Personally, I blame this on the US Government. These mergers should have never been allowed to happen. Competition has been stifled because of them, and thus, as was mentioned up thread, there really isn't much need for AA, UA & DL to differentiate themselves. With the Dunkin' Donuts example, there are many places for people to get their coffee and donuts...and it is that competition which really drives their rewards program/loyalty. At this point, it is too late for the government to do anything about what they did unfortunately. And, as airlines are a very difficult business to just "break into", tons more competition isn't really around the corner.