I guess if I ever thought about it at all, I assumed this to be the case for any loyalty program. The purpose is to attract good customers, not bad ones.

The internet is such a help to frequent travelers that we didn't have in days of old. We can just set up automatic bill pays to make sure that there's never a late payment. So we're never going to notice this "enhancement." I remember the days of trying to guess how much a bill might be that would come in while I was out of town and sending a check in advance for some random amount...