Remember when travel rewards programs actually rewarded you? You collected points, earned status, and got "free" flights.
So why does it all feel like a trap now?
Somewhere along the way, these schemes stopped rewarding loyalty and started exploiting it. Points quietly got devalued. Elite tiers required ever-higher spending thresholds. "Free" flights started coming with hundreds of dollars in taxes and fees.
And loyalty became a gilded cage.
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