… which of course sounds like a complete middle finger at the spirit of the T&Cs. I hope baec knew about it.

I think the agreed part of the argument is a little less simple than you suggest. I think the argument is that status has value, and as a result, there are tonnes of options to monetise it and if the airline chooses to, it can thus collaborate with lots of partners and share the profit contributed by status tempted consumers with said partners.

Absolutely agree on the above as a “market” and a “can”. The limit however is that it’s not because something has a velue that can be monetised than it should or even that it will necessarily optimise a company’s situation. I mean people can make nonsensical cash on selling everything from concert tickets they aptly bought en mass with bots to someone’s virginity but it doesn’t necessarily mean that those things should be sold and both regulators and companies can have strong reason to intervene, which is notably why the credit card business is far more tightly regulated in Europe than in the US.

Regarding the second point, whilst loyalty programmes are indeed potential sources of blind monetisation, it’s worth remembering they were initially invented with a completely different purpose - to make people spend more money on your airline:whatever when they would consider competitors instead and retain disproportionate customer in times of crisis. The frequent buyer model chooses to sacrifice that priority and whilst it may be right to do so, there is no guarantee than it is. Only the next majior aviation crisis will tell…