flipside-

I welcome your difference of opinion with respect to Milespy. I am hopeful that such healthy debates do not cross over into sentiments of ill will.

While our server is UK based and unable to change the website on demand, no orders were processed at the 150 pt. rate and all orders processed before 415pm were indeed at the 450 rate, confirmed by both VM and GPs.

Orders received after 4:15p will be advised of the unexpected program changes and offered an alternative. The site will NOT shut down, we'll just tinker with the business model and price point. I suspect that at approx. 2 cents per mile, our offer will remain quite compelling to most.

FYI- a majority of folks who signed up already knew about GR/GP/VM, but felt comfortable with our mastery of navigating the process.

That was tounge in cheek. Hard to convey on a message board.

No ill will at all

Flip

Business spirit or not, the whole thing does seem rather lame to me.

The description of the process on the web site is a bit off, especially the claim that:

"First and foremost, you can pay with a credit card. By using a credit card, you eliminate any risk."

There are invariably limits placed on cardholders for disputing charges, especially a time restriction which is nicely avoided by asking for a 12-week waiting time for miles to post.

I sure hope you're giving Randy a cut of the profit seeing how many times you've quoted him and used his reputation to further your cause.

Good luck, in any case.

Sebastien

The fact that the 450 pt/dollar offer was pulled early should put to rest speculations about how lucrative this was for Goldpoints. Someone had said earlier that Goldpoints was making a lot of money on the deal and that his guess was that they're overcome with joy over MileSpy. The move by Goldpoints to cut down the number of points clearly shows otherwise.

I don't know if this deal was pulled early early because too many people jumped in, or because of MileSpy.

But the fact that MileSpy will continue with other options means that they'll likely exploit other Goldpoints deals. Till those deals are terminated, that is.

[This message has been edited by PG (edited 12-26-2001).]

I suspect Steve and Matthew will be in the market for a few freezers to store all those steaks they'll be ordering from Hickory Farms.

Just finding the non-United boards - more power to these guys, I say!

Anyhow, I checked out Goldpoints.com and it seems possible to still get > 450/$ w/out too much hassle.

Hickory Farms gives you 225 points/dollar and has $100 gift certs. If you can resell that for just $50, there's your 450 pts/dollar. Not sure how big the market is for those things, but if you could get $90 for them, you're talking 2250 points/dollar - 500+FF miles/dollar - not bad! I can just imagine the eBay price wars!

All I need to do is find a lot of people who love FF miles and sausage and I'll be able to crush milespy!

Not currently available.

Just because AA doesn't allow sheep is no excuse to bad mouth them.

Not likely, considering there were 0 bids.

andrew

Sorry, AA does allow sheep. I flew with Daisy from FLL to ORD during 10/2000. Daisy sat on the armrest between me and my then partner.

Having spoken to the folks at Valuemags, they were indeed making good money on the deal, and were anxious to work with us and continue this as long as possible.

Goldpoints pulled the deal.

I don't know if the Milespy folks will make any money - but it seems a little ridiculous to accuse them of ripping people off.

I don't see them charging $5.00 for a glass of water during a drought - they are offering something at a fair price that happens to be more than what they paid.

I think we call that a business. The only businesses I know of that sell things for below what they paid are called bankrupt dot coms.

I hope that they share with us whether or not this proved to be worthwhile.

My point exactly. Goldpoints were giving the miles and were losing money, which is why they pulled the plug.

[This message has been edited by PG (edited 12-27-2001).]

I wonder about all the people who never read FT, never heard of Milespy, who no longer get the 450 per dollar because of the dynamic generated by FT and Milespy (if this was in fact the cause). My point with regard to these kinds of activities remains, is it fair to the average user, the intended user at that, that the offer is truncated because of the profit motive of others (profit motive that goes beyond the intent of the offer... ). I see an accelaration over the past months in the zeal with which programs are 'attacked' for points and the reactions of the programs to those attacks.

I have no ill will to the milespy people personally, but I do believe that the concept poses a threat to the health of frequency programs in general. I would rather see most people get what was intended rather than a few to quickly hack off huge chuncks and see the opportunity reduced or eliminated. I realize FT is about getting ahead of the game, but again, where does the line of fairness get drawn. It seems to me reasonable to share opportunities and then take advantage of them in a way that benifits yourself and leaves the opportunity for others. It's a little too dog eat dog for me to say merely 'he who eats the fastest gets the mostest.'

Of course everyone will draw the line of fairness differently but the extremes of, for lack of a better word, greed, seem clearly over them. Frequency programs were not intended as businesses for others (see airline coupon brokers as an example. are all of you praising milespy in favor of selling miles...that's just someone making a buck) they are intended to reward the customer for actual purchases or travel or hotel nights, etc.

It's taking longer than I thought but I remain convinced that the growth of FT, with the concomitant rise in very large scale advantage taking of frequency programs is a very real threat to the programs in general. One 'Pudding Guy' event was a nice human interest piece and good publicity. A constant barrage on that scale will damage most peoples benefits and reward a very few with a lot. That sounds more like the lottery than a customer reward scheme. Even though I actively monitor FT for opportunities it doesn't mean I am in favor of the few who find out first taking everything and causing most others to be shut out. I self limit because it is in the common interest immediately, and I believe, in both the common and my own interest in the long term.

Nicely stated, wormwood. My sentiments exactly.