Hello, I have lurked around bft for years, and never made the effort to create a user and post winning bids. I just wanted to mention that at some point in the last several months my IP has been blocked from accessing the bft website. So, apparently lurkers are at risk as well.
Welcome to FlyerTalk, kmontreal!
The BFT Administratrix may have banned an entire range of addresses. Or, if your ISP assigns a different IP address everytime you go online, you may have assigned an address that she banned previously.
__________________ * * * I Survived the Great FlyerTalk Outage of November 2009!!!!! * * *
Betterbidding has a somewhat different approach, but you will get help. The site is organized differently, but you will get the hang of it. You will be treated a lot more kindly and gently.
Be a good sport and use the links there if you would like to help keep the site in business.
And you will get a little help from your FT friends.
You've already learned the Sheryl research part. Just do it on your next bid, as it actually does make sense for your own understanding, and then look at those rack rates you've tediously pulled. Take a peak at what you can do with Hotwire. And look at recent wins around your dates. Start your bidding somewhere around the lowest of maybe 10-15% below Hotwire, about 1/2 the lowest rack rate and those recent wins. Work your way up in increments, little ones if you have lots of time, and bigger ones if you don't. If you haven't mastered the ins and outs of free-rebids, now is the time, so you can have more bids when time is short.
Betterbidding has more and more actual win results posted, as the bft bannees shift over.
You are not alone.
You also can go back and browse bft if you use an anonymizer. And sometimes, after a while, you might find you can go back and browse directly. By all means, don't try to logon with your userid though, as you will find yourself banned again.
So - welcome to this not terribly exclusive club of fellow bannees.
You can do this...
Romelle
Oh yeah, I see it is your first post here. Let me be the first to welcome you to FT. Took me a while to figure out this board too, but there is an incredible wealth of information here. Do pull down that HELP at the top when you see an acronym you don't recognize and check the glossary, or use the Airport Code Lookup for an unfamiliar airport abbreviations. Or maybe you have been a lurker for a long time here, and already have the hang of it - in that case lets start hearing from you.
Thanks for the welcome Romelle! That's great to hear betterbidding.com is taking up where Sheryl's failure leaves off. It seems like a solid concept. Someone with a little more courtesy and Internet community savvy should be able to make something more of a similar site.
Has anyone else noticed how weird BFT looks today? The formatting seems to be WAY off, there's this big, ugly blue box at top (used to be a thin, tolerable one), the "unread message" stars aren't showing up, it just looks like a mess...
I tried it in both Firefox and Safari (I have a Mac), and it looked awful in both.
Maybe it's the end! (Okay, I'm being a bit optimistic here, but hey, it IS April Fools Day, after all!)
Hello.....and OMG, I can't believe what I am reading here.
Yes, I am one of those who 'claimed' to have used A-B link but only did on a couple of occasions. I certainly don't need Sheryl's guidance. I only asked for assistance once (when brand spanking new to PL) as I knew how permutation works so all I needed from BFT was the prices and what hotel I would win around my dates.
I don't feel ashamed as I thought I 'gave back' by telling people of my wins around my dates which in my opinion was the most important.
This came as a surprise as I had never come across a forum that forces you to generate money for the owner by mean of using their referal links. In this case, she is well serious as well.....
Now she has lost the occasional uses of AB link from all of us here but much more importantly, the information that we would provide to the forum.
What made me mad the most is the banning of Romelle (and prompted me to post this post). She (as I remember?) was THE most helpful person on the forum. Polite, friendly and informative.....how could ANYONE ban such valuable member, I just don't know. Sheryl really has lost her marble.
...and yes, a proxy website solves the banned problem very effectively too...muahahahah. I recommend Anonymouse as it seems to display more properly than most. Lets lurk at BFT for info but never contribute!! Actually, at this rate, the site will properly die very very soon. Lets just witness the death of BFT - there certainly has been much quieter with less info coming in recently.
Another thing, Betterbidding is great and I have been using them as a backup. Honestly, info was used to be lacking but seems to have picked up much more recently. The owner is very friendly as far as I can tell. Would it be wrong to 'relay' info from the internet to BB?...just for a short period of time? Surely, it would be the same if my friends told me they won a hotel at what price on what dates and I go and post it on another forum I use.
..and guess what, I will from now on make every effort of posting there and use their links - to make it a better forum than BFT.
Bitter and twisted, hell yeah I am. I just strongly disagree with greed over sharing of information.
Romelle, any chance you can become a mod over in BB?
And another one bites the dust....this really is pretty funny.
Thanks for the kind comments (and thanks to a couple earlier posters I never got around to thanking) . Actually there were quite a few "volunteers" on bft while Sheryl was off wherever for almost a year (thought it was temporary, and it just lasted longer and longer). We sort of picked areas with which we were familiar, and worked them. Occasionally tripping over each other, and mild disagreements about very different approaches. Nothing every organized or formalized. Sometimes checking unfamiliar cities to make sure they were being covered. I was surprised how well it did work. And I'm recognizing some of their screen names now on betterbidding, interestingly enough - hummmm.....
I'm really not looking for a job, as retirement is just way too cool, but do intend to do what I can for betterbidding on a strictly volunteer basis. It is nice knowing I am free to do that without the threat of being banned!
I agree with your assessment that the value of the site (both bft and bb) is in large part in the depth of reporting and number of data points, plus the rsearch and logical approach. The specific bidding advice is very much a formula, and a fairly simple one at that.
So, I'm sure betterbidding will love to have you as a participant - data points, reviews, odd bits of info, whatever.
This is fascinating to me...I gotta admit, I use info from BFT all the time but haven't posted before. I'll have to start using betterbidding.com as well now...
I'm a destination on tripadvisor who has a very active forum for every city in the world. I've passed on the link to this discussion and begged people not to promote BFT and asked to suggest betterbidding.com With such an active site even if the USA and Canada destination experts 'forget' to mention BFT it will warm my heart. Keep passing the word and maybe it will die a slow death.
I just found I can again access bft, after being banned for the second time a couple weeks ago.
The first time I got banned (several months ago), about two weeks later the ban went away and I was able to get on the site. I got on a couple times, but then got curious and actually tried to sign in. That immediately triggered the above second ban.
So - FYIs to anybody that has been banned:
1- Wouldn't hurt to recheck after a while. Computer addresses do change, and the ban may not have your new address. Direct access is faster than one of those anonymizers.
2- If you do get on, I wouldn't suggest signing in. If you actually try to sign in, the ban may be by your screenid, and the signing in process could trigger the ban all over again.
Here is a recent post by Sheryl re: getting banned for 3-09 under the "intergrity of bft"
Our Posting Guidelines clearly state that BiddingForTravel.com supports the intended use of Priceline. If your post indicates that you've violated Priceline's rules, your post will be removed and you will be banned from BiddingForTravel.com. You may think you are being clever or cute, but you are not.
Our Posting Guidelines clearly state that BiddingForTravel.com supports the intended use of Priceline. If your post indicates that you've violated Priceline's rules, your post will be removed and you will be banned from BiddingForTravel.com. You may think you are being clever or cute, but you are not.
So. one wonders whether "free re-bidding" is an intended use of PL??
__________________ * * * I Survived the Great FlyerTalk Outage of November 2009!!!!! * * *
