I usually find what Tim Winship writes to be drivel, either true but uninsightful pap or incorrect conclusions based on outdated assumptions. So it doesn't impress me that he is the only person specifically named that LoyaltyMatch has posted about in this thread. But I went and looked up his article talking about LoyaltyMatch, and quickly perused the company's Web site.

I find it fascinating that the founder of LoyaltyMatch is unable to communicate clearly in a few sentences the crux of what his company enables. I would have expected him to have long long ago polished his 30 second elevator pitch.

Here's my stab: LoyaltyMatch wants you to redeem your miles/points for physical merchandise, and plans to make money by charging listing fees for the resale/exchange of that physical merchandise for other merchandise. Programs may choose to tolerate LoyaltyMatch's existence if the negotiated cost of merchandise to them is less than the amount they can take off their financial books for the redemptions of miles/points. To the extent that LoyaltyMatch facilitates and encourages such redemptions, its marketplace may actually prove financially beneficial to the companies.

The companies running said programs may also realize that for them to claim it is invalid for John Smith to do whatever he wants with a flat screen television would go against most people's notions of property rights, notions that are much clearer for physical merchandise than for contracts for future air transport (plane tickets). If they were to enforce their T&C's in such a case, and somebody were to then challenge them in court, that just might set a precedent that they wouldn't want to have set.

Concensus on FT is that redemption for merchandise is a bad value. Bad value for us probably translates to fantastically good value to the programs. Most of us won't find LoyaltyMatch compelling. But some folks out there may find it a good use for some of their miles/points.