Here's a recap from another thread in MilesBuzz! and rather than distract the fine members who click into that thread hoping to read more about that topic I suggested to ranles that perhaps we'll bring it over here to go over:
ranles
Registered: posted 06-11-2003 04:33 PM
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MilesBuzz???

Randy Petersen
Registered: posted 06-11-2003 05:24 PM
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ranles: i'd say it is most certainly milesBuzz! It is certainly frequent flyer program related (can't earn the bonus without being a member) and this is not about one program in particular, it's about comparing them and in the case of Alaska, even more bonus miles.

As for the comparison, you really might want to consider seeing what webflyer.com has in their NotiFlyer news section, here's the link:
http://www.webflyer.com/programs/notiflyer/#art_162

ranles
Registered: posted 06-12-2003 02:46 PM
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Strange, it is not about earning or spending miles, that WAS your defination of MilesBuzz. Since when was the defination ff related? That sound like most of the site!?

Seems these programs are about earning a free trip without miles being used??

That sounds like TravelBuzz or something else.

Reconsider? I hate to question the holy grail on his own site.

Alas! Civility at its' very pinnacle!

Disagreement, marked by respectful questioning and subsequent respectful discussion of the issue at hand!

And one of the two involved parties is the board owner/manager/benefactor!

Is this great, or did I have far too much wine with a really early dinner!

Thanks all!

-Mark

Y'know, I may have the fastest trigger among moderators, but it hadn't occurred to me that the post might have been off-topic for MilesBuzz.

I even posted early in the thread.

For what it's worth, my sense of the promotion is that United made an attempt at rewarding business travel loyalty. And by making the award contingent on multiple bookings, better secure additional trips and thus future loyalty.

And then the other airlines saw that they needed a competitive response.

Now, maybe another carrier had a similar program on the shelf and ready to go already -- they use the same consultants, right? and recycle the same executives too, no? So it's not unreasonable to think that others had the idea as well.

But when United launched it, others needed to follow because they saw it as a real threat and as a really good idea.

So the crux of the offer is about rewarding and incentivizing loyalty with award travel -- which, at it's core, seems to me the topic of the MilesBuzz board.

And it was the very latest breaking program activity -- so quite "Buzzworthy" as well.

At least that's how I saw it initially.

I may be wrong about all of the above, but I also think that the above is at least plausible.

Hope that the above is a little bit useful, from the perspective of one of the MilesBuzz moderators.

Best,
Gary
aka gleff
MilesBuzz and Delta moderator

p.s. Thanks, Randy, for bringing the discussion here. We're all better off having the meta-discussions off-line instead of distracting from an original thread.

A few things, I will get back to adding more to this discussion as soon as i finish a deadline I'm struggling against.

Also, it must be clear that ranles makes an excellent point. He was not wrong in his statement and I'n certainly not picking on him. As noted by Gary, I really wanted to move the discussion away so as to not take away from the thread started by L Dude 7.

And I apologize that I included ranles in referring to the two "idiot's" we are for disrupting the thread out of topic. We're both something for not staying on topic and 'idiot's' was just a handy word to use. Please no offense to ranles.

As the person who started the original thread, I'll add my 2 cents worth -

The thread involved the discussion and comparison of the program on multiple airlines. Thus, posting in an individual airline seemed inappropriate. Also, since it did involve travel with frequent flier programs, placing it in a travelbuzz category was not fitting. (That is specifically for non-ffp travel)

The purpose of the programs is to earn flee flights for flying - the core purpose of any frequent flier program. Whether or not 'miles' are awarded is to me unimportant. (Southwest does not award "miles", yet its FFP is a valid topic of discussion.)