i believe one cause of this is that many assume that frequent flier miles are free and as such are easy to waste

in reality there is a cost to the airlines to provide frequent flier miles and that cost is reflected in the ticket price

if the cost of the airline ticket was broken out, and people realized that around 10% of the fare is going to run ffm programs, the attitdes might change

and then there are some people are just wasteful and dont care