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Introduction
It’s time for MEAB’s annual New Year tradition! Before we jump in to the regular short-form blog posts that litter the ground like losing tickets at the horse races, we’re starting with an annual MEAB tradition: Telling the story of 2025 through the historical lens of the rigorous academia of (checks notes, sighs): Animated GIFs.
Previous versions of the New Year’s special: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020
Churning in 2025: Broad Strokes
Churning in 2025: A summary.
Every churning group discussing 2025.
Not everything in 2025, was bad. For example, dining had its moments.
The American Express Business Platinum sign-up bonuses increased to 300,000 miles toward the moon Membership Rewards.
The Pepper (Moocho? Mucho? Moo-choo?) Saga
Pepper Rewards was a big part of churning last year.
We spent January and February conjuring points with increasingly ludicrous Pepper sales. Earning 80,000 Membership Rewards daily was child’s play.
The end of March hits and SideShowBob233 gets ready to redeem his stockpile of Pepper rewards. There’s a hiccup, but it’s probably temporary, right?
Waiting for Pepper points to be able to be redeemed in April.
Actively trying to get Pepper points redeemed in June.
July hits, still working on Pepper.
Finally autumn lands and the Pepper CEO shows us what the company’s real plans have been all along.
The Community
Everyone in travel hacking and churning is a little bit weird, and that’s ok. This year we’ve got a dedicated section to celebrate our churning personalties.
The elusive Danny describes his churning profits for 2025.
Chad at Automated Miles drops his Halloween episode.
Mojo interacts with the community in The Pepperdome™.
Carl trains his next batch of players for 2026.
Connor from Churning Life gets his Sunday morning AirPods delivery.
Parts_Unknown- and C-MontgomeryChurns keep Redditors focused on churning.
The Points Guy trains its next intern.
LonelyCat’s team in action.
Riley writes another article at Chasing Cetaceans
Country_Boy expertly finds the punchline in an ocean of targets, and isn’t happy with just a single hit.
Richard Kerr reacts to appearing again on the little known turbo-nerd site run by a reclusive newbie, MEAB.
Woody Allen presents “SideShowBob233: A Churning Documentary”
MEAB’s P2 reacts to the feedback from this year’s guest post.
The Behaviors
A churner misunderstands what we meant by looping.
Churners find out that we’re probably losing our $50 Saks credits. We’ll never have to think about them again.
Citi responds to a churner’s KYC answers with an adverse action.
A singular churner escapes 2025 unharmed against all odds.
Costco finds its way into dining and other churning games.
A churner realizes he’ll need to reenter the workforce after the US Bank Altitude Reserve devaluation.
The entire information content of a certain cash-back debit card’s WhatsApp group.
The Card Companies and FinTechs
The Mesa Homeowners card in one act.
Synchrony Bank finally learns what the floosies are up to.
PayPal Bill Pay has a nuclear meltdown, our favorite targets crumble.
Hilton enhanced its elite levels, aiming squarely at existing Diamond members.
We unsuccessfully tried to navigate Kasheesh’s terms and conditions, trying to get anything – literally anything – to work.
Citi’s algorithms chased Strata Elite cardholders with 4506-C requests.
Citi reacted to a Wall Street Journal public shaming over Strata Elite applications.
Airlines and Hotels
US airlines and hotels collectively said “we may not have started the race to the bottom, but damnit, we’re going to win it!”
A Concierge Key elite asks an AA gate agent about being added to the standby list.
Marriott Bonvoy recognizes a Gold elite collecting 500 points at check-in.
Southwest prepares for, and executes, its transformation plans for 2025.
Southwest realizes that it’s funner when paid bags get lost.
JetBlue added JAL as a partner, and you could book into JAL business and first paid fare buckets with miles.
Less than a year later, JetBlue and JAL breakup.
Travel hackers react after Blit [Blit]adds JAL as a transfer partner.
Travel hackers then react after Capital One added JAL as a transfer partner too.
Alaska Atmos became particularly useful for ultra short haul.
MEAB
I guess we couldn’t have GIFs without MEAB, so let’s round out the year with the community and MEAB:
Affiliate bloggers react to yet another MEAB post.
Affiliate and non-affiliate bloggers alike react to a MEAB post about nervous ticks.
Professor MEAB presents at a meetup.
Then MEAB isn’t seen in the wild again, though a music video dropped on December 15, 2025.
And finally on January 1, 2026, MEAB makes a grand reappearance to an empty stadium with every single one of the site’s adoring fans.
Happy New Year!
2026: A Preview