This is very, very sad. Oh the miles!

Are these comparable?
There is great deal of risk for that reward in the property market. Property is not a very liquid investment and real estate prices were never guaranteed to increase. Not signing up for a FF program is leaving money on the table. It's yours for the taking, you have already paid for it.

These elite deals are not guaranteed either, however. The Economist keeps writing that FF miles are the most over valued currency in the world, so there is a risk of devaluation but you are never going to go upside down on your mileage mortgage......

You could mention to him that he could buy airline frequent flyer miles or points with the Choice hotel points.

Hotel reward programs can be useful for a few reasons even if one does not anticipate the hotel points being too useful:

a. Collect airline frequent flyer miles or points.
b. Sometimes, hotels give you perks for being a member, even if you have no elite status (e.g. I got breakfast coupons at a Hilton once for having a HHonors account with no status).
c. Some have claimed that hotel reward program members are less likely to be sent to a different hotel in an overbooking situation.

Personally, I don't find any single airline (or alliance) to always be the best for any given trip (schedule convenience, fewest stops, price). So my flying habits tend to use a lot of different airlines.

However, I do collect frequent flyer miles and points on those flights, concentrating them on a smaller number of airline programs based on alliances and partnerships[*]. That has still managed to produce some award tickets, despite not concentrating on any given airline.
[*] Basically, I have UA to cover Star Alliance airlines, AS to cover a bunch of other airlines including AA, CO, NW, and DL, and WN for itself.

Devaluation can occur by having very tight capacity controls on "saver" awards. You may have enough miles for an award, but there may never be seats available for such awards when you want to go somewhere.

$20K/year spend on the card -- automatic Hilton Gold for next year.

Plus, you will have at least 60,000 points, maybe as many as 100,000. Get 25,000 more and you can get an AXON award, good for 4 nights at a cat 6 hotel (think Paris, Rome, New York) and, especially overseas, your Gold will be treated rather well.

Agreed. And I do the same thing. Although I tend to concentrate more on various airlines within one alliance, in my case Star. However, in my friend's case, he is just all over the place with airlines and hotels and doesn't care much to sign up for any frequent flyer/stay program. So I figured I could maybe introduce some discipline to his flying habits and have him start accumulating something and watch it grow. Hopefully that will result in motivation for him to sign up with other airlines and partners.

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

This is interesting. I never really got into the economics of fares and miles. So in effect what you're saying is that each person who pays for an airline ticket, regardless of whether he or she is a frequent flyer member with that airline, shares the cost of supporting that airline's FF program?

The income derived from all tickets goes to pay proportionately for all expenses incurred by the airline. FF program is just one of many expenses that are funded by the ticket revenue stream. In short--Yes.

The miles are free. They are only a representation of a possible cost to an airline if a ticket or other merchandise is actually reedemed. If the miles are never used there is no cost involved.

Regardless of usage there are still fixed costs associated with the administration of the program. The miles are also carried as a liability on the balance sheet. There can be costs associated with carrying liabilties on a balance sheet such as being viewed as more of a credit risk which implies the cost of borrowing goes up.

Consider this:

#1. You go to the grocery store. You buy $100 worth of food. You give the cashier $100. Net result -- you get $100 worth of food and you're out $100. End of story.

#2. You go to the grocery store. You buy $100 worth of food. You whip out your credit card and pay for it. At the next billing cycle, you pay the $100 cc bill. Net result -- you get $100 worth of food and you're out $100 (which you paid at your convenience) and you got 100 miles or 500 hotel points or whatever.

Who pays for those miles/points? The customer that pays cash, that's who. The store's agreement precludes them from offering a cash discount, so in effect your mileage-earning is subsidized by the cash customers.

i agree 100%

who pays for the mailings to frequent flier members?
who pays for the additional ticket agents to help customers convert miles to tickets?
who pays for the website modifications that allows you to track and/or redeem miles online?
who pays for the whole set of airline employees associated with maintaining and running a frequent flier program

all of these costs must be covered and are in effect added to the price of the airplane ticket

regardless of whether or not any individual chooses to collect frequent flier miles and regardless of if they are ever redeeemed or not

the net effect is that those who dont collect or redeem their miles assist in paying for those who do

here is a another example
food and grocery store coupons
literally billions are spend each year on printing and distributing them
only 5% are ever redeemed
but the cost of the whole pogram is included in the price you pay at the counter
those who dont redeem pay an average higher price than those who do

I will agree with that. I didn't mean to imply that the administration of the program or the cost of the software, etc was not incurred. I actually started to add to my original reply with that disclaimer but I changed my mind. Oh well.