singlemalt

Or, you can go to a blog - which is what I've been doing for a few years. Let the bloggers wade through all of the extraneous crapola and summarize it for you. FT is good for newbies who want to be spoon-fed.

84fiero

^

I always thought that the CC fora were for regular, recurring-level CC offers, and MB was supposed to be for the unusually good deals (e.g., the original BAEC Chase offer, the recent 75K MR offer). Why do all CC offers now go to the CC forum?

There was a recent thread discussing whether item #2 and its subsets, belongs here...and if a separate "Help" or "Newbie" forum would be better suited. I can't find it offhand (though I didn't look too hard) - it was locked for a time. Personally I think the help/basic instruction stuff isn't "Buzzworthy" and would be better served in its own forum where people could help out.

But in any case, it looks like MB is now down to secondary earning mechanisms, as you mentioned. Given that those are (usually) very small earning potential, it's not clear how that is "Buzzworthy" and shouldn't just be in the relevant airline or program forum.

So we're left with, stuff like earning 1,000 on some signup bonus, and requests for help such as:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...tel-point.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...d-booking.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...hip-cards.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...ity-start.html

millere2

Large companies change their site/home page about every year or two to evolve with new ideas and a growing customer base. I visit yahoo.com daily to read news stories and they change their homepage design about every year. When that happens about half of the people hate the new design and complain, but then they get used to it. Flyertalk is the same way, with the large numbers of new people looking to get free or close to free points/miles MB would continue to be cluttered even more as time goes on.

So if there is nothing good left in MB for you to read, then you don't have to look at it as often or anymore.

BTW, the mods don't have much to do with the decision to create new subforums. Talkboard votes on it and the mods implement it. I am sure they give some advice, but its ultimately up to talkboard. At least that is my understanding.

MSPeconomist

While our Community Director SanDiego1K ultimately decides, it's an important responsibility of TalkBoard to make recommendations about such issues. Of course we want the relevant moderators to express their opinions before we vote, but we also want to hear from any concerned FT members. If you visit the TalkBoard Topics forum, you can learn how this process works and see the sort of issues that are normally handled by TalkBoard.

This is a link to the TalkBoard Topics forum. Please come and visit or, better yet, participate in the discussions there.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/talkboard-topics-382/

If you're concerned about moderator decisions and actions, you can contact the Community Director via PM or email. TalkBoard does not have any role in this.

hobo13

The harder it is to find information on FT.....

the more people turn to the blogs.

It is what it is.

redtop43

If MB becomes a "catch-all" then threads will get buried.

In a perfect world, we'd have precisely-targeted forums, for example, one forum for Chase UR card applications, one for point earning, one for redemptions, and everyone would know exactly where to put their posts and where to look for what they want.

There's no perfect solution that will help everybody. We get posts like "How do I get from YYY to QQQ" and then a few posts later we find the person only has miles on some *A carrier and (bless the mods hearts and time) the post gets moved to where it belongs, the *A booking forum. Of course, the person posting it would like to get as much "traffic" as possible, and not have it on page 198 of the *A booking thread, but that's life.

I think the mods do a great job.

ingy

MB used to be full of FFN, grand slam, AAdvantage partner promos and more.

face it, the game is now credit cards and manufactured spending. that is all that is left for earning miles. even BankDirect dried up on us

philemer

Yes, new, unusually good, miles & points offers are welcome in the MB! forum. We support that. But, after the "buzz" has worn off the thread will be moved to the appropriate forum.

As FT continues to evolve & grow you will see more forums added. This is a good thing. Will some forums become less "interesting"? Maybe. But it doesn't serve anyone well to have large "catch-all" forums, IMO.

mr_rogers

yup. they're "increasing efficiency" on us

MrMoonlight

The public be damned!

stupidzbu

I believe the 'buzz' is worn off when a deal is dead, not because it is still active for a 'long time'

people come here for great offers & churning. Newbies provide valuable insight

Let me give you specific examples:

AA 75k & current 50k

Churners & newbies discovered the death to 2BM, but also discovered that you can still get ~130k AA miles through the MC card.

This thread was once moved to the AA forum when the 75k offer died for discussion, then reinstated here because people got mad. Now the 50k thread moved to the CC forum where most people argue about taxes, 5x points, and cash cards.

Boa/Boh 35k Cards

The buzz was the 70k miles --> 140k HH points. After the HH devaluation, that buzz wore off, but you know what? Churning 70k HA miles is still buzz worthy


So, I argue against your interpretation of what should be on MB

If it is a GREAT offer AND active that deals with hotel or airline points, it should stay here.

The CC forum is for people looking at TYP, MR, UR etc

Hell, I spent 45 minutes reading on how this guy spent 160K in 6 weeks and was blacklisted from Citi... none of that interests me because I am in it for the miles & hotel points

EDIT: and can I please get an idea of why these active threads on the first 2 pages are BUZZ worthy vs the CC threads that got moved?

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...cbook-pro.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...-after-1k.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...-programs.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...rip-there.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...asia-trip.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...a-u-s-air.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...s-network.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...ity-start.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...purchased.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...ts-summer.html

they are all either very low mileage accrual or 'help me' threads.. possibly the complete opposite of BUZZ

stupidzbu

if anything, this should have been approached like the MR forum

One section for deals, the other section for discussion of said deal

caGALINDO

all these changes and the "how do i redeem A for B" threads are still here... fail. that is the main thing WE wanted out of MB

MSPeconomist

That's an interesting idea, but do we need two threads for every deal, or just a sub forum for deals and a sub forum for everything else in Milesbuzz? Maybe part of the problem is that many deal threads fail to have informative titles, so they cannot be scanned quickly like the MR deals.

MSPeconomist

This issue is currently being discussed in a TalkBoard Topics thread. You might want to read it and add your opinion to the discussion.

ADDED. The thread is the following:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/talkboard-topics/1459585-with-how-can-i-travel-free-forum.html

and I see that you've already posted five times in this thread, so you obviously know about it.

Please consider this to be a public service announcement for others.