Boraxo

FF programs will not disappear as the airlines need to reward their best customers as this can influence purchasing. However the programs have already become less lucrative as the earn rates for cheapo tix have been reduced and the cost of awards has gone up.

That being said I think we are seeing the end of the line soon for the massive sale of airline miles to banks. Customers are not stupid and they will be dumping airline-affiliated credit cards in favor of more lucrative ROI from bank reward programs (i.e Chase, Amex, Citi points) or even just 2% cash back cards. Nobody will take phony airline miles anymore when they are only worth 1 cent. The exception to this trend seems to be Chase-Southwest where the bank and airline have periodically offered enhanced signup bonuses and companion passes for card signups. Obviously they would not keep repeating these promotions if the results were limited to hard core churners. The Southwest program is very straight forward so maybe that is a lesson to the other carriers that use smoke and mirrors to hide the true (crap) value of their award programs.