Randy,

A sequence of events in the AA and this forum led me to ask you this:

On Sept. 1, AA instituted a policy of free drinks and snacks to top-level elite (Executive Platinum) passengers in coach.

Prior to that, there was a thread discussing rumors of such a change. This thread was deleted.

A new thread was started when the policy went into effect. There were several posts in it asking what happened to the earlier thread. These were deleted.

A thread in this forum asking why the above were done was also deleted.

(I am not discussing moderator actions here. I know that would be against FT rules. I don't even know if those deletions were made by moderators, and I have no way of finding this out. I have stated objective historical facts, which can be confirmed by hundreds of FTers and most likely by Web archiving sites on which such deleted material can usually be found. Perhaps the previous ORP post was worded in such a way as to be about moderator actions, in which case I understand its deletion.)

Discussions of rumored or hypothetical future changes to FF programs are a staple of most airline and hotel forums, such as the ongoing discussion of the future of bmi's Diamond Club program in the wake of LH's control of BD. Compared to most of the changes in those discussions, this change (a) was smaller; (b) was uniformly considered more positive; and (c) affected a smaller fraction of program members. Still, other threads consisting solely of rumors and discussions of rumors are not deleted - even when a rumor is negative in terms of our perception of the airline, which this one was not.

I would appreciate hearing from you why threads and posts on this topic were deleted, for our collective posting guidance going forward. (I am more interested in the general policy governing such deletions than in specifics of the actions taken here, so, again, this question is not about anything that moderators may or may not have done in this specific instance.)