Tournament Tardiness

It's started becoming a pattern that we have latecomers to tournaments, and that we grant a bye to the ones that come late. I don't think this is a good trend, as people may be given incentive to get essentially a free win. In the future, I propose that we cap the time at which we start, and if we do allow latecomers to participate, instead of a bye, we'll give them either a tie or a loss. Comments?