NWIFlyer

FT is a community of like-minded people, almost all of whom share a common interest in travel. We work very much on a mutual help basis, sharing knowledge that will be of use or interest to all of us.

FTers do, entirely off their own backs, organise DOs where many people - usually with an interest in a particular airline or FFP - can meet. There are also individual meets, which traditionally have revolved around guesting other FTers into lounges (particularly for Oneworld, where there is a greater hierarchy of elite levels corresponding to lounge access than with Star). Many people get a great deal of benefit and interesting conversation from meetings.

The traditional method of individual meets via lounge access has recently fallen into disrepute with the generally successful one on the BA board having to be closed for a short while due to abuse. That has now re-opened with a different set of rules, and is now a meet-up thread only, with no open lounge invitations and correspondence by PM.

The thread is here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...ad-2016-a.html

I would like to consult with the A3 board as to whether or not introducing such a thread here, on exactly the same basis and rules as now operate over on the BA board, would be welcomed.

Please use this thread, which I'll leave open until the end of June, to comment and suggest options.

Thanks.

/mod

:D!

I wouldn't mind having a thread like that here, but this forum is not as populous as the BA one and people are much more spread out across the world, so it might not see as much success.

Romanianflyer

Maybe.

On the other hand, with all of us either being frequent A3 flyers transiting a lot through ATH, and many others doing once or so a year to get their A3 segments, I could see it working for ATH.

I'm not that much of a frequent flyer these days on *A unfortunately (having also dropped back to silver), but I still am about once a month at the airport in Athens, and meeting up for a glass of wine or tsipouro with some like minded persons, beats some moments on my own!

My guess is that perhaps once every few days there will be a forum member in ATH alone, so chances for at least a few succesful meetups there are high.

witlesspax

I'm a bit worried about the limited population and whether this will be a success or not due to that, but I like the concept.

To clarify though, is the idea that like the BA one this will only be used for the home airport (ATH in this case)?

NWIFlyer

The BA one is, and always has been, worldwide - it is intended for anyone that's a BAEC member (or flying BA, or indeed just anyone) to meet if their schedules co-incide. Obviously mostly it's BAEC members because that's the people who frequent that forum.

As an example, I'm currently a very long distance from LHR and ATH but I've just had a drink with a member of the BA board and I'm meeting another one tomorrow because we all happen to be in the same city at the same time.

witlesspax

Ooops, indeed. Sorry about that, I misread point 1 on the BA post.

benberg2013

I also think that there will not be much action in such a thread in the A3 forum. I mean, there isn't and can't be a lounge meet thread in every forum on FT. There is already a M&M lounge meeting thread, to which A3 meets can be added, as it's all *A.

EDIT: I would however put in my offers etc.

witlesspax

Well, if that's the argument I would rather a generic lounge meeting thread on the Star Alliance board http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/star-alliance-413/ rather than being stuck in an uninvolved other FFP. But I would say that the point of having our own is to meet other A3 enthusiasts/posters from here. I assume we would be lost in the din of a larger FFP if we invade their thread. And might they not be upset if we invade? The top of that thread does say it's specifically for LH.

Xandrios

It is somewhat sad to see that even things like lounge-invitations are now forbidden across the board; Not sure what the incident was that caused this but I would be surprised if the airlines have any legal basis to forbid inviting people from a website. Anyway, thats not the topic for this thread..

I like the concept but share the same doubts as posted above. There will be fewer participants within the A3 subforum alone; however moving it to the generic *A forum will (at least for me) pretty much guarantee that I'll forget about it - I hardly ever check there.

Another thing I noticed with these things (I used to update the AFKL one in the past) is that it requires a certain amount of discipline to keep updating the thread with new flights. Can't we integrate Tripit somehow? (Thats a joke although they do have a public API.. )

benberg2013

You make valid points. I guess we could have some sort of trial for a few months and see how it goes.

sokolov

Would we be allowed to user lounge invitations?

I'd be happy to offer that when I travel. That's one of the reasons i post some of my flights on the itinerary section.

DELLAS

I personally would not be against it. When people use it in good faith and do not abuse it by incidents that have been seen elsewhere then I think it is a positive thing. As long as there were a clear set of rules and any sniff of abuse reported and monitored then I think it would work well. Of course there will be a lot less traffic than the BA one but that should not be a reason not to have one !

HNF01

I was posting to the *A lounge meetings thread so far with the intention to eventually meet other FTers. I do not see an issue to cross-post into a thread here in order to meet A3 enthusiasts in ATH/SKG/LCA.
But I would like to be able to offer an invitation to the lounge based on my status. To me, it is like if I met a fella at CI and we decided to have a drink - if one of us had the card then lounge would be a natural choice.

NWIFlyer

For those with status, a lounge meet is perfectly possible - it's just that, rather than being pre-advertised, it would need to be agreed as the meeting point by PM.

There were very good reasons why the thread was closed on the BA forum, with some people's actions being entirely against the spirit of FT, and perhaps even the law. That's also happened in other places on FT, so we need to guard against that here at the outset. It has nothing to do with the airlines stopping it.

intuition

I am not a regular of the A3 forum anymore, but I do have two lines of thought I'd like to share:

a) why would a meet-up-thread require moderator action for it to be established? Either there is a community demand for such a thing and then there will be user created threads (which easily can be turned into a wiki once there is enough traffic to the thread) - or there really is not much demand from the community and then there will be no such threads.
The BA example looks exactly like the AY meet-up wiki, but the latter needed no moderator action what-so-ever.



b) I do see the point of sub fora keeping meet-up-wikis. Many FT'ers are very close to their airline / program and might already have formed a relationship online. Then it is a nice thing to be able to meet-up while on the road.

But if moderator time&energy is needed for these wikis, I personally much rather would see that energy used for a global meet-up thing. (There is "flight-connect" but it is pretty dead and pretty cumbersome to use).
If I am about to set off for a trip and have some boring layovers, is it likely I will spend time and energy looking into ten or twenty different local meet-up threads in every possible airline/program sub fora? If I fly A3 to LHR and then onwards on a oneWorld carrier and I put my meet-up info in the A3 wiki, what is the likelihood of ever hooking up with another FT'er?