Two things about the U.S. government, they are broke and their tax collection agency the IRS will do anything for revenue. This piece of legal news comes via TaxProf Blog:

The Tax Court yesterday required the taxpayer to include $668 in income as reported by Citibank on Form 1099-MISC as the value of an airline ticket received by the taxpayer upon redemption of 50,000 “Thank You Points” from opening a Citibank account. Shankar v. Commissioner, 143 T.C. No. 5 (Aug. 26, 2014).