Add me to the group that (seems to) think(s) you picked the "wrong fight".

Though I am sure there is some fraud against the airlines or hotel...by FAR I feel the greater fraud (though it may not be legal fraud in terms of rule of law, so we'll call it "ethically challenged") lies in how the programs work to our disaadvantage (oops, spelling malfunction), or how the affinity benefactor changes T&C right under our feet...over and over and over...or dilutes to the point of exhaustion...or puts in slick and stealthy capacity controls such that they *know* the rate of redemption is poor to essentially non-available. I am surprised the term "loyalty" enters the discussion any longer...lets face it...affinity programs have simple evolved into a "frequent buying program".

"They" ("they" = airline or hotel chain) have to offer "it" ("it" = affinity proram), to be competitive...but then try "they" immediately begin to figure out the slick ways to dilute, defer, deduct (set increasingly shorter redemption time limits (US Air and United being most-recent malcreants for this slick trick)) or hope the miles/points are never redeemed to begin with...so they can book literally INFINITE ROI ($0 / unredeemend award = infinite ROI in my book) profits. Once in a while we consumers get a rare & random "taste" of the loyalty these programs once induced, and I also maintain the very highest tiers of most of these programs do see tangible benefit...but CAVEAT EMPTOR if one is mid-tier or worse yet, no tier w/ any of these entities.

Good luck w/ your dissertation. I think you're missing the forest for the trees in a baad way. My take is that you might as well be doing a Human Interest story on Oswald and are overlooking the story that begs to be told in a professional and objective manner.