These "clueless" people generally come in 3 forms. The first is the poor, who will never will accumulate enough miles through a kickback program to get a decent air award. The benefit to them is insignificant, so it's not worth their time. The second is middle class people, who don't feel it's worth their time to study the airline programs to get air awards. If they aren't going to get a free ticket with a paid ticket it's too much trouble. The third is the rich. It makes no sense to read things so they can get back 1 to 5% of their purchase in the form of an air award. Usually, two hours or less of work pays for any airline ticket they want. These people are not really clueless. They made a conscious a decision that it's not worth their time to deal with airline schemes.