Back in April, with no consultation with the members of this forum, the IC forum moderator unilaterally decided he would move and effectively ban any further posts relating to exchanges or gifting of IC 2nd night certs on the forum.

On the surface, this appeared to be a good decision consistent with FT practices. Afterall, if Coupon Exchange offers were to appear within fora like Hilton, SPG, Hyatt, UA, CO et al, there would be a deluge and those fora could become unmanageable and dysfunctional.

However, the IC Forum is a small one, and it has maybe two dozen regular correspondents, and another couple of dozen drop-ins and lurkers. Let's face it, we're number four or five and quite happy about it. We get little respect among the hotel program biggies. But we are generally happy with our lot and trying to figure out the vaguaries of the PRIORITY CLUB frequent stay program, and AMBASSADOR benefits one.

We here are a lot like those on the Air Canada/Aeroplan forum, which because the vast majority of posters reside in Canada, takes on a bit of a different complexion, covering Off-Topic (OT) things that only Canadians "get", and even having its own intergral Coupon Exchange.

The premise there is that those who visit that forum do not generally visit many other FT fora regularly. That because of the relatively exclusive nature of Aeroplan upgrade certs [they can only be used by elites of that program and not "outsiders"] it is pointless to bother posting on Coupon Exchange since most AC Forum readers seldom venture there. Furthermore, the ethos on that forum is to help out other members if they should happen to be short an SWU or lounge pass. We know that if we help someone out now, there will be someone else who will help us out when we need help. And generally, there is little compensation asked for. The majority of "exchanges" are actually give-aways or lends.

The AC Forum also has no moderator. Though a short while ago, a number of moderators from other fora decided to intervene and shut down this tradition of exchanges. Within hours, the community rose up and threw off the prohibition, and expelled the interloping moderators. There were also in that short period attempts to shut down threads and/or move them. That too was short lived.

So I am positing that the IC forum is much like the AC forum. That those of us who frequent it may occasionally visit other fora, but tend to check this one and our primary airline one when we sign onto FT, and seldom others. [I seldom or never visit Coupon Exchange, and only in the past while when I have seen offers related to IC certs pop up in the initial fora index.]

For that reason, I would like to get some feedback to determine if -- now that the flurry of DL/AMBs have disposed of their 2nd night certs -- we should now remove the "prohibition", and permit the posting of exchanges within the IC forum itself. I also maintain that by moving this activity from the general Coupon Exchange forum, we might return to the situation where we are not all that concerned about maximizing our return from an exchange, but rather wish to see our unneeded items passed along to a fellow member of the community who can use them.

I have always opposed the "monetarization" of IC certificates, be they 2nd night or RA referrals. One offshoot of returning such exchanges to the IC forum itself would be to cultivate this less merchantile value system.

Anyhow, I would like to hear from other members of this community, including the moderators, about this and about the role moderators play on the IC forum.