s0ssos

Actually most airlines give free meals in economy.

And actually, if you look back over the years, the best finds were free. If you are asking why do anything for free that is the question of why FT exists, why people share stuff online when they can keep it for themselves.

ISTFlyer

That's not the point unfortunately, there are some posters who do what you exactly mentioned but one of them has made a habit to share only very basic information on FT and put a direct link to their subscription link under the name " Source - Detailed Information " for people who would like more details so that they could pay for his service immediately.

If I can't share my business's website and promote my stuff on FT, so as he shouldn't do that.
There are tons of difference between " here is a link to my website " and indirectly writing " if you would like more details, here is the subscription link ".

A website that has more than 650,000 members ( according to what's written on those source named subscription links ) he should be making millions of dollars of profit and for a professional website which that much members, phishing people links and not providing questions regarding his finds on the threads he open is not professional at all.

Gertjaars

Hi, can you check his recent threads?

There's several users posting how they have a question for the blogger on his threads, and the blogger never responds, but continues to make new threads each day.

I think its blatantly obvious by now that he's using a script/bot to automate his "deal threads". Why has nothing been done yet almost a month after this thread was created?

ryandc99

The moderators are reviewing, apologies it is taking longer, we will reach a resolution.

Ryandc99
Moderator Mileage Run

ryandc99

Hello Everyone,
The mileage run moderators have reached an acceptable conclusion here that we believe will help alleviate the concerns. It is against FT rules for me to discuss any specifics of individuals, but I believe we will be able to move forward in a positive direction.

Thank youRyandc99, Pat89339, jpdx

Mileage Run Moderators Team​

Gertjaars

This has gone meta so fast. Do you guys review signatures?

ISTFlyer

Sharing links on signatures are permitted AFAIK. That doesn't have any issues.
Also the poster is not banned on FlyerTalk, otherwise his account would be suspended. He is either likely banned from posting at the Mileage Run, Premium Fares and similar boards instead.

I am sorry for that poster but if regular contributors on FlyerTalk get their account suspended due to violations of FT rules, this poster should receive equal treatment.
For those who are not aware of the situation, I have shared this before and on the deleted thread and some people mentioned that they didn't have time to follow all posts so I would like to post this again, that the aforementioned poster has violated the following rules ( I am not a mod and they might have detected additional issues - I can't comment on that ):

🔺🔴Premium Fare Deals Forum Rules🔴🔺
Additional Rules for Posting Links in the Mileage Run Forums

He always opened a new thread potentially to attract e-mail attention and get his source link ( a.k.a. sign-up link where you can't see the source until you give your e-mail + credit card details to him ) clicked more to drag extra traffic.



His source links directly went to a subscription page.



I haven't seen him anywhere else other than the Hotel Deals, Mileage Run Discussion, Premium Fare Deals, etc... boards. FlyerTalk is a community as written in the rules, not a marketplace. In addition to this, he didn't answer any questions directed to him based on his findings.

********************

Also, I am pretty sure that someone who has 650,000 paid members ( source: his sign up link ) where he would make ten millions of dollars per year doesn't need to violate these rules to post something on FlyerTalk. I would have expected him to engage on this thread while people were raising their concerns and but ...

erik123

That is most certainly incorrect.

ulxima

I wanted to mean something completely different but I appreciate that in a blog about flying what I wrote (there are no free meals in economy) might have been misunderstood.
Sorry about that, my fault, and, of course, yes there are free meals in many economy class.

U!

ulxima

I do not know, I did not notice that but at the same time I am not a great FT either. If you, and many others like you, say so, I believe you.
I am sorry we lost him but then Sir Richard Branson quote is always valid, opportunities (and posters like MightyTravels) are like buses, there is always another one coming.

U!

random.parts

I am asking the following in good faith and genuine curiosity as I fail to see what the fuss is about. Is the issue just the wording in the links about seeing more details?

Cause that seems like an easy fix to change the wording. I have not once clicked one of their links, yet have found the deals I was interested in without problems - open a new tab to google flights - put in the city pairs, filter for airline alliance/class and look at the calendar as it populates for workable dates and go from there.

If it is a really good deal, others in the community are quick to add things like other cities, airlines, stopovers etc. If its not a great deal for me, then I ignore it like I do other threads im not interested in. Is that not how others use all of FT also?

Im not sure I see the value in removing a contributor that will cause fewer deals to be posted in a fourm specifically for deals to be posted, it defeats the sole purpose of the forum (to be clear, I dont know the poster and never been to their website/blog, if anything this will drive more traffic to their site and create, atleast temporarily, less engagement in the deals forum)

The rules about the required info for a post is more than enough to never need to click and sign up to a blog. Google flights is fast easy and free to punch in the basic data provided and find the fares (& ITA for fine grain control) - if the fares are never to be found, I can see that being a problem - but it doesnt seem to be it, the fares are easily found once we are made aware of them

The other issue I see posted is that:: there are too many deal threads in a forum designed for only deal threads? thats a strange one. Especially because I don’t understand “this is an old deal/it comes and goes”comments. Yea it went and is now current again, Is it bad to post it when it comes back? or we suppose to dig up the first ever posting and stick to that thread? if its a deal that went away and then came back 3-6 months later, why would there even be a fare thread to resurrect in the first place? are we not supposed to be reporting threads where a deal died for the time being? IMHO, am happy about the new thread cause I maybe missed it the first time around, and now its back and can maybe take advantage this time

There just seems to be an underlying current that some part of this is somehow a zero-sum game and Im trying to understand why that is - especially when it takes away value from a community that was designed to help, not prevent, people from learning about deals

Fly2Connect

Maybe creating a new sub form for blogs only would be a reasonable solution?

ISTFlyer

There are some cases where the fare requires more coding, etc... such as some fares would require a stopover, flying a specific different airline from one point to another, etc... and without these details manually coded, sometimes Google Flights or ITA Software ( they use the same infrastructure ) can't find fares as they are set to find the cheapest option from A to B rather than the most mileage optimized fares, etc...

Most people are like that, including myself; although, the aforementioned commercial poster did also not answer questions directed to him when people needed help. FlyerTalk is a community thus most individual non-profit seekers who share deals or error fares are likely to help rather than stay silent for the entire time.

So, the main issue when this thread started was the poster has posted a deal that was already in the first page of the Premium Fares forum at the time he reposted and which was already being thoroughly discussed and which remained active for the last 2 years. What could be a reason for a poster who is active every day to share a fare that is already being discussed at the first page one more time.

Usually, his reposts doesn't include gone fares being re-introduced; instead, he always opened a new thread as he knows that when opening a thread, everyone subscribed would get an e-mail notification + those who have security programs associated to their e-mails would have respective bots visiting their website creating additional traffic and ad revenue for his website.

As you mentioned the community is here is to help people and some other commercial posters do their job very well; although FlyerTalk is not a marketplace where bloggers promote themselves and use every marketing tactic to attract traffic to their website. That's why the Premium Fare and Mileage Run forums have rules and it's our duty to follow them and every FT member agrees to follow them when signing up for this website.

If it was a fare being gone and re-introduced, opening a new thread would IMO be acceptable but that is not the case.

random.parts

I have never run into that and did not realize it was a thing, if so, then I can see the issue for the simple fact that it is against the rules of the forum to keep making new threads about an ongoing deal - I am wondering, how much of a "deal" it is, if the fare has been ongoing for 2 years, without going away for a bit?

The rules [no.9] states that mistakes happen. Again, I only have personal experience to work from, and I have not run into this. I also only show up here when I see a good deal email.

If it happens as frequent as is suggested, then I can see how it is a blatant disregard for the rules and the poster should be dealt with for the continued postings - as appears to be the case - the assumed motivation seems speculative.

I agree that is not in the spirit of the community, and looking through their post history, it is obvious there is a large volume of deals posted and not nearly as many replies - but there are replies. Also, the rest of the community is so quick to add the extras (cities, airlines etc) and help on the popular deals, that I am not seeing it as a net negative since there are some great deals posted. The fact that they are too busy, or too lazy, or uncaring, to respond says more about their service and should harm their business more than the community.

Then again the rules state not to "live" in this forum, so I agree action should be taken - thou, maybe that action should be in a way that benefits everyone. see below:

If this is a common case, then I like @doc4science idea about a blog sub-forum. Maybe allow a blogdeals sub where people with blogs can spam their deals and have their links, as it is now. If they want to also post the deal in the current forums (for the people not wanting to deal with blog only posters), then the post in the current forum will be held to a high standard. Something like:

Let's say, any deal posted to the current forum has to have all of the information needed in the post for someone to be able to easily find, as in, if I can't take the city pairs and easily plug it into google flights and find the deal - then that post either needs to tell me that it is a multi-city routing along with the routes needed to find it - or - the post needs to only belong to the blogdeals that people can ignore if they want too.

This way anyone who sees a post only listed in the blogdeals (because it is missing one or two small but important details) and wants to find the odd extra coding for others, can make a new post with all the info in the current/regular forums that comply with a higher standard of posting.

Or if another sub is too much to work with, maybe just make a more strict standard of posts and relax the needing to reply to such a high volume of deals, many of which are useful to someone even if they dont post that it was. To be fair, it is a lot of work/time both finding the deals and then having to help everyone even if the questions are pretty basic. Plus, having the community that is here and willing to help - it already seems like a team effort - they post lots of deals and others help answer questions. So, perhaps make it simple, require all info is needed to find atleast one ticket with that deal or it gets deleted while removing the rule to not "live" here.

ryandc99

Thank you everyone for your inputs on this matter. This thread is now closed.

Regards,
Mileage Run Moderator team