Originally Posted by
drbobguy
I want to recommend that this thread or one like it stay open for next year. If we could have someone keep the first post updated for the next 10 months we'll have a quick "READ THIS TO START GS 2012" guide. Many people who did GS 2010 had foggy memories about how some of the hits work (like Officemax). And as a newcomer this year I had a hard time even comprehending what the grand slam was until I saw the official US Airways announcement.
Originally Posted by
lkar
The increased level of interest between GS10 and GS11 was pretty amazing. Once the bloggosphere got a hold of it, it brought in folks who really didn't have the frequent flier saavy to understand pretty well-settled rules on flyertalk about how to avoid these sorts of problems. If there is a GS12, I can imagine an even greater level of interest, as those who weren't quite ready for it this year gear up next year. I'd hate to see the threads on the promo treated like trick it or dollar coins, with codespeak and inside stories, but perhaps this is where we're headed on some of these.
And here we have one of the fundamental tensions in collective pooling of info on FT. Early on this year, somebody said (either in a post or in a PM to me) that if someone ever sat down & wrote a readable, comprehensive how-to guide -- complete with links to help even the dimmest GSer -- then two things would happen:
1. The guide would go viral (to FatWallet & similar sites).
2. GS would spiral out of control really fast -- overloaded merchant web servers, depleted inventory -- and the merchants would react much, much faster than they did this year to contain damage/close loopholes.
There were times when I pondered doing a global guide, with a full-on "cheapest hits" list that didn't cover just the Other Partners, but also listed the toolbar, credit cards, etc. The concern stated above, and not laziness, is what stayed my hand. As it is, I caught flak from some people for putting as much out there as I did, even in passing. (Not to single him out, but
here's ArizonaGuy expressing such a concern when we talked about car rentals 2 weeks before the start of GS.) I do think it's a delicate balance between being "trick it" obscure and putting so much info out there that the deals get killed off. Somebody besides me will have to judge how well we struck that balance this year.
Finally, I think there's a conversation worth having -- maybe among only the mods & SD1K -- over how to make the sub-forum work even better next year, but I think it doesn't belong in this thread.