Don't forget the classic Mexicana promotion that initially allowed sign-up miles to be transferred to Hilton.

After too many people took advantage of the promotion, Mexicana required Hilton transfers to be flown miles.

Two issues are being confused here.

(1) promos being cancelled/modified/etc. because of abuse/overuse, which is what most people are discussing; and

(2) promos being ditto because of us, which is what the thread title is about.

While there are many examples of promos that were abused (or simply used far more than their planners expected, which is not the same thing but can look like it to them), we're being a bit egotistical if we think FlyerTalk accounts for most of that. We are Very Important People, of course, and fly/travel more than the average bear, but statistically - let's face it - we're still small potatoes. We are far from the only intelligent life form on this planet, even far from the only group of frequent-traveler-aware people. I suspect that most of the cited overuse had little to do with us, no matter how many of us took advantage of it.

Most of the data on these boards is analyzed by the travel industry. Advanced data mining techniques provide detailed information about each user and with advanced stat mgt techniqes and models projections abmost in realtime can be generated. Loyola in Chicago is one University that specializes in this. If you ask a question or seek information a specific prompt can be directed to you query.

Probably the one currently posted in this forum from meetingsplanning.net for 5000 miles on AA, CO, or DL for meeting planners.

Sure, but how many marketing people who dream up the promotions and then put them them into play are even aware of such technology?

Many are, of course, and that's why Loyola continues to develop it and many companies continue looking for ways to use new technologies.

But are there not just as many employees in key positions who aren't too far removed from the days when they were marketing majors at Iowa State, failing their one statistics course and drunk half the time?

One thing I'm curious about - who was the person at Healthy Choice who was responsible for Pudding Guy's coup?

Was that employee ever interviewed or even mentioned in any of the news stories?

If so, what did they say and what were they thinking?

[This message has been edited by jmartin (edited 03-17-2003).]

The folks who sell data mining tools make a living by identifying companies who can benefit from using them and finding the people who can authorize their purchase. At least some of them are good at their jobs. So you can pretty well assume that, if a company has an application as well suited as this for data mining, quite a few people have beaten down their door to tell them. The problem usually isn't awareness, it's separating the hype from the reality.

(Commercial: if anyone needs help identifying profitable data mining opportunities (or data warehousing in general) with a healthy dose of reality and capitalizing on them, please get in touch. Will fly anywhere for an initial discussion in exchange for travel expense reimbursement.)

LatinPass, after being inundated with enrollments, stopped accepting new members, thereby trying to limit their exposure to million mile bonus runners.

Oh, and CO to Amtrak to UA. Another one that got burned out by overuse. Could be a classic one where the ones who got in will later kick themselves if they "laundered" miles that turned out worthless if UA goes under.

There was a time that we could buy Travelers checks at Chase. I actually still have some of those travelers checks...but many cashed them in right away only to buy more. It's too bad.

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Ms.DtG

I fail to see how anyone "abused" any of these promos if they acted within the rules established in the promotions themselves. The fact that some people decided to load up on magazines thru the ValueMags promotion (or pudding thru Healthy Choice) is not abuse in my view, regardless of how many magazines they may have bought. I don't recall there being any limit and GoldPoints was certainly within their rights to pull the plug early on the promo. For every promo that's offered, are we supposed to run a profit analysis for the company before deciding whether we should take advantage of it? I hardly think so.

Frankly, I put no stock in the view that we somehow ruined something because we made purchases in large quantities or were able to find more benefit in an offer than was perhaps intended by the offeror. And for every example cited of where a promo failed, we could probably also cite an offer where the miles/points promised were never provided.

Remember automallonline.com transfer to Hhonors ? A few people got a few million points for a few days before they found out. All points where taken back though

Time will tell on this one, but...

...The last time I signed up for a HHonors CNTU bonus, the agent said that "This may be the last time this bonus is available, because the codes wind up on Internet boards." She said that all of the Conquest-type (4 stays, 50K bonus, instant Gold status) started out as targetted promotions, but people spread the word and many more people jumped in.

In other words, I think the Internet community may have played a role in the changes that occurred with HHonors. Maybe not the primary role, but some sort of role nonetheless.

But one wonders at what is really accomplished with targeted promotions. If you want people to participate, why not want a lot of people to participate? Hilton got lots of people involved in staying at their hotels who otherwise would have found something cheaper. That includes me.

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Ms.DtG

In the case of the Hilton promo, who's fault is it that Hilton decided to "open" the promotion to everyone who called and requested they be enrolled for it? The Internet's fault? Don't think so. Sure, word may have passed via the Internet, but so what. If it was a targeted promo, it should have stayed that way. Those who called and requested to be included could have been told "no". I might not like hearing that answer, but I could at least respect it as a business decision.

Then why not respect Hilton's business decision to allow non-targeted folks to sign-up. I did and as a result Hilton will get >$10,000 from me this year. I would suggest that it was indeed a good dicision on their part.
In general shemes that go "bad" were poorly designed and are not restricted to the FFs. Recently a supermarket was accepting competitors coupons. One week as a result of multiple promotions they would actually pay you ~$.50 to "buy" milk. Obviously not the expected result of the promotion. What all of these promotions are designed to do is to increase awareness of their product to increase sales. Nothing wrong with a loss leader...