I would certainly not go so far as to say I am a “genius”, but yes, I will help in any way I can.

Thank you, SanDiego1K. I appreciate the kind thoughts.

Sweet. Finally an appropriate thread where I can tell my sad Tea House tale from when I first moved to Beijing 3+ years ago. (Yes... I totally fell for it).

I'd also love it if there were a good "deals" type thread where we could share relevant sales, discounts, or other deals (e.g. the recent conversation about the Marriott Gold cards or airfare sales)...

I'm not sure it's a good idea to openly share around this stuff on the China forum, due to the penchant of Chinese public to completely abuse any domestic offer out there, leading to a quick withdrawal of same. Sad but it happens. (And yes, there are Chinese who monitor FT.)

Well that's unfortunate. One of the greatest values I get out of FT's other forums I trawl are tips on special offers and deals.

Ok. To put it out there, then: If any of y'all ever hear of any really really great deals, please DM me.

:)

You've hit on the main philosophical dilemma that underlies FT these days (in the early years, good deals often went on for months due to the fact that Expedia, Travelocity, and the airlines/hotels themselves were always two steps behind savvy FTers). Now, when mistake fares are discovered and get posted, they tend to get yanked within 24 hours.

That having been said, we still try to post info on certain types of deals here, and all types if there is only a narrow window in which to pull the trigger. As for the really sweet stuff, PM/email/face to face meetings is the way many of us communicate these days.

I think the biggest "danger" with public posting great deals here is on purely domestic China offers, and particularly hotels or other services. The segment of the Chinese traveling public that is able and willing to take advantage of specials on international flights is pretty small (vast majority on group tours planned well in advance). And domestic flight specials they are already plugged into by the Chinese jungle wireless...FT not needed for that. But international chain hotel offers for China properties, especially those for point-accumulations, are rife with potential abuse issues. There was an interesting thread on the Intercon forum in the past year on this. And probably tied-in domestic non-travel services could similarly become "oversubscribed."

That's a good point; I recall reading a thread in one of the hotel forums where the affiliated loyalty program was in the process of flagging certain accounts with Chinese addresses, presumably because an unusually large number of PRC nationals had recently signed up and were stress testing a particular promotion. Basically, word travels fast, even without our help, so it's probably a good idea to refrain from discussing any advanced strategies here.

But, when y2500 tickets to the US/Europe pop up, why not?