My Predictions For 2017: New Chase Card, Increased Platinum Benefits & More

Last year I didn’t make any predictions, I think I was too lazy. This year I’m trying to be more pro-active (and I got jealous reading about other sites looking back at their predictions) so I thought I’d share some of my predictions for 2017. Most of these are related to credit cards as that’s what I feel most comfortable predicting.

My Predictions

Bank of America To Add New Rule

Chase has the 5/24 rule, Citibank has 1/24 family rule  & American Express has the once per lifetime rule. Bank of America must be experiencing a big flux of credit card applications in the last six – twelve months. Eventually they are going to realize a lot of those applications are extremely unprofitable customers and add some type of rule to deal with them.

Mobile Payments To Add Loyalty Programs & Increase Competition

Mobile payments are still relatively new, but another year means more and more people will have upgraded phones that are compatible. Last year saw almost everybody try to launch some sort of mobile payment platform (Chase Pay, Walmart Pay, Android Pay, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay etc etc etc). This year will see those different platforms compete with each other for market share.

Samsung have already been aggressive in this, with the launch of their rewards program. I think we will see Android & Apple following suit this year and in addition card issuers will be offering more individual promotions for adding/using your card on the different platforms.

Additional Benefits To American Express Platinum

I think American Express will add additional benefits to their personal & business Platinum cards, most likely in Q1 of 2016. I’ve heard rumors of such a change, but not specifics and nothing is guaranteed. I originally thought they would have made changes to the airline credit, but given we are already a few days into 2017 without any changes I’m not sure that will be the case anymore.

Regardless of what they add, I don’t think the card will be competitive when compared to the Chase Sapphire Reserve unless you highly value centurion lounge access.

American Express Will Cut Back On AmEx Offers ‘Abuses’

AmEx offers can be insanely profitable if you get the right offer on enough cards. I suspect American Express will spend some time and resources trying to make ‘enhancements’ to their offers platform to discourage things like automatic Twitter enrollment and using the same offer across multiple cards.

New Premium Chase Business Card

With the success of the Chase Sapphire Reserve and the addition of the Chase Ink Preferred last year I think we will see Chase add a premium business credit card to compete with American Express’ Business Platinum card. Chase Ink Reserve anybody?

Chase To Restrict Bank Account Bonuses

Currently Chase allows you to churn their bank account bonuses (one per calendar year and not within 90 days of a closed account). I think they will restrict this further.

Other Sites Predictions

I’ll also list other sites that have made predictions here, that way you can easily see how they are doing as well.

If you’d like to be added to this list, please let me know in the comments (and it never hurts to link back to our predictions either – but not required). I’d also like to know what you think will happen in 2017, please share your own predictions in the comments below and later in the year we will see if you did better than me or not ;).

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P
P (@guest_335066)
January 6, 2017 19:04

Hyatt credit card anniversary free night will be redeemable up to category 5 and the annual fee will go up to $95-$99.

Chris
Chris (@guest_333842)
January 4, 2017 08:29

My prediction: Ebay will stop selling their gift cards and will try to cancel all the ones currently out there causing a customer uproar. Then out of the kindness of their heart they will give everyone one month to spend what they have left. Then they’ll cancel the Ebay bucks program.

Abey
Abey (@guest_333419)
January 3, 2017 04:46

I predict that Citibank will come out with either a new card or change completely the Prestige.
Lets face it they have been under the radar with Chase Reserve and Amex Platinum.
The Prestige only offers 40K miles sign up bonus. The Double Cash is a losing proposition for them by offering 2% cash with no annual fee and Barclay has been cutting down their AA cards by offering the Aviator with 40K AA miles sign up after just one swipe! They need something big to be in the headlines again.
I also think we gonna see more big companys opening co-brand credit cards with banks like the Chase-Amazon, Citi-Expedia etc. instead of just store credit cards like Target, Kohls etc. maybe an Uber credit card with Capital one? Or a Fedex Amex card?
Also maybe Amex will open some locations here and there in popular areas for people to make payments or apply for their cards.
Maybe TD Bank will finally realize the real meaning of a convenient bank and enable their Credit Crads to work with their TD app.
I also think/hope that other small banks like Santander, Northfield, Astoria, Berkshire, Alma and so on notice that sometimes “you gotta lose a battle to win the war” and you have to offer a Credit Card with a big sign up bonus to get propaganda and costumers to recognise your bank and they offer something decent for us to churn 😜

Carlos
Carlos (@guest_333577)
January 3, 2017 16:10

Um my CC is on my banking app isnt yours??

Abey
Abey (@guest_333711)
January 3, 2017 21:15

TD credit cards does not work
With the TD App, only TD Checking accounts does.
(Its kinda like a business card where you need to log in to cardservices@).

Jonathan
Jonathan (@guest_333394)
January 3, 2017 02:09

I wonder if BofA might have some new rules already? I was a little surprised to get my first denial recently for the Alaska card, and I see a lot of similar DPs.

UAPhil
UAPhil (@guest_333393)
January 3, 2017 01:46

Gadfly – re

–more whining from entitled travel hackers whenever a deal closes

Check out some of the blog comments re Southwest no longer allowing hotel partner points transfers to count towards Companion Pass. WAAAYY over the top!!

DOC – thanks for all your hard work!! I fall under 5/24 in a few weeks, plan to apply for CSR. Then I again fall under 5/24 in June; now have to decide whether to apply for Chase Ink Preferred or wait to see what else comes along.

JP
JP (@guest_333370)
January 2, 2017 23:52

I need three things to stay: Amex offers, Grocery stores let us keep buying GC with CC and Walmart letting MO thing continue…I will float for this year then…:)

Houstonmama
Houstonmama (@guest_333356)
January 2, 2017 23:23

I’ve been reading your blog for a long time now and I love it! It’s the only one I check daily and sometimes more than once a day. Thanks for everything and keep up the great work!

Chucks
Chucks (@guest_333350)
January 2, 2017 22:52

I think if the Personal plat combined the recent perks and gave both 5x on airfare, 1.5x on big purchases and 50% back on MR redemptions it’d be a keeper. That’d be 10% back on flights, 3% back on big purchases, double bonuses on all MR cards. You’d need to do some spending to make it worthwhile, but not that much.

Valerie
Valerie (@guest_333317)
January 2, 2017 21:30

With interest rates going up we’ll see bank bonuses and prepaid reloadable cards to disappear, will see more interest earning checking accounts (free cash advance), rewards debit cards. Less credit card bonuses, more sweepstakes, more lotteries.

Your site will be accessed by paid subscription, reddit/churning will be killed by “how to get xxx travel credit” or “what is my next card/step”, Dansdeals will be bought by Diamond Exchange. Amazon will open its own University and transfer students between campuses by drones and give out course grades with Amazon credits. “Welcome to Amazon! We love you!”.:)

MRS
MRS (@guest_333314)
January 2, 2017 21:26

I’ve only been visiting this site for about 6 months but I find much of the content to be very unbiased, which is nice. This is a great alternative to the TPG/BoardingArea type of blogs (which I also check out daily). I’ve gotten lots of value from the tons of deals you post! As others have said, please keep up the great work!