There's something to be said for loyalty programs. I say this with the caveat that I participate in very few.
-It's much less expensive to advertise to customers you already have. It could be worth it to give back some of those savings.
-In some businesses, there is a cost to add a new customer to their systems for account information such as delivery addresses, etc. Someone has to take the time to enter and maintain the store systems with customer account information.
-In some industries, there's a cost to educating customers about specific business practices such as when things are in season, optimal shopping and ordering days, handling and care of items they're buying, how to perform maintenance on items, servicing schedules, when to call for help (and when not to). It is worth it for a company to reward those who already know the business practices and don't need to be walked through them. I've seen discounts as high as 20% for customers who don't need help from staff.
-A company benefits when their regular customers get a heads up about new items or items coming back into stock. In different places I worked, we had emails that would go to some of the regulars to give them a heads up that we had seasonal items back in stock, especially if the items were in high demand but in limited availability. The customers greatly appreciated not losing out on their favorite items that they bought year after year.
-A business eats part of the cost of processing returns and minimizing that with a rewards program helps. If I was in parts supply for technical equipment, I'd gladly give discounts to customers who knew exactly what they wanted and didn't need my staff to check and double check everything for them to make sure they have the correct components and also know how to install them properly.
-Reward programs are often designed to distinguish between bulk sales versus individual sales. If I sold 100 items in four weeks to untracked customers, how do I know if it was one customer coming in and buying what was available on the shelf (where I could reach out to them to see if I could get them larger quantities) or if was different customers coming in and buying them? The market basket reports at the cash register transaction level will show me how many were bought at a time and what they were purchased with but won't tell me who bought them if the customer paid cash or used gift cards. Replenishment systems will see a spike in sales at a store and send more product but I've witnessed where the sales dropped off because it wasn't a multi-customer trend but one or two customers coming in and buying large quantities for a specific event. The store later had to mark down the price on the excess items to sell them before the expiration date. Multiply that across multiple items in multiple stores and it becomes a significant problem. A loyalty program can help clean up such data and factor into the store replenishment calculations.
Most of the benefits you listed are true, but they all accrue to the company. Not many go to the customer. When you account for the customer aggravation factor AND the customer savings, the customer is behind.
These electronic loyalty programs were supposed to simplify things, but most don’t. Southwest Airlines has done a good job with their Rapid Rewards program. It’s pretty painless to find the best price and accrue point. I just signed up for a new Visa card that gets me 75,000 points after spending $3,000 (which doesn’t take long these days). That will get me maybe four tickets for western US travel worth about $800. So some of the loyalty programs DO work with me!