Earlier today I bought a $15 gift cert as my 10th (and final) transaction for DL's promo that ends tomorrow. I asked the owner, "So, it seems you decided to drop Alaska, and keep all the other airlines?" He replied, "It didn't quite work that way." He went on to explain that he had complained to the RN regional rep that he found the 50% drainoff to be far more of a burden than he'd anticipated and that he was extremely unhappy (to say the least) with the way things were working out for him. The rep replied, "We can 'remove a partner' [unspecified at that time] to free up some more revenue for you." The owner and I agreed that RN unilaterally decided to knock out AS to make the owner happiest, in the short term, since that was likely the highest-volume partner.
Far from happy, the more he and I talked today, the more hostile he became towards the program and RN management. I had not realized there is a lawsuit pending in CA to shut down Rewards Network from operating there as a [de facto] "lender" without being registered by the state to do in accordance with their laws. I gather this owner cannot afford to break his contract, so is looking to get out of it by seeing RN run out of business. He seemed optimistic that this might occur in the near future.

Apologies if this seems like a duplicate thread, but I thought it is a more far-reaching discussion than the one I started earlier.