I'm looking for data or quotes from respected sources about the rise
of cashback credit cards in the US.

Frequent Flyer points used to be the dominant credit card reward
scheme, but over time the industry has moved to cashback (and non-FF
points to a lesser extent), to where cashback is now the dominant
rewards format in the marketplace.

This is pretty clear for people who follow the US credit card
industry. I'll be using this in a work presentation for a non-US
audience, however, so I'll need to be able to prove this claim.

What I'd really like is some data: something like the number of
accounts with cashback vs frequent flyer points, volume of credit card
offers, or volume of spending on the two.

Failing that, quotes to that effect from a respected source (Forbes,
Business Week, WSJ, stock analysts, research firms, etc) would also be
helpful.

Thanks a lot!

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/MellodyHobson/story?id=127617&page=1

Since Discover Card initiated the first cash-back rewards program in
1986, the practice has grown significantly. Specifically,
approximately 1 billion, or 25 percent of all credit card
solicitations in 2003 were for cash-back rewards, up from 700 million
in 2002, according to CardWeb.com."
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http://www.latimes.com/business/yourmoney/sns-yourmoney-1226rewards,1,3788887.story?coll=la-utilities-business

Cash is king. Cash-back rewards programs are the most popular kind and
may be the best deal for most consumers. Unlike rewards points, you
can spend cash anywhere, anytime, on anything you want. And cash
programs tend to be the easiest to use.

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http://www.maritz.com/newsreleases/maritz-electronics.html

When analyzing in-kind offerings, such as cash back, APR reductions
and statement credits, Maritz Loyalty Marketing found a preference
among rewards card members for cash back (62 percent preferred) versus
statement credits (38 percent preferred)


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http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/CNBCTV/Articles/TVReports/P106061.asp

http://money.cnn.com/2004/06/16/pf/debt/best_rewards/