Interesting topic...for me at least.

In Canada there is the AirMiles(tm) program which is a not a ff-mile based program but you get 'miles' for x-dollars spent and these miles in theory are good for the actual amount of miles you get to travel. It is zoned and such but in theory YYZ-ORD would require that you have 1000 airmiles in your account. These miles are also exchangeable for a whole bunch of goods, services and even gift certs. It is pretty prevalent up here even though the card sometimes freezes and shatters when you leave it outside the cabin in the glove of your snowmobile. But duct tape fixes it real good, ehh?

It used to be a 1 credit card based program and then it spread and now a whole slew of retailers and MC and AMEX are members in Canada. This has kept down the number of individual programs from various companies. The only real competition that I see is from the AirCanada Aeroplan program with various partners (like the US mainline carrier model).