Sorry for the intrusion but I am a non-flyer who must write on frequent flying for a school paper. The questions is: "Airlines initially created frequent flyer programs to create customer allegiance, but quickly found that they were able to gather a tremendous amount of information about the habits of their most profitable customers (business flyers account for over 80% of volume and revenue). This segment of people would never willingly divulge the information that could be gleaned from flight info, and related services (VISA cards, long distance and cell phone plans, car rentals, hotels, etc.) What are the advantages and disadvantages of creating customer programs like this (in different industries)? Is it worth the effort? Is the information gathered of high enough reliability to use in marketing decisions?"
Thanks for any input you can give me on this.