“Inflation has seen its peak this year, but it will still be above what we had been used to pre-pandemic next year,” David Mann, chief economist for Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa at the Mastercard Economics Institute told CNBC. Despite high inflation, Mann said, U.S. consumers are still willing to engage in discretionary spending in areas such as travel. And they are being frugal about their spending on necessities in order to be able to afford non-essentials, he added.