If you believe the common legend, the original loyalty program dates all the way back to 1793 when a U.S. merchant started giving out copper tokens to be collected and redeemed for items in his store (which was no doubt called Ye Olde Shoppe). But I would argue that loyalty programs are as old as commerce itself. After all, humans are generally loyal creatures by nature and smart merchants have probably always played on that trait to some extent.
Unfortunately....