Kivetz, Ran & Itamar Simonson. Thesis

But in contrast to greater consumption efforts required of participants, a higher monetary cost of obtaining rewards (membership fees) shifted preference away from luxury rewards and toward necessity-type rewards.

This seems reasonable: someone who denies him or herself a spa visit is more apt to justify it when it is bestowed 'freely' through a rewards program. Work-related efforts feel harder than what is freely undertaken for leisure. For the purposes of the study, perceived effort was defined as inconvenience, buying more of a product than the consumer might normally, and substitution opportunity costs. The studies focused on rental car companies and department store shopping.It was designed to give guidance to marketers regarding how to structure rewards programs. However, the relatively limited of types of products used in the survey raises the questions if this is true for all types of rewards programs: for example, differences between rental car companies may be relatively minimal, and even department stores can be rather generic. But what about companies that have a certain cache or brand image? Does shopping at some companies 'feel' like more work than other companies? Does the perceived guilt attached to the original item (like a Starbucks latte vs.….....