, no one talks about, but also is a super program because it's the same program for Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian, I think three or four other airlines like Brussels Airlines and some smaller ones. Most likely in 2025 when ITA, again, most likely join Star Alliance, they probably will adopt Miles & More as well.
You have the Air France KLM Flying Blue program, which, again, everyone tends to think is only one program, but technically it is still two airlines. I think there is a decent chance in the future of SAS adopting that program. So you kind of create a super program there. You have the American Airlines example, which you just kind of walk through with them taking on Fiji. You even, to a lesser extent, the Hawaiian and Alaska programs are continuing to remain two different brands but operating under a single award program.
So you do have some of these super award programs. I actually think that's a good thing because it counterbalances the insourcing. Because, yes, Avios has insourced their own award space, but if Avios eventually holds like 10 airlines, then it counterbalances the negative effects of all the insourcing. The problem right now is the insourcing is creating a negative effect because you don't have a critical mass within any of these super programs.
So I think those two trends are both going to continue. I think one will have a negative pull and one will have a positive pull. I am really curious to see how these super award programs or award super programs continue to evolve and continue to add value.
One of my predictions for 2024 was Avios would add another partner. So I had a Royal Air Morocco was what I pegged or Royal Jordanian. One of those two would join Avios. Neither did. I still think there's a high likelihood that it does, one of those two in the future. But as you continue to add those what does that start to look like? Then, like I said, SAS potentially joining Flying Blue and ITA potentially joining Miles & More. What opportunities could those create?
Again, Alaska Hawaiian is the perfect example where you took a program that had no transfer partners. Yes, Bilt was a transfer partner, but you combined the programs. Now all of a sudden you have this absolutely incredible opportunity to unlock value by transferring your Amex points to Alaska Airlines. Can some of those super programs eventually unlock some of that same value?
Devon: That's such a great question. I think that this is one of the most interesting things to kind of keep our eyes on for 2025. About how does this continue to develop and evolve and what happens with these? I love that you call them these super programs. What do these end up looking like next year? I think this is a perfect segue to talk about kind of more specifically new predictions for rewards credit cards or reward travel in 2025.
I would love to hear from you beyond what we've already talked about. Do you have any other specific predictions for what you think might happen or change the landscape in 2025? Or specific things that you would love to see in 2025 that you think are plausible? Because we could talk about all of the things we would love to see that I don't think are plausible.
Kevin: The I’d love to see list is forever long.
Devon: Right. But what would you love to see that you think is actually plausible that would make a really positive impact in this space?
Kevin: So I think, like I said, the continued growth of the super programs, I think, actually would have a very positive impact in this space. I think that's one trend that I see continuing. Like how fast does it evolve? I think it will be very slow. So you may not even see anything in 2025 actually happen. But I think there probably will be some conversations behind closed doors that are happening that could lead to some things in the next year or two years after that.
I think one of the other interesting things that has been happening that has kind of flown under the radar, and you touched on one of them, is what I call the non-alliance award program opportunities. So you kind of mentioned one of them, which was, and again, I'm not even going to say you can book Etihad through Air Canada because that just doesn't exist anymore. It popped up again recently for a brief period.
But one of the ones that we've talked about before is a great program, and Air Canada is a great program. It's one of my top programs. Air France has created a partnership with Etihad. Air France has created a partnership with Oman. That's a really interesting mix that's going on. Air Canada, again, is a great example. They have Emirates. They technically have Etihad. I think they also have Oman.
One of the ones I recently found out about, because we were looking at doing a trip, is they're also partners with Air Mauritius. They also have a great rate from Europe down to Mauritius. So, again, none of those are within the Star Alliance program.
You have Alaska Airlines, which is just absolutely crushing the non-alliance program partnerships. They just have tons. They have the LATAM partnership. They have the Starlux partnership. They have the Korean Air partnership. Technically, they have a Singapore Airlines partnership. A lot of people don't know that because there's never a ward space, but technically, it exists. They have the Aer Lingus partnership.
So, they have all of these unique partnerships that have nothing to do with the airline alliance. I think that's actually been something that has grown recently. That's a very interesting development because there used to be this very clear-cut line and delineation around the alliances themselves. Now, we're kind of seeing those lines blurring a bit, which has been very interesting in the award space.
The last one I will say before I get to what I call my Christmas wish list. This has kind of already been hinted. So, I don't even know if this is a prediction or more of an inevitability. But it's American Airlines becomes a transfer partner of Citi as American Airlines has decided to move all of their cards over to CitiBank. Yes, that's terrible because the Barclays Aviator Red card is going to disappear, and that was a great way to earn points.
But if American Airlines can actually become a transfer partner from Citi, I think that continues to reinforce Citi's position as the most absolutely criminally underrated program on the planet. Maybe people will actually finally start taking notice of that program.
My wish among wishes, like my number one wish that makes all other wishes completely irrelevant, is for the Miles & More program to become a transfer partner of literally anyone.
Devon: No. I'm cringing over here because this is one of those things where I feel like everything in this space is benefits and drawbacks, right? I think, especially with Lufthansa Miles & More, there's so much value in that program right now. I'm admittedly incredibly selfish about this. I feel like there's so much value because it is so inaccessible. I think when it becomes a transfer partner, all of the things that make it such a special valuable program, I think naturally will have to get degraded over time.
That being said, I think ultimately one of my just overriding values and beliefs around this whole entire space is points and miles increase access, right, to traveling more, to traveling different classes of service, to experiences. Ultimately, I'm a proponent for that access increasing. So even though I think I would personally suffer if the Miles & More program opened up to more people, I think overall increasing access to incredible programs is something that I would always vote for at the end of the day.
But I have some other, not so much predictions, but kind of travel wish list items before we wrap up this conversation today. I agree with you about the American Airlines hopefully becoming a city transfer partner. I think that's really likely. We have not touched very much in this conversation so far on specific credit cards or credit card programs.
I think part of that reason is I don't feel like there were a lot of cataclysmic changes in the credit card space so far this year. Beyond, again, what we talked about with Mesa and potentially Bilt getting into the mortgage rewards market, which hasn't actually happened yet. I think nothing else really dramatically changed with credit cards themselves.
My hope is that that changes next year. I hope and predict that next year is going to be a really positive year in terms of credit card products, either new credit card products or improved credit card products. The one that I have been waiting for forever, that I really think may come true next year because I've read rumors online that this may be happening, is Chase introducing a new business credit card product to actually compete with sort of the Amex Business Platinum, Capital One Business Venture X product.
So for people familiar with the Chase ecosystem, Chase has three great ultimate rewards points earning credit cards right now. That kind of Chase Ink business trio. There's also sort of the one that gets left out of the conversation, the Chase Ink Business Premier card because that for all intents and purposes is just a cash-back credit card. So those of us who really prefer points never even talk about that card.
But I think that there's a huge opportunity for Chase to come into kind of the premium business points earning credit card space. I've been reading these rumors that they're going to be releasing something called a Palm card potentially as early as March of 2025. It really is supposed to kind of fill that space in the market. As a business owner, someone who loves Chase points, I'm hoping that that rumor comes true. I would love to see what Chase comes up with kind of to be competitive in that space.
Kind of dovetailing on that, you mentioned Citi being the most criminally underrated transferable points rewards program. I agree with you. Also, I think for Citi to really step up and be competitive, they need to have more and better points earning cards. They do not currently offer any Citi Thank You points earning business credit cards.
Again, I think that that is a huge missed opportunity. I would love to see Citi come on the scene with something. It doesn't even have to be competitive with a premium level business points earning card to begin with. But offer us something that earns transferable points on the business side. Then I don't think this is ever going to happen or I don't think this is going to happen next year.
But I feel like Bilt because of their unique positioning in the rental space for them to release either an additional kind of credit card product that also earns transferable points or releases maybe some version of a business card that allows business owners or folks to earn transferable points to pay commercial rent. So not just residential rent, but commercial rent. I think those could be amazing, amazing opportunities.
No one can see this, but you're raising your hand. I'm going to open up the floor. Please comment on anything before we wrap up our year in review episode.
Kevin: So I'm going to try to do this. I remembered something, and a couple of your comments triggered me. So one was the Citi comment where I would love for them to reintroduce the Prestige card. Like I am so jealous of everyone that still has that card and all the benefits they're able to do. So, like you said, opening up that premium card in the Citi ecosystem, I think would be something that's really interesting.
With Bilt, that was another thing. This was actually two years ago when Bilt first launched and they came into the rental market. My prediction at that time was that they would launch a more premium card, and you would need that more premium card for mortgages. That was my prediction was that they would use the mortgage market entry to introduce a higher level card, whether that be a $95 card or whether it be a $595 card. Something that would have a fee associated with it is how that would enter the mortgage market.
The other thing that you reminded me of tangentially, nothing explicitly you said, was actually another trend that I completely forgot about that has been very negative and very specific to the credit card space. Maybe it's not true for everyone, but in general, the opportunity to get retention bonuses with American Express has completely tanked.
I know that personally, the last three or four times I've tried to do it on either my card or my wife's card, I have gotten nothing, and I have ended up closing that card. I know that I am not the only one who is in that kind of place where they are not getting retention bonuses anymore. So that's a very interesting development that I think has happened over the course of this year and has really ramped up, like you said, even in the second half of this year.
It's another one of those negative trends that I, unfortunately, think will continue into next year, but that's just another one that I wanted to throw out there that I just remembered over the course of this conversation.
Devon: I agree with you about that. I think that's also what's playing into my, again, overall, perhaps unfounded optimism that 2025 is a better year, a positive year in terms of credit card products themselves, either new products, better products, just better offers of current cards.
But last question I have for you as we wrap up our 2024 year review is at the top of the episode, I asked you to rate on a scale of one to 10, kind of how you think about award travel this year. You said maybe a six to seven. When you think about 2025, the trends that you've seen you think are going to continue or things that are going to change in 2025. I'm curious here, can you speculatively rate what is your feeling on a scale of one to 10 about how the 2025 year in award travel is going to shake out?
Kevin: So I think it's going to probably be about the same. I think you're going to end up with a very similar situation. Maybe this is just the way that award travel is as an industry is you're going to have a ton of really good things that are going to happen. There's going to be a lot of really bad things that are going to happen. They're kind of going to cancel each other out. It really just depends on the individual person in terms of how they view the positives and how they view the negatives.
But I think it's probably going to stay at about, like you said, about a six is my guess. I don't think that there's going to be like a cataclysmic, like improvement, but I also don't think the floor is going to fall out from under the award space.
Devon: Okay well, now I get to be the contrarian because I'm actually uncharacteristically optimistic. Again, maybe that's because I felt like 2024 was kind of a status quo leaning, maybe a little bit negative kind of year. I think that creates a lot of space for 2025 to be better. Now, maybe like better in what respect, better compared to not great or just actually better. But my completely unfounded speculative feeling right now is that I think 2025 is going to be like an 8.5. I'm really excited about 2025.
So we will have to meet up again 11 and a half, 12 months from now for a 2025 look back and then vote on which one of us was more right or more wrong about what we thought was going to happen. But before we have a chance to do that, I just want to say, Kevin, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, your wisdom, your experience. I always love talking to you about points and miles. You bring so much to the table. So thank you for being willing to have this conversation with me. I really look forward to seeing how 2025 plays out.
Kevin: No, I thank you for having me. I jokingly say that as a data person, nothing makes me happier than being proved wrong with the data. So we'll do this again. We'll calculate some numbers, throw up some figures, and see who is slightly closer without going over.
Devon: All right. Well, I can't wait for that competition. We'll have to figure out what the winner gets to win, but we've got time to figure that out. So thank you for joining me today. Thank you all for joining along with us. I hope your 2024 in points and miles award travel was a fantastic one.
Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of Point Me to First Class. If you want more tips on turning your expenses into travel, visit pointmetofirstclass.com to learn more. See you next week.
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