FlyingBlue is a bit player in the US, and FlyingBlue isn’t doing all that well to lift up AF-KL even in Europe where it has its biggest mass of customers. If it weren’t for those FlyingBlue sales — which are generally nothing like the flash sales DL does — FlyingBlue would already be closer to being in the dustbin of history. I do transfer bank points into FlyingBlue at times, but I wouldn’t dare to park a million points in FlyingBlue, even as someone better positioned to take advantage of a larger proportion of those sales than most.

The less predictable the value a customer gets out of a program requiring longer term customer investment and the more likely the value is to be poor when looking to redeem in the program, the closer the program becomes to being like Green Stamps. That’s an issue to be faced by all these airline programs providing diminishing returns for customers — and gutting the value (for customers) whether or not the airline is a huge financial success or a flop.