Yes, I did mean betterbidding.com. I'm always mentioning bb on travel websites and never mention Sheryl's. A simple google search will bring up Cheryls picture and home phone #'s. If you want to see what she looks like its not hard to do.
Programs: NW silver, Spirit Somebody; DL, CO, UA once gold now dirt. AA & US for magazines.
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Well, I gave Sheryl some 7 years' worth of free content by posting my winning bids, and would dare say it was valuable content because my "niche" was usually getting the rock-bottom price on a 2-star and often the lowest reported price in quite some time for the entire thread. That "niche" was under-served compared to people bidding $40s-60s for 3-star and reporting results.
I have no doubt Sheryl's job is a hard one, but she's getting some monetary compensation and posters are getting assuredly none. Even if someone doesn't book through the links (the usual reason for getting banned), it's crazy to treat people contributing something of value to you for free as persona non grata. It really ticks people off, and for good reason.
Betterbidding.com has been getting such contributions from me exclusively for the last 3 months.
Sheryl needs to think-outside-the-box a bit and figure other ways to monetize the content. Randy could make a good role model there, as I'm sure FlyerTalk is becoming an ever-more-valuable property now, even though it may have been hard to see it as anything but a cost center at its inception. I sense BFT could be heading the way of Yahoo Auctions if they stay on the current course.
Okay, I guess I should note that "officially" means I've declared it as so based upon my "official" observations, not any JD Power survey or web rating business.
Over the past month, on about a dozen random occasions, I've checked both sites to see the number of users. In all of those instances, BetterBidding has had more people on the site. At this moment, it's 160 to 239 in favor of BB.
Now people need to just start contributing more info to BB.
Another site to keep an eye on is BidLessTravel. They're putting together a database that's pretty nifty and would be completely great if they had more data. And imagine, the administrator actually seems nice. Sent an email a while back about an idea and actually got an almost immediate response, discussing the idea, and thanking me for my input.
Just like Rusty, I gave lots of years of data to BFT and now I'm wishing I could go home and take my ball with me. Oh, wait, they already kind of did that for me when they crashed the servers out a couple years ago. Nevermind.
Posted at BFT - in case you're banned and can't read it and are worried about Sheryl's status: "While it appeared that my health was improving shortly after I posted the above message [Note: the message was that she was ill and would not be attending to the duties at BFT as we are accustomed], it turned out to be temporary. I am not in a position to return to administering BiddingForTravel.com at this time. I just wanted to give an update."
Agreed - Bidding for Travel and Sheryl are Trouble
Bidding For Travel appears to be legit as many of the posts seem to accurately reflect bids I have obtained.
HOWEVER, the site admin, Sheryl, is a ****. Several months ago, I attempted to use the site, but was traveling and unable to complete her rigid requests in a timely manner. The next time is attempted to login, I was "banned." Does this woman think her site is so great that she would ban people. She is a power hungry loser as far as I am concerned. Go to betterbidding.com or flyertalk for comparable information. In fact, these sites are far better than her crappy site!
Last edited by jabez; Aug 14, 09 at 8:06 am..
Reason: Edited the most serious personal attacks after no response from poster
I've learned that the "ban" sort of expires after a while and I can get back into BFT and check for information. Can't actually sign on as that triggers another ban, but still sometimes it is useful to just look up something.
Also, there are anonymizers through which one can go while the ban is still in place. They are a little slow, but get the job done.
I can't say as I agree with a lot of things Sheryl does either, but have to keep telling myself it is indeed her site. She gets to run it anyway she wants. Her site, her rules. And I have to give her credit for the creation of it.
I've learned that the "ban" sort of expires after a while and I can get back into BFT and check for information. Can't actually sign on as that triggers another ban, but still sometimes it is useful to just look up something.Romelle
I noticed that the current moderator, Readymade, was answering similar concerns when someone was complaining about being banned. It turned out that this had nothing to do with BFT but is a glitch in the system: http://biddingfortravel.yuku.com/top.../t/banned.html
The whole thing about Sheryl and banning may be different than it appears, at least in some cases.
Location: From and of Boston. LH: SEN, everyone else: Bupkis; SPG Gold, IC Amb, OBE, MBA, Rainy, lows in upper 30s, e=MC^2
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Romelle, I notice that a one-time poster to BFT mentioned your name about 2 mos. ago in the "Hey guys--I'll try to keep on top of things..." thread.
Apparently, the BFT people didn't notice anything wrong with that poster's ID, Hugh Jarse. Sounded a little suspicious to me, but, hey, what do I know.
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The whole thing about Sheryl and banning may be different than it appears, at least in some cases.
While everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I believe the majority of bannings at BFT were personally orchestrated by Sheryl. Notice I said were. Whenever Sheryl leaves the sight for a prolonged period of time, the complaints of being banned slow to a trickle. Sure, I have no doubt a few bannings are the result of some sort of techinical glitch that readymade made mention to. But I've read far too many incidents where people get banned right and left when Sheryl's around. And then they decrease dramatically when she's away from the site.
Location: From and of Boston. LH: SEN, everyone else: Bupkis; SPG Gold, IC Amb, OBE, MBA, Rainy, lows in upper 30s, e=MC^2
Posts: 4,421
Quote:
Originally Posted by Romelle
[Sheryl] gets to run it anyway she wants. Her site, her rules.
Romelle, I agree with you completely. That's one of the privileges of starting and running your own enterprise: you make the rules. Those rules have almost certainly cost Sheryl hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue (if not more), but that's a different topic.
All that said, BFT is still the only site that I know of that has an explicit Rabbit Ears policy: you can be banned from BFT for something that you say at another web site! (And many people have been.)
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Time flies like an arrow, and fruit flies like a banana
