ocdb8r

I'm not disagreeing that this seems to be the pattern, but I guess it's not abundantly clear to my why this is happening. I'm always perplexed when many of these things "die," especially in the last couple of years after most of these players have had some sort of experience with this game.

Certainly when these products are introduced there must be some discussion within the companies involved of the transaction/administration costs, including credit card fees, that need to be absorbed when these products are purchased. It just seems like pure insanity that this is a complete afterthought months after a product has been on the market.

If this is the case, I don't understand why publicity and increased gaming of the system for miles leads to their demise. Don't they introduce these products with the hope of mass widespread use? The transaction fees for the product issuers and retailers doesn't increase on a per product basis as a result of more people buying them (if anything it should be going down). The only group this seems to cost is the credit card companies who's miles/rebate cards are being used, and for the most part it's not this group shutting down the system. And even for them, I only see the increased ability to churn for sign-up/category bonuses being some unexpected cost (a $ charged is a $ charged regardless of what it was on).

Given the above, I can only assume either 1) these players really are stupid and don't think about all the costs involved when they introduce these products, in which case I think "shutdown" is inevitable as the impact on the bottom line will eventually be seen, publicity or not; or 2) something about the increased activity/use makes some of the players nervous (perhaps due to money laundering concerns) or they just don't ideologically like the idea of using their products for personal gain.

What am I missing?