To post or not to post tricks
 

I myself like to share these tricks and treats, but as you all can see..They are being VULTURED off of FT and posted everywhere...The people that are posting these fares to other sites are ruing it for ALL flyertalkers including themselves...Maybe it is better just to post the TRICKED fare and say TRICK-IT without giving any other details...Saying that.. KARMA CAN BE A BICH ..What do you other flyertalkers think ?

"trick it" works for me. I'd just keep the caps off to keep it from standing out.

BTW, I'll be taking my second trip to LHR this week. Thanks to you!!!
The last trick allowed me to visit my daughter twice rather than once.

Thanks again

If its a mistake fare, I would post all details.

If its a trickable fare, I would hesitate, maybe post it and just say TRICK IT, do the rest by PMs?

Tough call.

I dont travel with OneWorld, so I should just post that trick up since I wont use it anyway, but if it ends up on some other forum within minutes :td::td::td: that ruins it for future use..

I like oneworld.............. ;)

What's the difference between a trick fare and a mistake fare?

One is a typo in the fare filing (e.g. CDN39.00 instead of CDN3900 for a ticket in J from YYZ to LCA) and one is a situation where one of the ticketing agencies is not correctly reading the various fare components and therefore is not applying some component - almost always a YQ fuel surcharge - correctly.

Restricting MR forum like CC would go a long way to fixing a lot of the issues we've had. Post min and long min membership time would do it I think.

And it would also have prevented some of the best "mega" deals. Quite a few have come from folks with very few posts. And enough people have enough posts that things posted would still be open to "pilferage" if you want to call it that.

As long as other longterm members who maybe have several handles because of previous suspension post these fares on their blog this is obviously not effective.

Public Forums = Public Knowledge
 

The entire online population can see these posts.

How can anybody really expect these deal not to be screwed up is beyond me.

I've watched for 7 years people call to get their seat assignments, ask the airline if the deal was real, can they make a change once ticketed and every other lame reason to call the airline while the deal is still live. And then be dumb enough to post on here what they did, even seasoned FT'ers.

We have tried pledges, signature tags, talked about restrictions until we are blue in the face. If it hits a public forum, here, fatwallet, slickdeals or Mary's Home Cooking Blog, the deal is soon to be over. Just accept it.

If you don't want the information spread to the world; Don't post it.

I even watched a private group deal get screwed up a couple weeks ago because a member leaked it to somebody they thought they could trust. They couldn't or shouldn't have

If you have any information that you want to keep to yourself, keep it to yourself.

The issue is old news. Public Forum = Public Knowledge= End of Deal

And if you don't lay it out in a public forum, I'm going to PM you privately for the information I need. And you then decide to share it with me or anybody else on your terms. "Yes you can pass it on" or "No, keep it to yourself for 24 hours" or what ever you want to do. When you put it here, your options are over, done and Kaputt.

Beaubo, put it best and I'll paraphrase: "When you come to the Mileage Run Forum, come with your credit card in hand, and work out the details later"

When information hits here, the Fat Lady is walking across the stage.

If the few flyertalk members who post these fares to other sites could just respect the members post and not post it to other sites, the deals would definetly last longer..

People who move these things to slickdeals and whatnot are morons. If I were you I would post the deal with enough info to figure it out and not much more, that way those who have at least put in some effort in the past will get it, and it reduces the chance that the random joker browsing fatwallet will get it. Maybe.

Even that I am a newbie, I would like to learn about those deals as well, so I don't think these deals should be available for senior FTs.

I am really looking forward to all the things I can learn from the forum! ^

Perhaps the MR forum could stay and a restricted MR "strategy" forum could serve as a place to share tricks without the whole world hearing about it.

Wasn't there just a vote about this very issue?

I believe the modest proposal was that members had to be signed on in order to see the deals. Seems reasonable to me as it would restrict the info to members, including newbies, while providing a small shield from global web search engines.

This seems like a reasonable method at least for a start. Although, I'm not sure it will do much good, at least everyone will feel better about it.

Hi Raffles: I think a big part of the problem is that MR Deals pages are public. Compound the problem with people's tendency to over-embellish the subject line, and you can see that any info posted here is easy prey for millions of Google searchers. And when even FT'ers slip, what incentives do those strangers have in guarding our info?

So the lesson would seem to be, don't post. But that defeats an important purpose of a community like this, which is to share and learn from one another.

A good if partial solution to the problem would be to restrict such forums to members who must be logged in.

In the meantime, a good compromise is to post, but with an eye towards thwarting casual Googlers. Don't be too specific, but consider providing more info to those who request by PM. Remind everyone, in posts as well as PM's, to follow the same principles.

Agreed on all accounts. I took this advice to heart earlier today when I found many fares WAS-Europe for >$400. The people that read and contribute to these forums should be able to find the fare I referenced, but those with a tendency to call PL or airlines (hopefully) won't.

Or maybe we need a hidden "Level 2" like on other bulletiin boards.

I say OMNI: MR :)

While discussing this we should take into account that information does not only leak from FT to other sites but also comes in from other sites.
I for myself transfered information from another comparably small forum to FT when I've seen that it also made it to third party sites. I got loads of good and bad feedback. My rationale was to spread the word on FT while it lasted to allow FT to profit from the deal.

I just wanted to point this out as it wasn't brought up from my point of view.

I don't post often, because I don't often have much to add to the discussion, so I have been here for a while without many posts. I know the rules, I am on the lookout for MR fares, and I will be very happy to share with the class when I do find one. I think that a logged in requirement is a logical one,but the X posts and X time philosophy justs makes me need to add a bunch of posts without much merit (that I have avoided to this point, even though it means I do not have access to OMNI) to get to the level that grants me access.

First off, Thanks RafflesLongHaul for your history of amazign fairs, and Joker545 for the most recent one (JFK-ORD-MAD-AMS and return for ~360, leaving Nov 15th).

Joker545, I like your approach of only giving 'teaser' information in the post, and using modesty in posting the deals. people can do the research they need on the board to find the exact flights needed, or they can PM you if they don't get it. When people PM you, you can make an educated guess as to whether the person is trust worthly, and offer to share the information if they promise to also only share the information privately.

Its not going to make the fares last forever. But it might keep them around for a few hours or days longer, enabling the true flyer talk addicts to take fuller advantage of them.

I think that strikes the balance of benefiting personally from the fares, but also benefitting the board, which in the end is what its all about.

-T

Look, FT is no different than the real world. We all want our friends to be discreet when we share personal information, but we all know people who are gossips. Asking them to change and hold things in confidence is a largely pointless exercise.

So... my personal feelings are that when people post mistake fares, if they don't want the information shared outside FT, maybe they could say "Fare XXX - please do NOT cross-post to other forums."

Whether it would work or not is anybody's guess. Because asking somebody not to do something "wrong" doesn't have much effect if they don't see it as wrong. But I'm really sorry when FT members feel like sharing information was a "bad experience" -- it only makes them less likely to share information in the future.

FT is so big, so well-known, and in the google X-hairs of so many people that merely posting something at FT will get it found and circulated. The only way to thwart the google-bots is not cram your posts with too many details and keywords.

I would vote for something like this.

When is such a vote going to be held? Wasn't this voted on the other day?

I have been looking at the FT forums for years to get good ideas and ways to save on airfare; and I have always found the forums useful and very helpful. What you guys are suggesting about hiding and making information a secret goes against the idea of what FT stands for. I know a lot of others might not agree with what I am saying but the reality is that when the info gets to FT its already public knowledge and the airlines will find out the "tricks" and shut them down. You have to realize that FT is also monitored by airline personnel so regardless of what attempts to make "tricks" a secret and form some sort of a secret society within FT will ultimately fail. I know we would all like the tricks to last longer then they sometimes do but realize that when using them we are already getting over! My advice is just jump on the deals and "tricks" for as long as you can and enjoy the ride, as these "tricks," are an added bonus and not a priviledge!!

Let me mention one other possible benefit of Obfuscation. It wont keep the strategy secret forever, but it WILL give the dedicated few a running head start. someone itching for a cheap flight or MR is going to give the thread the time of day and spend time connecting the dots, where-as the lurkers/airlines might just go for the low-hanging fruit and ignore the thread, giving the 'fanatics' a few extra hours of deal making.

I cant argue with you about that, but the whole idea of flyertalk is for frequent flyers to get together to share information. Making information secret is not the answer. I saw a post earlier today where a person blatantly talked about taking the info and posting it on slick deals....now thats just an insult to everything we are here trying to do so I understand why there are a lot of people upset about the situation but again I will say that the information here on flyertalk should be general information that can be shared with fellow frequent flyers.

I don't know how the problem can be resolved honestly, but I don't agree with the whole secret society type of deal. It totally sucks when a person comes in here and messes it up for everyone by posting information somewhere else, but I still feel that information should be shared...

Hard to give up tricks when you know they will be lost within days..The original deal on UA/BD lasted a long time as the trick was working just the base fare went up..Then the trick was posted again as the base fare went down, but this time the fare was posted elsewhere besides FT and The trick was killed shortly there-after..So now it becomes very difficult to post these tricks..But we shall see what happens. Only time will tell. I for one and others who have tricks up there sleeves will enjoy travelling at a discount ...Sometimes that discount is over $600 :cool: Love the low real low base and the High octane...

To me, it's clear that the trick is, at least now, continuing to work no matter what. The same combos of airlines continue to drop the YQ. Only lack of availability in certain fare classes and/or fares expiring are making these things more difficult to book. That was the case with the first ORD-LHR; that was the case with the JNB flight. I think provided we keep "trick it" as the source of the "secrecy", we can post things simply like Then those who don't know what "trick it" is can ask for help via PM, while not letting the powers than be close any open loopholes, i.e. lan.com.

Chris

maybe I'm giving the airlines too much credit but can't they figure this out much easier than us?

You'd sure think so, but PL deals dropping YQ have been going on for about a year now. LAN lasted a couple months too.

Chris

Official Position of the Best Rate Guarantee Blog on x-posting deals from Flyertalk
 

Hello fellow Flyertalkers,

I have been encouraged to provide a formal announcement on behalf of the Best Rate Guarantee Blog (which I own and manage) as to the current stance on our cross-posting. I encourage other bloggers to take their own stance in an effort to curb the crazy cryptic riddles that seem to have dominated these forums in the past few weeks.

So, on behalf of the staff at the BRG Blog, we are committed to not cross post airfare deals if:

1) The OP specifically requests it to not be cross-posted
and/or
2) The deal is not already scattered around other blogs and forums

Thus, if a deal has already been scattered around, and the OP didn't mention their desire to keep it secret, we would reserve the right to cross-post. If a deal has been scattered around, and the OP did mention to keep it secret, we will respect that wish and refrain from cross posting.

Also, if we find an airfare deal on our own, we reserve the right to initially post it on our blog, of course.

I hope that this will alleviate some of the headaches/worries of the Flyertalk posting community, and that the cryptic deal postings will come to an end.

Thank you,

David/Roadtripman
Owner of the BRG Blog

I think one of the issue with the MR deal getting out of control is there isn't any rules saying what should / should not do when someone see a MR deal in FT. I skim thorugh the MR forum Sticky and I didn't see anywhere mentioned things like don't call the airlines / travel agents about your ticket while the deal is still live, cross posting to other site,etc (let me know if I am looking at the wrong place). I know as a common courtersy we shouldn't do any of that but I think if our moderators put the do's and don'ts in the sticky we would have less confusion on what should or shouldn't do for everyone.

It is only a matter of time before the trick disappears. Every time there is abuse, there is an opposite and equal reaction.

Looks like we may have a new beginning of some sort. Any other posters who cross post willing to keep the fares on FT ? I bet Flyer Talkers membership numbers have grown in the past few weeks. ^

Sounds very reasonable to me as well.

It just doesnt make sense to waste it on FatWallet, shitdeals etc. :td:

Sure...I will go by what Roadtripman has proposed:

"we are committed to not cross post airfare deals if:

1) The OP specifically requests it to not be cross-posted
and/or
2) The deal is not already scattered around other blogs and forums"

Exception being if the deal is my own creation.