. . . some of these folks are fairly high-powered businessmen who literally command huge hourly consulting fees etc, but somehow the fact that their elapsed travel times take several more hours over a nonstop doesn't figure into their calculations . . .

I suspect that most of these types of folks are tooling around on the company's expense account and being on the road a great deal, they have a different perspective of time and ( someone else's ) money. Lots of business travellers are however captive to the airlines and they are often compelled to take circuitous routes to their destination. Most need a FF program to make all of this flying tolerable.

FF programs are in some ways, less flexible than a hotel rewards program. We live near PHL and US Airways FF program fits us like a glove covering most destinations we travel to non-stop or with a logical conneciton. We eschew Delta and other carriers because they do not offer good direct service out of PHL.

But our travel is almost always leisure as we are Marriott timeshare owners. We stick with Marriott for hotel stays, utilize the Marriott VISA, and roll our TS ownership into the MR program as our goal is destination travel and the MR program is a great enhancement to TS ownership and our travel goals.

The interesting thing about the MR program is that one can either earn points for stays or points for FF miles on an airline of their choice. Great flexibility. And most Marriott properties are well-situated thus most usually obviating the location issue mentioned by another poster.

I guess that a good rewards program is one that is flexible and serves both leisure and business travelers. Marriott certainly accomplishes that goal for lots of folks.

Barry