What will it take to kill credit card bonuses? Probably a major sitcom character explaining the techniques to his or her friends, then follow-up press articles demonstrating that you really can do it. Either that or a reality show called Flip This Credit Card.
They could just go away!
11 of the 19 miles and points cards in the UK do not offer any sort of referral bonus or appear on any cashback sites.
And why should they? After all, logically,
almost everyone bothered enough to want an airline or hotel loyalty credit card will already be in the loyalty programme. There is a small subset of FTers outside that, but they are a real minority - and not a very profitable minority either.
And the airlines and hotels already have your email and home addresses to bombard you with promo materials! Why pay fat commissions?
The only exceptions are (US) cards such as Ink which are not aligned to a particular programme and so do not have a member database to mine.