There have been a few posts regarding motivations of certain people relative to frequent flyer programs.

I ran across an interesting article from the late 1997 that attempted to analyze the "ethics" around the offering and use of frequent flyer programs.

Although a little dated in some of its references, it does a good job, I think, analyzing the frequent flyer programs for the first 16 years of their existence. I chuckled that some of the references and comments in the article are apropos today.

The article examined the ethicality of frequent flyer programs in 6 areas (Frequent Flier Programs as an offering from airlines, Personal Use of Awards, Corporate Confiscation of Awards, Abusing the Programs, Selling Awards, and Tax Evasion).

The article attempts to analyze the ethicality of the 6 points using two definitions of ethicality. One is deontology, which says that it is our duty to do what is right, and that this moral categorical imperative is absolute and unconditional, regardless of the consequences. The other is utilitarianism, which is concerned with the ends or consequences of an act as justification, i.e., do the long-run benefits exceed the long-run costs of a behavior).

It was quite interesting once you get beyond the explanations of the two schools of thought regarding ethics. I know--boring stuff.....

The link to the article is below--

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articl..._19369685/pg_1


It is interesting, that on the whole, the article concludes that frequent flyer programs are generally unethical.

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