Join Date: Feb 2000
Location: San Francisco (Marin County), CA
Programs: UA Global Services, AA Lifetime ExecPlat, LH HON Circle, SQ PPS Solitaire, Hyatt Courtesy Card
Posts: 3,002
I disagree generally with the original post, and agree more with iahphx.
Quite often when I see a good deal, I forward it in email to friends, family and colleagues. Though clumsy in nature, this is no different than the very "fare alert" service created by flyertalkers - it is push information versus pull information. So in the case of La Quinta, I actually assisted numerous people to book (because most people are very leary of using Priceline and do not believe they will "get that exact hotel"). Though I note I only had one booking for myself - 3 nights for 2 rooms for me, wife & kids. However my activities led to the booking of over 80 room nights. Contrary to the OP, I'm not sitting around feeling guilty that I "ruined things"
As I said I think iahphx has it more spot on here. It used to be that these deals hung around for a lot longer and were honored more often (IMO). Now you have this huge flyertalk base, you have mirroring of deals at fatwallet or slickdeals, and even more so, you have "push information" services like fare alert - this is what's beginning to take things down, not behavior of specific people.