CCayley

Yes it would. The discussion over the last couple of days has highlighted one issue that resonates with me, namely the change in the nature of posts in the Premium Fares thread. Historically this has been a very useful thread, with people sharing details of special fares, sales etc. that might be of interest, and so it has been worth visiting more or less whenever there has been a new post. Recently, however, many if not most posts there have been of the "I would like to spend Christmas in Sydney, flying out on December 16th and back on January 2. I want to fly business class and earn TPs. What is the cheapest option?" type. Now whilst I have no difficulty with posters expecting others to do their research for them if there are people willing (or mug enough) to do so, the Premium Fares thread is simply the wrong place for such requests, and their presence makes checking that thread a more frustrating experience.

Mike P

Very well put. The 'Premium Fare Deals' thread has become totally overrun with these kinds of requests and it would be great if they could be separated out into a different thread.

brunos

Fully agreed. To me, the Premium Fare Deals thread has become useless as I don't have time to sort through the unrelated discussions.

I like the QR forum with two different threads:
1. Sales Fare Pricing ONLY ("If your post does not specifically state a discounted price, it will be deleted as Off-Topic.")
2. Sales Fare Discussion

BerksFlyer

Stez

I'm inclined to agree to keep the sale fares (whether it's the premium ones or the lesser discussed Y sale thread) to minimal discussion - I don't mind the odd discussion pertaining to the practicalities of it (someone might have intricate knowledge of a certain route/airport/etc/etc) that can be useful. However, posts expecting others to do the hard work is clutter in my humble view.

KARFA

Thanks. Yes I haven't written a full guide in the TP run thread but the reason I don't intend to is that there are a number of really good guides out there already so I have linked to the ones on Turning Left for Less, Head for Points, The Points Guy, and Travelcodex - see post 4 of the tp run thread.

There are some guidelines on posting fares in the TP run wiki along those lines, and they are generally grouped by region. I guess the premium fare thread could do with a similar type of arrangement albeit with slightly different information to reflect the different purpose of the thread.

I would say any of the following threads could include non-premium sale fares:

When is the next BA sale?
Current Fare Sales [ex UK]
WT and WTP (family holiday) fare deals

Blueboys999

That would have my vote. Although QR's less generous pricing has meant precious little posting on the QR 'Pricing Only' thread over the past few months I do find that approach much more user friendly than what the BA Premium Fare thread has become.

msm2000uk

The QR thread split came about from suggestions from those who were using the forum, and I think it works.

It does mean a fair amount of Moderator involvement to remove posts which dont meet the specific posting requirements of the Pricing ONLY thread, but it's worth it to ensure those who are subscribed, only see relevant content.

M

onobond

A very constructive post, many thanks. Although the main objective of my trying to make 'deals' threads easier to use is having a separate thread for every deal. I'm presently on a main ticket on a deal from the BA Premium Fares Deals (PFD), that with little tweaking turned out to be good TP-earning as well, but if there are emotional or other reasons to keep PFD and TPR threads separate, it's fine with me. Haven't seen any TP-run posts concerning other than premium fares, but a merger is not a main objective, especially if not making it easy to navigate, to identify a deal one is interested in, without scrolling down posts with less interesting content. In my vision I see a menu, where clicking on a BA subforum like "Premium Fare and TP-run deals, expired deals, fare requests and discussions" takes you to a menu of all of these (3, 4 or even 5?) as secondary subfora, where you can see the deals, headline containing destination, price and, eventually, TP earnings. In the separated subfora discussing flying the expired deals, posting requests and discussions on side-oriented topics. Maybe not so elaborated as the Dashboard, an invaluable treasury, which needs to be credited to you as the main organiser. Kudos! I could personally figure a little more than what happens when you click on the Main Premium Fare Deals subforum. I see good opportunities to make compromises to have threads easy to identify the contents of, instead of scrolling some 5K posts.



If you are seeking some reciprocity of time spent posting/working through the posts to how much money is saved using a fare that's been posted, I think it needs some surveillance system that even George Orwell wouldn't imagine. Of course, if you don't like a deal presented], you are free to find something else, somewhere else. Absolutely no conflict there. But 'full price', are there actually ppl doing that?

etiene

I think the threads are fine - both have been pretty well behaved this year apart from some minor off-topic diversion in the PFD thread a week or so ago - so minor that I have forgotten exactly what the rabbit hole was. They have separate purposes - though the two oftern overlap. I feel that most TP runs should also appear in the PFD thread, as for the most part they can be done in a simpler version if one is not optimising. There are certainly some that are only relevant to PFD - when the routing is restricted [usually to a direct flight]. More regular use of the wiki is certainly no bad thing - though getting to it on mobile can be a pain.

I would second the annoyance over people who do not appear to have made any effort to do their own research before posting - though for the most part I think the response to these posters includes the right level of "have you even tried" to keep an even keel.

And finally, I will also join the chorus regarding the irritating jumping of long threads on mobile devices - it doesn't seem to be a universal thing, but when it happens they become unusable.

onobond

Thanks for another post with constructive comments. I personally think a Wiki has a merit, but would it not be easier to find the destination/price/limitations in the thread title/headline in a subforum, easily navigated?


Spot on there. That's also the point for initiating this change. The TP-run thread, as described upthread has 5K+ post last year. How many of those do you have time to scroll and check contents of on your commute [rethorical question]


Yes, you're absolutely right about that. Both uses premium fares, but one is price-oriented only, the other price- and TP-oriented. But, as written above, this is not a main topic of the suggestion to make theads more accessible, so I'll not advocate any merger unless others chime in. Your comment on the non-Premium fares is very relevant. Certainly a good point there. Why not figure another subforum under the main, suggested above? Why not have ALL deals accessible in one place, with every deal given a separate thread , thus for example, when on the phone and commuting, you scroll down headlines, disregarding uninteresting topics, instead of scrolling hundreds (thousands?) of posts to find what you're looking for. [allowing myself another rethorical question there, sorry, couldn't help]

KARFA

onobond

Good point to identify some other threads that can be added as subfora to a BA fares/requests/discussion main thread, although as stated above, with each deal/fare in a separate thread. If we can have all deals under one entry subforum, we will all save time. For example, one is looking for a vacation trip to AAA. If all deals were under the same main subforum headline, it would be easy to search just fo AAA, instead of scrolling through PFD, TPR and the added three fares threads you list above. Trying to make it easier for the BAFT members to find fares they are looking for, instead of achieving some scroll finger overstrain

No, as I responded to your post in the beginning of this thread, the mileage run subforum only (extremely unusual exceptions occur) has focus on economy tickets, for those with FFP still only based on mileage, and is not dedicated to any of the three alliances. There are even posts with good economy deals with the few non-alliance airlines. The legendary RGN deal (in Business, mind you!) was mistakenly posted in this subforum many years ago, still not bound to any of the alliances, but that's certainly history now, although a fond memory. But, as I stated before, this subforum has no place as a role model for anything on BAFT. @Prospero has upthread defined the prerequisites for the BAFT threads, which I have neither have reasons to question or even discuss. Also, as an earlier reply to one of your posts, I don't want to comment anything on what should or shouldn't be duplicated in the BA forum. The topic for this discussion, and why I posted the start of this thread is to make BAFT easier to use, as there are members not being happy with the present state of art, as referred to in my first post, ans subsequently being posted by many others later.

Although not really struggling with it, I still can't see what the problem would be to have every deal posted as a separate thread, making it easier to identify something of interest. You have contributed greatly to the Wiki of the TP-run thread (besides from many other parts of BAFT, so kudos again for your efforts!). Any change to these threads will probably be easiest to do this in the beginning of 2020, but needs to be prepared before. My opinion is that we keep present structures until then, starting a new year with new ambitions to make things easier to navigate and find what we're looking for. (Please, don't get me started on the lousy "search" function of FT). I don't see that we're too far apart from each other, but the old ideology of 'we-have-always-done-it-like-this'-ism might be re-evaluated, I hope.

madfish

Lefly

I am ok with keeping the TP Run and Premium Deals thread as they are now. I'm also ok with having the premium thread split between pricing only and discussions like on QR... but perhaps I would not touch the TP run one.
A new thread regarding ITA Matrix tips and tricks could also maybe be useful.