Stepping up on the rant podium:
I would extend this to eliminating special discounts entirely. For everything, for everybody, all of the time. Set a price that's available to everybody and let each customer decide whether to participate or not.
Over here Special Discount "A"; over there Negotiated Rate "B"; and the Platinum Club Membership price "C" over yonder. Senior discounts, student discount, military discount, AAA discount, ad infinitum.
This isn't merely a needless complication that gets larded onto no end of goods and services, making it extra work for people trying to manage their purchases efficiently. It also obliterates transparency and results in unfairly penalizing people who don't have the skills or time to game the system.
One need look no further than the health care industry, where nobody knows what anything really costs. The consequence is that anything and everything costs the earth and society pays through the nose.
But that same logic applies to air fares and movie tickets and tomatoes and Chevrolets.
What would be wrong with treating everybody the same? In the USA, where our founding documents claim we're an egalitarian society, that's the way it's supposed to be. Life would be easier, simpler, cheaper, more efficient, and a d*mn sight fairer.
Rant over.
