Affiliation Rules

I posted this at CAP earlier this week and got limited response so hopefully it will receive some action over here.

I'm trying to get an overview of which affiliate groups link affiliates to players for all brands upon introduction to the initial brand. I can't remember if the general rule had something to do with whether or not a group fences its brands. It would seem that a group with unfenced brands would have to give the affiliate credit for the player accross the entire group of products based on the first linkage. Maybe I am somehow wrong about that but I don't see how it can be otherwise. As for groups that fence their casinos, do they all operate with different models concerning this topic?

I'll use Vegas Affiliates for example because they fenced their brands until recently when they decided (in a rash of ominously poor decisions) to aggregate their products. When they were fencing; if Affiliate A sent a player to one VA casino and two weeks later Affiliate B sent the same player to a different VA casino, how was this tracked? I was under the impression that the player would be attached to a different affiliate for the respective casinos to which he/she was introduced. Now that there is no fencing by VA, if the same situation takes place then I would strongly suspect that Affiliate A would receive credit for that player at every VA brand regardless of which affiliate is responsible for introducing any products that follow the first introduction.

Any feedback is welcome, but I'd especially like to hear from the affiliate managers as to how their specific programs operate. Shane of ReferBack was kind enough to take some time and tell me about the program he represents and I really appreciate it, unfortunately nobody else seems to want to talk about this topic. Perhaps other programs would prefer to keep us in the dark.