Personally, I think loyalty programs should be broken up. Their very existence is premised on creating monopoly and cartel outcomes by round-about ways of curtailing competition; remember, that thing that our corporations pay lip-service to?

This may sound strange, but the best way to break up loyalty programs for, not only the airlines, but also hotels, is for someone to sue and get the IRS to start collecting taxes on income gained from loyalty programs. The hassle would not be worth it and they would die off; leading to more competition and lower rates.....actual free market competition.