Thanks to a couple of Flyertalkers, the SFO/LAX-AKL deal was shared with me long before it was publicly posted. I didn't post it on Flyertalk (or my blog) at the time because that was the condition under which it was shared. It's a trust I'd have been violating.

Still, my strong inclination is to share deals with very few exceptions.

A frequent argument against sharing is that the more people who know about a deal via FT the costlier it is to a travel provider. The theory is that such a high cost will make that provider less likely to honor the deal. While that seems reasonable on face, it doesn't seem to fit the facts most of the time -- some of the best deals have been honored despite huge bookings, and many of the ones not honored didn't have too many people on board.

In practice pretty much any US carrier where a fare is ticketed ultimately honors... Major North American and European carriers as well. Smaller carriers may be a different story. But it doesn't seem to track with booking volumes.

YYZ-LCA was honored.. SFO/LAX-AKL is being honored.. BA WT+.. Fiji.. What airline deals haven't been honored? COPA to LIM didn't get honored, but how many others?

(Hotel deals are another animal entirely. I'll get to those in a minute.)

Another argument against sharing is that the deal will disappear more quickly. Probably true that 1000 bookings are noticed while 6 might fly under the radar. But sharing with your closest friends first, say giving them a 1hr lead time would solve that. And even that's generally not necessary, it takes time for a fare to disappear once an airline loads a replacement. And for some reason carriers only sporadically take the approach of zeroing out inventory in the affected booking class.

Hotel deals are far less reliable. On the plus side: Le Meridien Khao Lak.. thank goodness that got posted, I'm really looking forward to my Presidential Villa! And my goodness, the feedback on the Conrad BKK's Presidential Suite is wonderful. But the Bora Bora Nui for $80 or so didn't get honored (though everyone who booked it got SPG points when the hotel sent an email using the cc instead of bcc field, violating Starwood's privacy policy...). Priceline is tricky, if you book a mistake that's not prepaid/bidding you're unlikely to have it honored... a bid mistake such as in Palm Springs was handled by honoring just a single reservation.

My sense is, after the NYC Marriott mistake where Marriott just told everyone to take a hike, that Marriott is the least likely to honor mistakes. And that 20-30 bookings might have a shot, but hundreds perhaps not. So Marriott mistake rates could well be the exception that sharing with Flyertalk doesn't really kill a deal.

Like others I see no reason to restrict access to Mileage Run, looking back over threads it isn't always newbies that call.. And more often than not it's lesser-known posters who find the deals... Deals seem to pop up more frequently than they used to, which I suspect is a function of the size of Flyertalk (more people who may be finding them).

And by the way, anyone who finds a deal and chooses not to post it, please remember to share it with your President.