Randy,

It has been a long time since you have had any guests for moderated chats for the community.

Any chance we will see any chats in the near future?

Still waiting for that United Mileage Plus chat that was cancelled around 9/11 to be rescheduled....

William

It is certainly something i'd like to see get going again. When we first introduced it, it was wildly successful, then sort of waned. Some of the blame for the waning was truly on the shoulders of some of the members of FlyerTalk who enjoy the sport of harassing potential guests.

It has on occasion made it difficult to get a guest on. But nonetheless, I am a big fan of the concept and would like to see it return. Just keep on me and we'll see what can be done. As for United, they keep changing execs with Mileage Plus and just when we think we have a chat set, a change in management.

Thanks for the reminder.

Randy,

Thanks for the update... I always found them to be informative...even if I did not frequent the company being highlighted... and actually found that we got some new FT members as a result.

I do agree that the behavior of some of our members was very unfortunate. Not sure I would want to take part in a chat if I knew what was going to take place....

Hope they can return... felt they were a value add to the community... if nothing else, a chat with you... or IB could be fun....

William

With FT so big, perhaps a new format could be considered for chats. Why not request that questions be submitted in advance? You could then screen them and chose those that are appropriate. You could give some of the questions to the airline or hotel exec to prepare responses in advance, which would help the speed.

Without any "hard questions" being allowed, it all becomes marketing for the program and virtually useless for the FF.

Agreed.

The questions would be sent in, the execs wouldn't bother answering them but instead send them to the corporate PR department where the flacks would churn out answers giving the best possible spin, and the chats would be nothing more than a series of public relations releases.

There is a successful model that's a bit of a compromise between the unmoderated free-for-all and the submitted in advance and scripted. The Washington Post is especially good at this, they do dozens and dozens every week. It's a good point of reference:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...nt/liveonline/

I never heard of or actually saw information that "hard questions" were not allowed. Could you point out where that policy is stated, I must have missed it. Thanks.

The reason I ask is that many of our members might have asked questions in the past without being aware of this policy you refer to. Since each time a question is asked, the member's name is attached to it, it is assumed they are asking something they are interested in an answer to.

I'm kind of curious how one identifies a "hard question"? Is it who asks the question that makes it "hard?" Or is it the manner in which any question is asked? Maybe you can help us here - the ones who were unaware of this policy.

Here's the first 10 questions asked by members of FlyerTalk from a chat with Jeff Robertson/Delta in 2005. Could say that "hard questions" are not allowed. Could you identify how these questions might have become "hard" so that these members could learn from you if it is our goal to ask "hard questions." I looked these questions over and the members asking them seem to be smart and well-known contributors to FlyerTalk. I personally don't think they erred in asking these questions, but then again, it is my observation.

I would ask this question: would we not be best served by all members on FlyerTalk when these types of questions are asked vs. when no chats at all occur? Frankly i liked these questions, though it seems they would not seem to be qualified as "hard."

Thanks for any advice you can pass along and for the information about the policy not allowing "hard questions."


Questions from members of FlyerTalk during the last Delta online chat:
Jeffrey A. Myers
With the lowering of the PM level to 75K MQMs (and the subsequent dilution of benefits, I'm not complaining) is there any thought of establishing another higher tier for those with say 125 or 150K+ MQMs? I would not care if it was advertised or of the "super secret, cones of silence, double secret probation" type. There are some of us that could make PM level on 2 airlines at the same time and would like a reason to keep it "in the family"

CelticFlyer
Are Delta aware that the very poor choice of pre-selectable seats for SkyMiles Elite members on international 763s is encouraging some of us to fly other carriers? Allowing Row 19 to be pre-selected by elites is really a joke as it doesn't even recline! Nobody has been able to give us a satisfactory explanation as to why all bulkheads and exit rows are blocked.

nsx
NW waives capacity controls on award travel on Air France for double the miles. Will DL provide us this capability in the near future?

OrlandoFlyer
Today we got notification that Skymiles awards on Virgin Atlantic will be terminated next year. Can you give us a reason for this and is it likely that Virgin Atlantic will join Skyteam?

TC
Will DL Skymiles move to a more revenue focused accrual model? In other words, will it move away from "earning miles" to "earning points", much like the hotel chains. In this way the individuals with the greatest revenue spend are awarded accordingly.

Rssrsvp
Is there any thought of bringing back the SWU's (FT991's) that were extremely popular and made elites at every level happy and extremely loyal?

Alpha Golf
Many of us are disappointed that Delta plans to renege on the written promise that old FFP miles and the award chart would be good forever. Assuming you won't consider reversing this, would you consider making more seats available and waiving the Medallion requirement (since some of us are maintaining status at ST partners instead, but still flying DL) for the remaining period? Thanks.

Rssrsvp
Jeff, The availability of SkySaver awards has gotten smaller and for the most part we come up with SkyChoice awards whenever we do a search. If you do not intend to really offer us a half decent chance of ever booking SkySavers, don't play this game and tease us with them. I would like to know what percentage of domestic awards are SkySaver vs. SkyChoice? Also what percentage of international awards are SkySaver vs. SkyChoice?

Canarsie
The business class award to Europe has increased to 250,000 SkyMiles. Are similar SkyMiles redemption increases planned for other award levels?

GreerApproach
Question: This is from someone who will be doing primarily regional flying in the Southeast over the next year. Many of us don't have the luxury of gaining our miles with long, transcon or international flight. Is Delta considering bringing back any form of segment qualification for Medallion status?

Jim Coddington
First, I want to thank Delta for coming to Bloomington, IL. My question is in regards to Delta's website and making Delta SkyMiles award reservations online on Northwest and Continental planes. Both Northwest and Continental have integrated Delta SkyMiles into their websites in order to make award reservations on Delta. When will Delta's website allow SkyMiles members to make reservations on delta.com for Northwest and Continental award reservation flights? Thank you again for BMI. Jim

const88
Currently DL offers a one-way award, but at the same cost in Skymiles as a round-trip. Has there been any discussion about making one-way awards available at half the cost of the r/t?

I wasn't the one who said this:


I don't understand why my point was perfectly clear to Dovster, yet it seems I missed the mark with you, Randy.

Actually, I do understand....and I don't see the need for the sarcasm, I guess.

I think this is too easy an out for the exec.'s who have time to script answers or have staffers script answers. Why even have them live with such a format?

I know speaking strictly for myself I pay far less attention to the "prepared statements" than I would spontaneous questions. Maybe I've seen enough spin in in-flight commentaries or marketing press releases not to trust colourful phrases carefully weighed for their effect. That's just MHO and YMMV, of course.

Sarcasm? All I was trying to do was help all the other members who might not have been aware of this policy you seem to know so much about. As for Dovster? He might have been lead astray by your statement for all I know.

What I do know is that more than half the questions asked of any guest were asked in real time so in those cases prepared answers could not have been made by the guest. Real time would mean that the member asks a question of interest to him/her. Seems reasonable doesn't it? As for the advance questions - those actually came about from feedback from our members who wanted to ask questions but for scheduling reasons, were not able to be online during the chat. Seems reasonable as well. And whatever the answer would be probably would not change much between asking the question in advance or waiting until a live session. In fact, many members report that it actually helps in that were we only to have live questions the amount of time it might take for any guest to think of a complete answer and then type it all out would make these sessions far too boring and time delayed.

Now, getting back to your statement that "Without any "hard questions" being allowed"; I'm very sorry that my question to you "I never heard of or actually saw information that "hard questions" were not allowed. Could you point out where that policy is stated, I must have missed it. Thanks." sounds sarcastic. I don't know how better to ask the question regarding your knowledge of some policy that even I was not aware of. I'm trying to learn something here.

I'll restate the question: Hey, RichMSN, I noticed you mention that "hard questions" are not allowed in these online chats. Can you provide me with some advice on how to make sure any question I might ask does not run afoul of this policy? I didn't see this policy in the TOS, and am wondering where else might it be? Thanks, Randy.

Randy, I was not commenting on the difficulty of the question but on the impossibility of keeping harassing questions off of the chats without requiring that they first be vetted. Moreover, that vetting can only be done by the company -- as what you see as not being harassment may well be viewed as such by the guests.

Once they are given advance notice of the questions, even the hardest one can be spinned. For example, let's take the question you cited which was submitted by OrlandoFlyer: "Today we got notification that Skymiles awards on Virgin Atlantic will be terminated next year. Can you give us a reason for this and is it likely that Virgin Atlantic will join Skyteam?"

Give the PR people some time to think about this and you are very apt to get a reply such as, "Yes, we notified you now to give you as much advance warning as possible. It has always been, and will continue to be, our corporate policy to keep our Frequent Flyers fully informed in regards to upcoming changes in the SkyMiles program."

Note that OrlandoFlyer's main two questions were ignored: Why will the awards be terminated and is it likely that Virgin Atlantic will join SkyTeam?

If the questions have to be pre-screened, OrlandoFlyer would be unable to have the follow up question of "I am happy that you are keeping us fully informed, but why were the awards terminated?"

Indeed, that is the very reason why no self-respecting journalist, including those covering the White House, will ever agree to submit his questions before an interview.

It takes more than this to lead Dovster astray. That I know.

Since when does my one single sentence:

"Without any "hard questions" being allowed, it all becomes marketing for the program and virtually useless for the FF."

even imply that "hard questions aren't allowed" in a chat. I'm saying that IF hard questions aren't allowed, the chats are worthless.

And yes, I'm inferring that there are people out there that think that asking "hard questions" would be "harassing" our "guests." Then again, since it's been YEARS since we've had a chat, maybe we all forget what they're like.

And yes, I consider your previous post and this latest post sarcasm on your part.

Per your request, keeping on you.... would love to see Chats return... for the general membership.

William

FWIW: I interpreted RichMSN's comment about "hard questions" to be a reply to SanDiego1K's suggestion of pre-sending questions to the guests, then things got haywire with misunderstandings.

I think we all respect Randy enough to be a fair moderator of a live chat. Some of the best (outside FT) panels I've attended or listened to were a mix of a live interview with "live" questions from the audience with a few "previously submitted" questions artfully mixed in by the moderator to keep the discussion flowing or as follow-up to a ducked question.

As long as the questions are not given to an exec ahead of time, I see no problem with hard (or soft) questions being submitted to Randy ahead of time as he's previously mentioned that not everyone can be online for a live chat. It's also a good way for him to streamline if say 50 people submit different versions of what is basically the same question. With so many on FT, I personally would submit my question ahead of time for a better chance of it getting in the queue.

I say let's get Robin Korman of SPG in for a lively chat!