Dear Randy,

As you should know by now many of your FlyerTalk regulars recently attended an event known as RoachFEST '04. I was a rousing success as over 50 loyal US Airways Customers met with a delegation of 10 from US Airways led by Chris Chiames, Sr VP & Andrew Nocella, VP. This was a wide ranging discussion that ended on a very positive note. I sincerely wish you had been there.

Unfortunately you decided NOT to join us despite several e-mails & phone messages from myself and several associates. I truly can appreciate that you are a busy man with multiple roles and responsibilities to attend to. But to totally refuse to even acknowledge our correspondence or politely decline is most disturbing and unfortunate.

Most of us who formed the Cockroaches did so on this very board and to be dismissed out of hand raises many questions. I can well understand your reluctance to attend given the amount of US Airways pop-ups that appear on FlyerTalk and not wanting to endanger the revenue stream. All you had to do was say that.

So I'll ask you here publicaly "WHY? did you not acknowledge us?"

Piney, while I applaud the efforts of all who attended last week's event in PHL, I'm not sure why the call for Randy's public explanation?

In addition to running a business, I think Randy has just, or is about to get married and *may* have other things on his mind. Perhaps he's off on some private island in the Pacific enjoying his honeymoon? Regardless, perhaps a private message to Randy would be in order, instead of asking our host to share his reasons, whatever they may be, in his public forums?

Tough call to be sure.

Randy has been PM'ed, given formal invitations, and had phone messages left for him starting back in June. AFAIK, there has not even been an acknowledgement of any of the attempted communications.

I think had you seen the spirit in which the invitations had been extended you would understand why the concern over the lack of response. Randy has been willing to support many similiar efforts of this community and we are all grateful for that support. It just left many of us wandering why we were not extended a response.

Your point is well taken given your knowledge of the situation. Randy opened my original invitation June 6th fully 2 month prior to the event. After than I have 4 unopened e-mails. So I sent an e-mail to the group figuring maybe it was personal with me. I have a big mouth with a sometimes razor sharp tongue at times. I even reached out to a moderator. Several others took it upon themselves to e-mail all with the same results. Some called and left voice malls. To date I and the others have recieved one more response from you then we have from Randy. I stand by my comment.

Common business courtesy would warrant a response. Afterall how long does it take to type "Dear Bob, Not interested, Getting Married"

There are two sides to every story. While I can understand your viewpoint, I would accept the fact that Randy has his own personal reasons for doing what he felt was prudent. I would let it drop and move on. At this point, it is a no win situation for him.

Top 10 reasons:

10. He had trouble redeeming US miles on UA.
9. He has no US miles b/c he's burned them all.
8. Flying through PHL and the unnecessary baggage delays are just too annoying.

Ok, I'm tapped out at those. For the record, I didn't attend but I wasn't personally invited. And I have disabled the feature in Outlook that tells people if I've opened/read their emails...I don't like that.

Although this is off the original topic of this thread, I did the same and agree with you 200 %. I think that it is no one else's business when/if youopened their mail!

To the best of my knowledge, Randy has made it to one FT event in the past two years (besides the Freddies, which he himself hosts). We are rightly very passionate about the events that we, ourselves, organize. It seems inconceivable to us that others have competing priorities and do not share similar passions.

Randy is incredibly generous in funding this board where we can meet and exchange ideas. When you consider the tens of thousands of people who come and post, it is understandable that Randy receives far more messages and requests for his involvement than time permits. Certainly FT does not pay the salary of Randy nor his staff.

I can appreciate your frustration, but I think it inappropriate to post on Randy's board challenging how he allocates his time.

SanDiego1K, thanks for saying in a much clearer way what I was trying to say.

Besides, Randy's e-mail habits have nothing to do with points or miles or travel so...

First,

I'm NOT challenging HOW he allots his time. I could not concievablely care less how he allocates his time.

What does concern me is his failure to respond. Frankly I would be happy with, "Bob! F*&$ YOU!"

Look at it another way. I consider folks on this board "Friends I haven't met". Say you feel the same way. You're having a BIG Wedding. You send out the invites and after a few weeks your favorite uncle hasn't RSVP'ed, So you call. Leave a message not once but 10 times and he never returns your phone call in ANY way shape matter or form.

How woud you feel? I have been most gentle in offering my opinion, If spoke as plainly as I often do, you'd need a fire proof NASCAR racing uniform just to open the site. This is in deference to all of the fine things Randy has done for FF'ers over the years. You can't take that away from him. That does not mean he is immune from mistakes or being called into account. He has no difficulty accepting our Inside Flyer Money.

7. Two words: Brown Limes.

For the record, if you read FT/US Airways, or visit www.us-cockroach.com, you were invited, many times.

6. $25.00 Stand by fee
5. No Glass In First Class
4. Hates the Seat Art!
3. US Doesn't serve Colorado Springs!


One point of order. RoachFEST was NOT a FlyerTalk Event. It was an event that was discussed here, promoted here. But since your "Leader" didn't see fit to respond there is NO WAY you can call it a FlyerTalk event. No one in authority at FlyerTalk offered to provide a room, speaker, pay for catering, make arrangements. Heck no one at Inside Flyer bothered to respond either. We are granting several interviews with well known publications. Unfortubately it seems Inside Flyer will NOT be among them.

Piney,

Your bash was outstanding, and we all applaud you for it.

However, this thread is inappropriate, verging dangerously close to uncomfortable. I sense squirming.

Accept the hints from friends, and celebrate the diversion of energies towards new ffocal points!

k

Why the need for the public calling-out? Is there some sort of Flyertalk coup afoot?