Why Airline-Specific Posts are often appropriate for Miles Buzz
 

I would like to offer a personal example of why I think it is good that people post so-called "airline-specific" information in Miles Buzz. In Sept 2001 Sprint was offering 40K NW miles to switch phone service. I have never flown NW and did not read the NW forum.

However, someone kindly posted this offer in Miles Buzz and both my wife and I signed up and are in the process of accumulating 80K NW miles for essentially no cost and no work.

I would never have known about this promo if it had only been posted in the NW forum. There are now so many different forums on the board that I simply don't have time to read them all.

When I first joined the Board a number of years ago, it seemed quite OK to post all really good offers in Miles Buzz. Now it seems, every post that deals with a specific airline gets closed or moved, thus discouraging others from posting similar information here.

It is just my opinion, but I really think this business of closing and moving threads has been greatly overdone recently. I could offer numerous other examples similar to the one I described above for myself, and talking with other FTers, I believe there are many similar stories.

Personally, I would like to urge the moderators to show more restraint in closing and moving threads. I do not think duplicate posts are as terrible as some do - and for a venue whose main function is dissemination of information, duplication should be a very secondary consideration.

Just my personal opinion. Thanks for listening.

I concur. The perfect example is the Jaguar BA miles example, which has not been closed, so it seems that the moderators are amenable to leaving open really good deals that generate good posts.

I think that they do a good job of selectively moving posts that are too airline-specific. This is a judgement call, and hence the reason why they are chosen as moderators -- good judgement.

I too am the beneficiary of the NW Sprint promo seen here. But I also wonder if maybe the way to do this is to try to post the particular promo in the appropriate airline (or whatever) forum, and then simply provide a post with a link to that other post in Miles Buzz.

I certainly concur that many of these are "often appropriate" for MilesBuzz. FT'ers need to recognize that there is plenty of subjectivity in moderating this forum.

While there is a clear consensus that 10,000 miles (Jaguar) is buzzworthy, what about a deal for 2,000 miles? What is the minimum threshhold? And, do we allow potentially juicy deals that are clearly targetted?



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Craig6z
Buzz & United Moderator
[email protected]

I, too, took advantage of the Sprint 40k Northwest promo. That was a good deal that might not have gotten noticed nearly as much if left solely on the Northwest board.

As AUSMatt pointed out, the British Airways Jag promo is currently alive and kicking on the MilesBuzz board. It's a nice offer that's open to everyone and is well-explained. Very Buzz-worthy, indeed!

I'm wondering if anyone could point me to the threads in the past month that should have been left open?

(I say the past month since I'm the moderator doing most of the moving/locking on MilesBuzz these days, and I've only been around briefly.)

I think my approach (and, in general that of the other MilesBuzz moderators -- although I wouldn't presume to speak for them) has been that specific questions about an airline get moved to that airline's forum... targeted offers that folks can't take advantage of generally get moved to that forum... but deals that everyone can jump on, which seem broadly applicable, stay put -- e.g. the Priority Club 250 points survey a couple weeks back.

I'm quite certain we'd all still leave open a thread that offered another 40k sprint signup bonus!

If it's lucrative and a large chunk of FlyerTalk members can benefit from it, it seems appropriate for this forum to me.

Even some deals that are less than lucrative (the 250 Priority Club points mentioned above) have stayed open. As Craig observes, there's no clear brightline with these things.

Have I locked or moved a thread that would have been similarly useful? (If I have, please do let me know -- since if I take your point I can always unlock it!)

I think the other point in the original post was about closing duplicative postings. That's been a big issue over on the DL forum, but I didn't think that it was much of an issue with MilesBuzz. Am I missing something?

Thanks alot,

Gary
aka gleff
MilesBuzz moderator

I concur, I don't have a BA account or didn't until the Jag thread came out; now I do and this weekend (weather permitting) I will be test driving a jag. Why b/c it was in MB not the BA forum. I would never have read this in the BA forum. I don't even know if there is a BA forum.

As far as thresholds, well I don't think that there should be a threshold. If its miles it is miles

JMHO, but I think most of these types of promotions are Buzzworthy. I collect miles on every major US airline, but I don't read all the boards. As long as the promotion is unusual (Sprint 40k qualifies) and can be taken advantage of by the general FT population, I like reading about it.

By "unusual" and "open to general FT population", I guess I am saying that I don't want to read about basic partner promotions that everyone knows about (i.e., Sprint for 1000 miles per month), and I don't want to read about Your Favorite Airline's route bonuses for next month.

But I think people usually use good judgment: I've picked up a lot of little bonuses from things I've read about in the Buzz that I wouldn't have gotten anywhere else. I don't think it has to be a 10k or 20k bonus to qualify.

i agree.. i think most such promos should be posted here. providing only a link to the original discussion in the specific airline board would be best! (as another poster mentioned)

I too agree. Another example is the AT&T 10,000 AA miles for signing up for DSL for 2 months.

While the one started by Pudding Guy has been left open, the one which was started even earlier by papa3 was closed.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/008305.html

I was really amazed by the inconsistency. Aren't we all equal?

Hey Gary, only a few months ago you were defending silly postings announcing that only 89 days or so remained until we could again get points for updating our HHonors profile. Maybe a little less vigilance in your new duties would be appreciated.

I agree it is very subjective, but here are some examples over the last couple of days that I would have preferred left open.

15K or $225? NWA
While specifically about NW, it is an interesting question that could theoretically apply to any airline. I was enjoying reading the answers that had been posted before it was closed.

Ryanair's FFP....
I just don't read the credit card Forums on a regular basis. I know this was just for European residents, but if a similar post came up for US residents, I would at least like to know about it without having to go to VISA, MC, and AMEX constantly.

1000 DL miles for AMEX Survey
This one is certainly more questionable but it is where I would hope people would err on the side of less is better than more. I realize it could be targeted and only for people who already have a Skymiles card, but maybe not. Again, I would agree this one could go either way.

Thanks for asking.

Is this thread Buzzworty? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif Couldn't resist!

Jerry,

It sounds to me like you're articulating things that could have made the posts relevant to this forum, had the questions/subjects/content been different.

And in many of the hypotheticals you pose, I'd agree with you.

I'm going to explain my differences on each of the threads you raise. I hope you take it in the constructive spirit that it's offered. I could be wrong in each of these cases, but I think I have at least some degree of reasonableness in each.

15K or $225? NWA: A topic about whether vouchers are worth more or less than miles could be Buzz-worthy. This question in this case was quite specific to a certain number of Northwest miles and a certain amount of Northwest money and really seemed like it

(a) would get a better answer in the NW forum
(b) would be of more interest to folks reading in that forum and
(c) was quite explicitly outside the bounds of this forum.

But you're right, I'd be happy with a discussion of the value of miles versus dollar vouchers. I just didn't think that post did that.

Ryanair's FFP....: The poster noted that there was a Ryanair Visa and that free trips could be had from its use.

Honestly, I just don't think that it's of that wide an interest.

As Craig said, there isn't a bright line. But certainly you would agree that a post about a specific program could at some point be sufficiently narrow that it wouldn't belong here?

And if so, how many things are more narrow?

As you say, You may not want to check the Visa/etc boards.. but there's alot of gold in them there hills!

And if every offer was posted on Buzz! it would get so cluttered that folks wouldn't get value out of it at all.

1000 DL miles for AMEX Survey. This was a targeted survey for some holders of one airline's affinity credit card. As you say So I'll just leave it at -- you've identified two (the first two) threads you clearly disagree with my having moved.

Well, honestly, that's a pretty good degree of agreement! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

As Craig said earlier much of this is subjective, so it's perfectly reasonable that folks would disagree.

Gary
aka gleff
MilesBuzz and Delta moderator

Well since you ask, take a look at my response to your moving my Ryanair post to the inappropriate Visa/MasterCard forum.