Obviously I wouldn't support the concept in your example. My experience with travel is roughly that business travel focused programs (basically tiers with perk

Obviously I wouldn't support the concept in your example. My experience with travel is roughly that business travel focused programs (basically tiers with perks) are all designed to make travel smoother and don't come at the expense of sucking up your attention with advertising. Consumer focused travel programs (points) are the opposite, they are the same as grocery store points or whatever and about harvesting your data in exchange for some impossible to use "reward". As long as these programs stay on the business side, they will be more likely to be about making travel better. When we see them move to the consumer side, they will be about screwing people, and I won't support them. But for now, it's good to call out when they've done something good.