The problem with mom is that she can't sole source her flight and pay an airline a premium price to obtain more frequent flyer miles at her company's expense. She just ain't kickbackworthy. Some say, however, that the airlines aren't corrupt by playing various versions of the old kickback game under the guise of having a revenue based frequent flyer program and giving preferential treatment to "special" flyers. As I recall, when the subject of kickbacks and corruption came up United CEO Jeff Smisek even went so far as to declare "I am not a crook" and got on TV with some speech about his dog, Checkers.