2025 Recap: We Offer the Opposite of Kudos for Many Travel Brands

It seems that the travel industry has saved the… (checks notes) worst for last.

Most people become interested in personal finance to afford a lifestyle; maybe they want a bigger house, kids, or to have enough cash to quit their 9-to-5 and do something else they find interesting (like make the best wax candles in the world).

However, many also use credit cards and other strategies to afford travel — they seek out sign-up bonuses to avoid paying cash, they amass unhealthy stacks of points, and they patronize key brands for status.

But more and more, there’s a case to be had that there’s no reason to chase shiny objects — we reflect on 2025’s biggest (and most frustrating) changes in travel.

Is everything just getting worse? The travel industry continues to be a give and get. There have been some bright spots this year (we’ll get there in a second), but the overwhelming majority of this year’s travel announcements seem to have been just plain bad for frequent travelers. If nothing else, they’re getting less than they did last year, which seems to be a theme.

• Delta difficulty: The airline changed what used to be a pretty simple booking process by adding new kinds of tickets that scream “money grab” — what was the point of this?
• Unite-less: United put fresh limitations on automatic upgrades and dynamic upgrade awards, plus made it so upgrades with PlusPoints would be dynamically priced — bruh.
• Southwest goes south: The budget carrier nerfed earning rates on the only fares that any sane person would ever book on their airline — what’s even premium about them?
• Could be worse, though: American Airlines no longer offers miles or rewards on basic economy fares as of Dec. 17, forcing frequent flyers to pay up to pick a seat or earn status — whatever.

It’s Not Just Airlines, Though

Airlines aren’t the only ones making things worse. We saw hotel brands continue to open the floodgates to status — creating more of a world where ‘everyone has status, so nobody does.’

• IHG, or IH-fee as we like to call it, increased points costs at top properties — likely the least offensive change made among hospitality companies this year.
• Hilton devalued many hotel brands and made changes that make it easier to get status, but it’s hard to tell if that will lead to upgrades or better service for many customers.
• Marriott also devalued redemptions and made it easier to buy status after acquiring hotel brand citizenM and its subscription product — we think it’s borderline pointless to have.

And meanwhile, creditors that upped annual fees on cards and launched tons of new ‘credits’ also cut back on features and transfer benefits — blame airlines and creditors?

• American Express devalued its Business Platinum points bonus and trimmed transfer value to Emirates and Cathay Pacific.
• Chase cut back on the Points Boost which made its travel program valuable — and they outright chose to drop Emirates rather than saddle devaluations.
• US Bank definitely angered cardholders by devaluing earnings rates on cash back rewards, so that’s definitely a new kind of frustration to have to worry about.

So who gets kudos? We can dream that Bilt will continue to stand apart in the creditor category as it has built a more versatile rewards program. In airlines, Alaska and Hawaiian’s refreshed Atmos Rewards program made lots of people very happy — with tons of possible ways to earn status and get quality redemptions. And in hotels, Hyatt continued to stand apart in 2025, which has become increasingly alluring to status chasers for their fantastic redemptions.