PG: I respectfull disagree. You see, anyone can receive those targeted marketing offers by meeting the companies' requirements as well!

But what if I don't meet those requirements? Well, that is unfortunate for you but it is not the airline's fault.

The reason why the companies do these promotions is because through modeling or whatever technique, they discover that behavior-wise Joe Public on average will spend 20% than what they will spend if they did not have the promotion.

They have also discovered that the most loyal customers, such as you or me, will only spent 1% more (which may be a lot e.g. 1% of Stimpy's travel budget is 428% of Ken's but that's irrelevant). Anyhow, the cost of informing you and me of this promotion is greater than the increased revenue. Therefore, why should I promote you?

So say again if I am Joe Public, I think it would be unfair if I say "I want to get all the benefits of elite flyer without spend the money by flying e.g. meeting the requirements." Likewise, you can't get benefits you do not qualify for.

So, in theory, there could be a third scendario in addition to the ones you suggested:
3) An offer on the company web site saying that "you get N bonus points for making X stays between Nov 15 and Jan 15 where N = 1000 if you have not made any stays in 1999, 750 if you made 1-5 stays, ... and 0 points if you have made more than 25 stays".

In your opinion, would this be fair since it is not public and thus not by invitation only?

Finally, your second scenario is, at this point in time, target marketing as well since only those with internet access can see it!

Therefore, the only "fair" way seems to be mailing everyone in the database for every promotion.