Arthur Frommer has also been on the anti-FF-mile bandwagon for many of the same reasons, arguing that the programs add cost but mainly benefit only a small subset of travelers (who also don't tend to be budget travelers, his primary readers). Many of his readers have written in to disagree.

I used to work in a big company and not only had very occasional (usually non-interesting) travel, but also had to do communications about travel policies, even as I was personally learning the ropes about FF programs. Upper management basically didn't like the idea of FF programs much at all, but the programs' complexity was enough to prevent trying to reclaim the miles. Instead they kept cracking the whip over the in-house travel people to flag any cases where an employee went with a more expensive travel arrangement to report up the chain of command.