Originally Posted by zlc
On the grand economy, the administering of the FF program is wasted resource that does not generate value for the society, which makes everything more expansive than it should.
To the airline, the administering of the program is also marketing. I guess one could argue that marketing is "useless" because one the product is no better no matter how much it is marketed. But there is value in gaining a reputation which will drive people to their product. The same could be said for TV commercials, except that they bring us the Super Bowl and they are paying the $2 million per 30 second ad in the most extreme of examples.