To many, it seems like loyalty programs are always devaluing. Point prices go up. The ability to book valuable awards goes down. Sometimes the ability to earn lots of points goes down. But good things happen too. New transfer partners can make points more valuable. New partnerships (such as between Hilton and Small Luxury Hotels of the World) can make points more useful. New award charts can lead to great new sweet-spot awards. You get the idea.
In this post I’ve summarized the trends that are top-of-mind to me. I didn’t try to cover every program out there — just the ones where my opinion of them has changed for better or worse in recent months. And, please, please, please note that when I say a program is trending down, it does not mean that I dislike that program — it just means that I feel like the program’s value is headed in the wrong direction.
Airline Programs
Alaska (Trending Up)
- Ever since Alaska moved to unified oneworld award charts I’ve seen more and more great uses for their miles. This includes 45K awards from the east coast to Europe and 4,500 point awards for flying short distance AA flights within the U.S.
Avios — British Airways, Iberia, Qatar, etc (Mixed)
Since Avios can be moved between multiple airlines that share this currency, I can’t consider one program, such as British Airways Avios, without considering the others…
- Trending Down: British Airways keeps devaluing their Avios. But I don’t care too much about this since Qatar Avios were already a better option for booking the same flights (see: Regional first class starting at 12,500 points)
- Trending Up: Finnair recently adopted Avios and created new zone-based award charts. This addition adds new sweet-spot awards to the Avios ecosystem. That said, readers have written in saying that they’ve been unable to book partner awards through Finnair over the phone (and online partner bookings aren’t yet live). So, at this point, this is more of a theoretical trend up than a real one.
United (Trending Down)
- Repeated devaluations has made United’s miles less and less valuable over time.
Virgin Atlantic (Trending Down)
- One of my favorite uses of Virgin points was to book Air France or KLM awards. At the time of this writing, though, the ability to book these awards is still dead.
- One of Virgin’s greatest sweet-spots used to be the ability to book Delta One between the U.S. and Europe for only 50,000 points one-way and with very low taxes. Now, you’ll pay around $1,000 in fees for the same flights! Luckily Delta hardly ever releases Delta One award space to partners anyway.
Hotel Programs
Choice (Mixed)
- Trending Up: Choice finally added the ability to book Preferred Hotels & Resorts online!
- Trending Down: Choice increased the point prices for many Preferred Hotels.
- Trending Down: Choice removed the 35K cap from Choice Hotel award redemptions.
Hilton (Trending Way Up)
- Hilton’s new partnership with SLH (Small Luxury Hotels of the World) is a huge win. They quickly integrated far more properties than expected. They allow 5th Night Free awards and the use of free night certificates when booking these properties. Since this went live, I’ve already used free night certificates to book three nights at Grand Hotel Victoria Concept and Spa – Lago di Como, and three nights at the Hermitage Bay all-inclusive resort in Antigua.
- AutoCamp: Hilton has also partnered with AutoCamp, which offers RV (and tent) glamping in great locations, often near national parks. As with SLH, Hilton tightly integrated AutoCamp so that both 5th Night Free awards and free night certificates work with these properties. My only hesitation is that the value you’ll likely get here with points or free night certificates isn’t nearly as great as with SLH.
Hyatt (Trending Down)
- Hyatt broke my heart with the way they integrated Mr & Mrs Smith properties into their portfolio. Most awards get only around 1 to 1.4 cents per point value. That’s awful for Hyatt points which usually deliver much better value.
Sonesta (Trending Up)
- There was really nowhere else to go but up since Sonesta wasn’t even on my radar before, but with the current huge welcome bonus and the fact that points are worth much more than I previously thought, I’ve been seriously considering diving into this program.
Credit Card Rewards
Amex Membership Rewards (Mixed)
- Trending Down: Amex added “Family rules” to many of their cards (details here). This makes it more difficult to earn points through welcome bonuses.
- Trending Up: We’ve seen more and more ridiculously huge welcome bonus offers for some of Amex’s Membership Rewards cards. The three of us in my family each tried for the amazing 200K Business Gold offer. My son and I got the pop-up saying that we weren’t eligible due to having had the same card, but my wife didn’t get a pop-up despite having a Business Gold card currently open. She applied and was approved. Sweet!
- Trending Up: Thanks to my newfound love affair with Hilton, the ability to transfer Membership Rewards points to Hilton is suddenly interesting. The usual transfer ratio is 1 to 2 — that’s not enough to get me interested, but when they next offer a 30% or higher transfer bonus, I may just bite.
Bilt Rewards (Trending Way Down)
- Bilt’s new 1K Rent Day cap (starting 10/1/24) means that my winning approach to Bilt Rewards will soon come to a screeching halt (see: What’s next for my post Rent Day Doomsday Bilt card).
- I’m livid about Bilt’s attempt to hide negative changes both with the Rent Day cap (details here) and with no longer awarding bonus points for tax payments (details here).
Citi ThankYou Rewards (Trending Up)
- Thanks to Hyatt’s disappointing approach to integrating Mr & Mrs Smith properties, Citi’s ability to transfer points to LHW (Leading Hotels of the World) has become more compelling. If you want to use points to book independent luxury hotels that are not available through Hilton’s partnership with SLH, you can get a meager 1 to 1.4 cents per point value with Hyatt or you can get 1.6 cents per point value with Citi by transferring points to LHW. Read about my experience with one LHW property here.
Chase Ultimate Rewards (Trending Down)
- I use Chase points primarily to transfer to Hyatt and to book valuable awards from there. And I still do that, but due to Hyatt’s disappointing approach to integrating Mr & Mrs Smith properties, there are fewer opportunities for great value than when they partnered with SLH.
Wells Fargo Rewards (Trending Up)
- Wells Fargo points weren’t on my radar before, but now that they’re transferable, I’m suddenly interested. It’s especially cool that Wells Fargo allows moving cash back rewards from other cards to transferable points cards. This makes Wells Fargo’s cash back cards suddenly very interesting as well.
- Wells Fargo needs to add some more transfer partners before I’ll get too excited about this, but they’re definitely headed in the right direction!
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