Much of this escalated because of my comments/rebuttals to the "Lurker." From someone who does business in Russia and frequented the Soviet Union many times during the Cold War, I really didn't like his posts for two reasons. First, here he was telling everyone about Starwood's rules and that they were violating them by trading; however, he thought nothing about violating this board's policy of only replying to the exact content of the poster's offer. Secondly, as an official representative of a company, he assumes that the people on this board are not bright enough to know what they are doing or that he was doing them/his company a big favor by warning/threatening them. Oh yes, when you post as an official your warning can be construed as a threat. Concerning this, there are many lawsuits against airlines and other various programs for being unfair, unethical and for illegally administering awards and the punishment of so-called "program violaters." I, for one, believe that miles and points are a commodity and they should be able to be freely traded as any other commodity is. Miles/points are not "free." What difference should it make to an airline or a hotel if that exact person, who probably travels enough to qualify as a road warrior and wants to stay home for a change, wishes to trade, give away, barter or even sell their miles. The reason, my fellow posters, is greed. They are hoping that, while they have already collected the cash for the miles/points, people won't cash in those miles or that they will years down the road. For them, the longer the better. By having a pitiful amount of inventory available, they will surely make a huge profit by knowing that they will collect much more than they "give" out in a fiscal year. FF miles/points are charged by the airlines/hotels in their pricing structure and you can believe it is on their books as a liability as soon as the points are awarded. However, you and I have an extremely difficult time in trying to cash in on our rewards. How many posts have I read from people wishing they didn't have so many awards offered because they were tired of not being able to use them? For the program hosts, it is like getting a million dollar bonus, but only paying tax on 50k for 20 years.

I've only been registered here for several months, but I've read posts here for many years and only decided recently to join the discussions. The people who post on this board are among the most intelligent and well-informed people I've ever had the pleasure to be associated with. I've seen a few, and spoken with, several of you at ATL and JFK airports by noticing you FT tags.

Bottom line, I am asking that Mr. Lurker keep his comments to himself so this board can continue to be what it was intended to be. Of course, I'll abide by RP's decision; however, I hope he will agree that we don't need a policeman/enforcer/KGB/TSA type of warning everytime someone wants to trade points in your precious Starwood or any other program. Thanks for reading and happy landings to everyone.

[This message has been edited by USCGamecock (edited Feb 24, 2004).]