i was thinking about this. does anybody have a complete listing of all the programs to which you can accumulate points miles etc. by using cc, buying tx, staying at hotels etc.

oh soooo too many to ever list, but for the USA, and a few more, lemme give it a stab at what I do know:

AA
DL
UAL
CO
NWA
US AIR
SOUTHWEST
HHILTON
STARWOOD
Baymont Guest Ovations
Jet Blue
Iceland Air
Singapore Kris Flyer
++++
One World
Star Alaince
British Air
Virgin
Quantas
+++
Click Rewards
Points.com
Milepoint

oh my ---forget it! this would go on FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

it's all 'mahhhketing,' man! The way of the age we live in!

please give it up - alone in ('my') Switzerland about every second hotel/guest-house (and there are more than 8'000 here, runs some kind of Frequent guest programs (points, miles, rebates, free upgrades, free second/third/eight night, free brakfast, free drink, free etc. etc.)

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).

airmiles card did not fly (no pun intended) here years ago, but I recall liking the idea and saw it whilst living in holland. It is possibly the way things should be but then, who knows. I suppose, however, you can buy that duct tape USING the card and therfore get more miles in the process... then go have a beer. I'm in! Talk about consolodating/simplying!

Cool I never realized that it was tried in the U.S. My company looked at trying a generic mile program as a loyalty program, like being a mile-broker/holder until you redeemed in your ff program but we abandoned further efforts. (we were trying in the trade show biz...what with all the travel you'd think it would be a good currency for promotions)

I see the program in UK when I am over in London and it seems to be picking up steam there too.

In Canada it rode in on the coat-tails of a bank issued MC. And in Canada at the time there were probably only 10 flavours of credit/charge card that you could get.

I even joined.

And I used the duct tape to make a beer stein too! (it was a late night in college...) The beer didn't even pickup any aftertaste after the first glass.