Only one group "loses" in terms of raping the program. The airlines. I think it's critical to understand this if you want to debate whether this behaviour is right or wrong.

The end merchant uses these promotions to drive revenue. They don't care whether it comes from 10 customers or 1,000,000. While they'd love a larger customer base, they profit either way.

Goldpoints doesn't care. It earns commission on every sale. It cares about $$$ pumped through its portal. And it's loyalty scheme has worked -- many FTers now actively look to Goldpoints for good deals, and drive business to the Goldpoints portal and to its affiliate merchants.

It's the airlines who lose, on two fronts:

1) Competition with their own mileage sales schemes. They're upset you can "buy" miles more cheaply through GP than you can from their own programs.

2) Redemption of premium class awards at a significant discount. Limited to a degree by capacity controls on award tickets.

If the airlines decide that they're losing too much money by selling miles, they'll shut this thing down. Until then, enjoy these deals in the knowledge that all the parties involved are here voluntarily and have made the commercial decision to be here at the terms offered.