I'm one of the two FlyerTalk moderators for the SPG forum so I'll address your questions to the best of my ability and to the extent I believe that I understand what you are asking.

1) From my perspective, there's no problem with the posting of "promo codes and offers." I've never edited, deleted or otherwise altered a single one of them as best I can recall. Back in the day, SPG didn't restrict registration for specific promos to those individuals they targeted with them and they were published here within minutes of reaching individual members' mail boxes. It was a big problem, as lots of people signed up for them thanks to FT who weren't invited. Our position was that it was SPG's problem, not FT's. That's not so much the case any more, as SPG has figured out how to use technology to restrict promo registration to those they invited. Just look around in the various threads this past fall -- people struggled with that issue daily.

2) As for "some agreement (disclosed or undisclosed) between william or anyone from starwood and flyertalk," I can safely speak for the moderators of this forum that we're certainly not knowledgeable about any such agreement and, accordingly, provide no such privilege or protection to SPG or anyone else. You've probably seen the Starwood banner ads on FT or advertisements in InsideFlyer that I've seen and whatever financial arrangement governs those is between Starwood and Randy, the owner of FT and InsideFlyer. I can assure you that it doesn't come with any moderation or protective editorial rights with respect to this forum.

3) I'm not sure what "NOT SET codes if that's the case" means, so I can't comment on that except to say that I've also never edited, or been asked by FT management to edit or delete any SET codes from a FT thread. If you want a great example of this particular issue, I encourage you to visit the AVIS forum and this thread in particular, which lists every AVIS discount code any member has ever had the desire to post. It's not as though we're in the business of protecting these companies.

I hope that helps.

AZ Travels the World
Moderator