The 2012 FlyerTalk Awards!
 

This is the place to discuss the announcement of the 2012 FlyerTalk Awards.

www.flyertalk.com/awards

Balloting will open exclusively on FlyerTalk.com in January 2012 and the winners will be announced in March; meanwhile, we'll be posting some nominations polls right here in the forums in the coming weeks to determine which lucky companies get to compete for the coveted trophies! Stay tuned for details on the nominations process.

All I ask for is that the powers that be consider that we are now a truly global community, and that nominations reflect that (rather than a purely US centric view of the world)

there are others in this world???:confused:;)

someone has to be at the center of the globe... might as well be US ;)

Yes, dear. Whatever makes you happy. ;)

VERY interesting announcement.

Will there be a formal ceremony or just awards announced/posted online?

Yes, they will be announcement on FT and you will hear it.

I don't think you understood my question

The first thing that came to my mind is that would it actually matter to the different programmes out there?

Will airlines, hotels and what not, improve on their services and offerings to vie for this award?

Can we have negative awards as well, where we show the US airlines that they're just not on par!

Nice idea... a 'middle seat' award ;)

I second the negative award idea. In fact, a FT all-of-shame is likely to have more of a salutary change than the awards I bet. No corporate likes bad publicity.

+1

I'm all for a "middle seat" award

I second this, even if it means one award per continent. If pressed, 3 categories: Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific.

This makes sense as well, but they should come from the common nomination pool. One flyer's hell is another's heaven.

Yeah, I can see airlines/hotel/car rental companies touting 'we won the middle seat award' :p :D

Cool re: Flyertalk Awards being created.

If there is a formal ceremony vs just an announcement, my guess is it would be limited to industry folk. Not everyone wants to pick up the tab for a group of noisy, drunk FTers ;) :p :D

Cheers.

Great idea :)

^^

Indeed! The awards will be given out among three wordwide geographical divisions: The Americas; Europe & Africa; and the Middle East, Asia & Oceania.

At this time, for the 2012 awards at least, there is no central gathering planned. Multiple simultaneous local mini-events however are a possibility...

I think any awards program strives to do two things: reward the programs that are really making it happen for their customers, and motivate those that are not measuring up to do their jobs better. Given the tremendous influence that FlyerTalkers have, I would say woe betide those who fail to heed the results of our polling.

To that end...

We're not terribly interested in specifically calling to the carpet those programs who failed to impress their customers this year. We prefer the carrot to the stick: striving to win, rather than trying not to lose, should produce better results than a bunch of programs jockeying to be sure they do the bare minimum. Like FlyerTalk itself, the Awards are about excellence in travel.

They may not, but if you find that someone wants to pick up the tab for a group of noisy, drunk FTers, let me know, so I can plan to be there too. I can be as noisy and drunk as the next FTer. :D

Why not make these programs by nomination rather than invitation? As in, let FT-members nominate and then vote for the best and worst. Programs, airlines, companies and what have you.

A company does not have to consent to be acknowledged the best of its lot. Nor the worst.

That's a fine idea! One additional thought - let anyone vote in all (or more than one) geographical division.

That was one of the problems with the Inside Flyer awards -- you had to select which geographical region you wanted to vote in (often based on where your address placed you), and it limited you to that region for all the votes. This is hard on world travelers, since I might want to vote Cathay Pacific as best Premium Class, and vote for Starwood AMEX for best affinity credit card, but couldn't do both as the Starwood AMEX was offered only in the US/North America region and Cathay Pacific only in Asia-Pacific.

AFAIK that is already planned.

So, these will be in announced in March with voting in January?

Interesting - the Freddies are back & looks like they launch voting in February, with notification usually in April - http://www.freddieawards.com/

And it doesn't look the FT Awards are doing anything this year - http://www.ftawards.com/

Interesting that milepoint is an FT award sponsor

I heard from some folks that the FT Awards (which don't stand for FlyerTalk - but for Frequent Traveler) merged with the Freddies - so there'll be two sets of awards this years...Freddies & the FlyerTalk Awards.

same owners @:-)

I think they lost their credibility in two ways. One by having two "annual" awards within months of each other. Two by the voting process. There was a big discussion about this on Flyer Talk when these awards first came out.

Guys - this is about the Flyertalk Awards - not past history/gossip. As fti rightly said, there are other places on FT to discuss other awards which may be out there. Can we stick to discussing the Flyertalk Awards please?

Many thanks

Jenbel
Co-moderator, Communitybuzz!

As Oliver stated, this is just how it will be; since we're already winnowing down the voting pool to registered FTers only -- the cream of the business and leisure traveling crop, as it were -- we also realize that FTers are a globe-encompassing group whose knowledge is far from limited to their "home" geographical region. You'll be able to vote for any and all programs worldwide that you believe are at the top of their game.

^^

this should be fun! :D

What will the awards look like? Do you have a photo of plaque or trophy that you can post here?

Please give some thought to the categories, to avoid having dissimilar products competing against each other, which produces meaningless results. For example, I'd suggest putting legacy and LCC in separate categories, as their products and FF programs are not directly comparable (in the same way that domestic and international/long-haul are not directly comparable).

Absolutely agree 500%

The soon-to-be-coveted FlyerTalkie (?) is being designed as we speak :)

As to categories, there are about a million ways to slice and dice; we chose to keep it as simple as possible, with three industries in three geographic regions. If we tried to keep it absolutely apples-to-apples we'd end up with 500 awards with 3 contenders apiece and no consensus about who is really the best. Since the companies themselves compete for customers within geo regions, that's how we'll judge them.

I agree 100%! Stay tuned for an announcement next week on phase 1 of the voting process!

I understand this keeps it simple, but what does it mean if, say, Southwest beats United? I suppose for someone who only ever flies domestically, all carriers are considered, but it seems to me that for many FTers, they are in different categories. Otherwise you may as well ask if Delta is better than Hertz. Both provide a means of getting from point A to point B.

No Southwest Rapid Rewards will compete with United Mileage Plus. This is a beauty contest between FFPs, not airlines. @:-)

Oh. Never mind. My apologies. :o

Hope that's a joke on the name :eek:

Cheers.

Yes

;P