I bet that sole source travel agency has some status comps to hand out. @:-)

And that's kind of my point: you can participate in mileage programs, receive status comps from travel agencies, and receive all sorts of bonuses and preferential treatment from hotels for booking meetings, and *not* be considered to be involved in an illegal kickback scheme.

But when these programs were conceived, effectively provided a legal way to provide this function. It really felt like you were getting "free" flights for yourself in exchange for funneling travel to one provider. This was also an era where the programs were *very* rewarding...you piled up free flights much more quickly than today, often thanks to bonuses-upon-bonuses and generally lower mileage requirements for long-haul J/F.

Now they're so ubiquitous that everybody accepts the programs as part of normal business. Large companies accept that all of their employees will participate. Everybody is generally aware that we're effectively paying for the programs in one way or another. And since everybody participates, the opportunity for huge rewards flowing to a small percentage of informed travelers is mostly over.