Just a small point....
I noticed Geoff mentioned the Qantas FF program several times in his response and the fact that the airline is going to reward people more for flying than not in earning points.
The enormous cost to the airlines in letting people earn points by spending on everything from groceries to rental cars to cruises has cost many of them dearly.
This issue was raised approx 10-15 yrs ago in the USA, as Geoff mentioned history repeating itself.
Carriers found themselves with FF seats being taken up by people who had never been on 1 of their planes in the past having gotten points via every other means other than flying frequently with that carrier.
This basic concept of giving airline pax who had flown with the carrier a few extra points for staying at hotels and renting cars with the carriers partner businesses on their trips was good in the beginning but then it spiraled out of control and denigrated into the situation Ive mentioned above, no flying at all but still earning points.
US airline FF schemes alone were/are worth Billions in equivalent fares to every airline and have long been considered a liability to the carrier by the very managements whose poor decisions/greed in letting them grow and morph into what they have become came back to bite them, hard.
Billions in lost revenues, and managements world wide are penny pinching on nickel and dime stuff.
Maybe all airline managements need to look at changing this point earning situation instead of screwing current point holders over with low FF seating availability, blackout dates etc etc
They wont though, the Genie is too far out of the bottle now and everyone is doing it this way so there is more than likely no going back.
