I think that is just the way of the corporate world. I used to travel for work a lot, and one of the perks of the job was banking lots of frequent flier miles and hotel points I could use for personal trips... Every time I got an email from one of the airlines or hotel chains about "listening to customer feedback" and "excited to announce changes to the rewards program", it resulted in customers getting screwed.
Perfect example was United Airlines used to give you miles based on the miles of hte trip - pretty straight forward, if they determined it was 888 miles from denver to chicago, you got 888 miles. If you booked business class you got a bonus on the miles, and if you booked first class, an even bigger bonus. But it didn't matter if you bought the cheapest ticket on the plane or bought last minute and paid the highest price for the coach seat - you got 888 miles. Then they said they "listened to feedback" and decided to institute a more fair system that made the miles based on the ticket price. So if you bought at the right time, saved some money and got a decent fare, that same trip to chicago you might get 250 miles instead of 888. If you were an idiot and bought at the last minute and paid the most, you might get 750-800 miles for the trip... but not the original 888. Then they made it even worse and introduced "economy" fares that included literally nothing - no miles, no advanced seat selection, etc. Of course that was based on feedback as well. Right.