I'd prefer it if points were fixed like the timeshare points and future points could be worth less by making them harder to earn, but the number of points needed for a stay or trip would remain the same for longish periods of time. That said, the dollar amount isn't fixed using cash, so points varying probably isn't unfair per se. Where I think there's a lot more ground for complaints and potential regulation would be around the structural confusions. I don't know about frequent flyer programs at all - I literally just joined one this year simply so I could use the United app. But a relative of mine has several accounts with miles and tells me it's often quite hard to use them. IDK if that's because of him or the programs, but nothing grinds my gears to have supposedly built up points yet you cannot use them.
The arguments about dynamic pricing is weak to me - first, sometimes it works in the consumers favor - simple supply and demand - the pricing is trying to encourage people to buy tickets but not overbook. My concern is the opaqueness - I think it's fine if it's the same price offered to everyone looking to book at that time for that seat, but if it's per person then I feel like it's unfair because the customers have no idea what the going price is - too much information disparity.
Extra Fees should be regulated out of existence in general IMHO. We should make drip pricing illegal and should again have the rule that if it "says that price on the shelf" (search engine result, first webpage, e-mail) that's the price to check out (maybe plus tax because for some reason politicians like to tell us the sales tax and make everyone do a lot of math). In terms of keeping an account active, I suppose there should be some allowed no activity time out, but it should be pretty long IMO - maybe 10 years.
Transfer fees probably should be limited to what banks might charge to do a transfer, which usually is $0. (ACH and Zelle).
I'd personally want to look at anything that starts to sound like "on the 29th of Feb when the moon is full and Mars is in retrograde you can use these points for a free flight!".
With hotel programs, I generally dislike the Marriott model of categories and you can only earn a free night for some set of lower categories. This seems to me like a completely arbitrary and generally confusing limit - and I can't really say why this is preferred compared to just setting the points values high enough to make it worth it (to Marriott) no matter the property - seemingly like Hilton does.
Personally, I feel like in the last 25 or so years I've been at all cognizant of flying and frequent flyer programs - they've never seemed like a good deal or worth bothering with. I don't think this is a new problem for the industry.
At the end of the day, I feel like most people I know just avoid the programs that don't seem "worth it". So on the practical side, I don't think Airlines are enough an outlier here for it to make sense to single them out IMHO - I feel like the market is fine, mostly valuing the programs as "cool if I can get something from it, but I don't actually think it has much value". I'd prefer to see national rules for everything around getting rid of the issues I pointed out above.
