FairDinkumMate

@jafetzjaim
The reference to "manufactured spending" I think is referring to people simply putting everything they can on a credit card(rent, etc) to drum up miles without actually flying with the airline much.

"I wonder if they are at all interested in having top tier frequent flyers..." - They certainly are, but they want ones that ACTUALLY FLY!
Credit card bonuses & points are offered by the airlines to credit card companies because the airlines get great value from them(many people get the points & don't use them, but the credit card companies have already paid for the points = free money!) & because they want frequent flyers to choose them over their competitor airlines (a FF can earn 100,000 points on flights in a year but if Airline A lets them get 100,000 more on their credit card & Airline B doesn't, which do they choose?).
The obvious flipside of this is people like yourself that want to rack up 200,000 points a year on their credit card without actually flying much & then claim status - the status is designed for Frequent FLYERS, not Frequent Shoppers!