Thanks for the response -- you make a lot of good points, especially with respect to the risk/reward ratio. I guess my thinking is slightly different, in the sense that either (a) any system that has a fixed date for one reward could generate a fixed date for the second; or (b) that's all a bunch of spurious precision and it's more of a "in the ballpark call," like touching second base on a double play before the advent of instant replay. (To be concrete, folks who write rules down are not the same as folks who program computers are not the same as CSRs are not the same as slightly higher-level folks who take appeals from customers.) Was just looking to see if others had experiences that would tip this one way or the other.

If I do reapply at some point I'll update.