Agreed. Anyone interested should check out a report out of Vanderbilt, "The Loyalty Trap: How Loyalty Programs Hook Us with Deals, Hack our Brains, and Hike Our Prices."
Small counterpoint: Working in a spot where I had visibility to various loyalty programs, several of them definitely rewarded loyalty. Big spenders would get better conversion rates than the regular consumer.
The difference here is that I’m already earning points. I’m not doing anything new to earn them; I mostly remember “restaurants on this card, online shopping on that one” and apps like CardPointers can assist if needed.
But this isn’t about selecting new loyalty programs or even being loyal; this is focused on more transferable credit card points, and airline miles you’re already earning.
It’s about using them at maximum benefit, not earning them maximally.
Yeah, flying my family of 5 to Hawaii using skymiles accrued on my Amex. Totally a scam.
They’re basically interchangeable with cash. I don’t get the issue. The main frustration I have is that I cant buy myself a ticket with cash and then pay skymiles for my child. If they weren’t of an age that they must be on the same reservation it wouldn’t matter. Feels more like a limitation of Delta’s abacus that sits behind their mobile app.
https://consumerlaw.berkeley.edu/news/price-loyalty-how-rewa... https://cdn.vanderbilt.edu/vu-URL/wp-content/uploads/sites/4...
Small counterpoint: Working in a spot where I had visibility to various loyalty programs, several of them definitely rewarded loyalty. Big spenders would get better conversion rates than the regular consumer.