AZ Travels the World

Welcome to the 2011 Dividend Miles Grand Slam Sub-Forum. This temporary forum will be live in the US Airways forum through the duration of the 2011 Grand Slam promotion (which as of this posting, has not yet been launched – only ‘Tweeted’ about by US).

Why are we doing this?

US Airways has been running a Grand Slam Promotion for a few years now. Each year, it has grown in popularity and reach – well beyond the traditional US frequent flyers and regular posters in the US Airways forum. As the promotion has so many aspects to it, involving so many US partners, there are a multitude of topics and sub-topics to discuss. Historically, we’ve done this in a single Master Thread in the US forum. Most would agree that as the promotion increased in popularity and participants, that approach was far less than ideal. It became very difficult to follow the discussion and find information of particular interest to an individual member.

So, SanDiego1K, the FlyerTalk Community Director, agreed with a suggestion made by a member here in this forum, that a sub-forum be created to house the various discussions related specifically to this promotion. It will be temporary, and it will be a test of this theory to see how it works out for FlyerTalk and the users of the forum. Enjoy!

Don’t hesitate to contact one of us via Private Messages if you have any questions or concerns.

-AZ Travels the World, safetymom & aztimm
US Forum Moderators

maxbluebrosche

Great service. Thank you very much ^

Jazzop

I propose that master threads be created for each of the Grand Slam partner activities.

aztimm

Feel free to go ahead and create them, here in the Grand Slam forum.

Vacation time

thanks for doing this....

NCommander

Wooo. GS is possibly one of the best promos out there, and now we don't have deal with the superthread. Looking forward to the details.

heyeaglefn

Please only created Master threads if you are willing to update the first post as often as possible.

pointofnoreturn

Great idea! Thank you for creating this sub-forum - I read through all 500-plus pages last year and I'm starting to go through the 2010 thread AGAIN to refresh my memory. The creation of master threads for each partner in the 2011 Grand Slam would be very efficient, given that someone continues to monitor/update each thread - as suggested.

AZ Travels the World

Given my personal experience with Master Threads, I suggest not doing one for every partner, especially if anyone is thinking along the lines of setting them up up-front, with no initial content.

We would end up having many essentially worthless threads, which would create confusion.

I recommend establishing master threads perhaps by a 'type' of of partner. (All Rental Car companies; All Hotels; etc.) Then if there are issues with individual companies, a separate thread could be created to address those.

You want real content in the master threads in order for them to be useful. Otherwise, you'll end up with little more than a different type of confusion and people won't bother to use them.

Also, a large number of master threads, which many people won't use, will result in lots of posts that need to be moved around. That's still the job of your volunteer moderators, who have lots of other responsibilities, day jobs, lives, etc., so keeping up will be frustrating and difficult. Please don't set us up to fail you in that regard.

lkar

Yes! I really think this is exactly right. Actually, my view is that a single thread is all that's really needed, so long as it is kept clean and there are rules. I see that I am almost certain to be outvoted on that, but I would strongly urge people to think very carefully about 70 threads and how not useful that will be.

Where does the list of hotels that permit no shows go? Someone finds a super 8 in China that will do it. Only knowing about that if you go in the "Wyndham" forum seems ineffecient. Or, having a master thread that compiles all that information, but then requires you to break out into 70 subforums will waste time. Quite often lessons are learned from one vendor that are applicable to others.

I would seriously urge people to be very careful in adding too many forums or this is going to turn into a mess. Subforums could be added to deal with specific issues, but I would be really careful in how those are titled, and if you want to create one, you should be prepared to own it. For example, I bet we could easily get away with Hotels, Cars, Everything Else. Or maybe Hotels, Cars, Financial, Retail, Everything Else, with the exactl vendors we're talking about identified in the first post. If an issue comes up with a vendor, like last year, maybe a specific heading could be started that is more descriptive than just "Vinesse." Maybe something like, "Getting Miles Credited For Verizon Accessories." That way, people will understand that Verizon issues generally are still being discussed in the "Retail" subforum, but the specific issue we all are having getting x credited can be broken out. Or, perhaps, an "Assistance With Getting Hits For Non-US Residents."

Everyone thinking that a massive number of subforums will be easier, I'd really urge you to reconsider. I'm foreseeing that this is going to become an absolute mess, largely unuseable, and with the potential for the very best tricks of the trade to get caught and lost in the switches.

Just my $.02, but I perceive a very significant momentum developing that perhaps is not exactly that well thought out and I thought a discussion in order with my personal opinion.

Edit: I thought of another way to say what I'm not that articulately trying to say. Many of us don't care how we get our hits within certain categories, and in particular the repeat categories. If I can get 6 hits with the same company most cheaply, I don't care if it's Alamo or Sixt. Having to go to 9 subforums to figure out the answer to that question doesn't make sense. And, if it's going to posted in the main thread and then just repeated in the subforums, it doesn't help much -- the main thread stays what people seem not to want it to be.

mikeef

What you said.

Mike

lowfareair

Woot! I didn't want to run a site just for this promotion, but I also wanted more than a thread for all of the various details. Happiest I've ever been taking down a site!

mikeef

Nothing wrong with having your own site. Many of our current bloggers do it and I've been thinking of it. But in terms of FT, it will make it much, much easier to sort through it here.

Mods, you mentioned in the other thread that you would consider removing all of the (well-intended) "Wow, great promo!" type posts. I would be in favor of that and, frankly, am happy to give you more than the usual level of discretion in terms of taking out the extraneous stuff.

Mike

lowfareair

I did it solely to fulfill a need. FT is fulfilling it in a better way than I can (similar layout with a dedicated forum, but FT has the established userbase), so there's no need for it.

echino

OK, I may be a newbie, but I don't get it. Why is everyone so excited about this promotion? I am trying to understand by looking at this last year's link:

http://shopping.usairways.com/en-US/...slamrules.html

Maybe it's just me because I am in Canada, but I see no easy or cheap way to generate more than 4 hits. Maybe 8 at most, if I really try hard. For example, I can think of:

1. Buy miles
2. Dividend Miles Shopping Mall
3. e-miles
4. e-Rewards
5. Netflix

... and that's it! Anything beyond that would require to spend a lot of money (car rentals, hotels, etc), and the bonus miles thus earned would be extremely expensive. It would be cheaper just to buy miles, especially with the current 100% promo.

Or, am I missing something and there is a hidden easy and cheap way to generate 36 hits and get 100,000 miles?