lin821

I already get the sense which direction TB is taking, from the earlier posts and proposal from nsx.

I am simply sharing my vision and observation on the award assistance threads over MilesBuzz!. I am very glad that our Community Director, with input from forum mods, took the arbitrary & preemptive decision to create Manufactured Spending Forum to logically declutter MilesBuzz Forum a few months back, without going through the usual TB channel. I, for one, didn't envision a Manufactured Spending Forum, but had been RBPed and questioned why those threads were milesbuzzing for more than a year, if not longer.

FTers need assistance with earning loyal currencies, as well as in redeeming them. Who could have known the cc bonus scheme would grow as big as sports among FTers years back? After pocketing thousands and millions of points/miles from those ludicrous cc offers, what will be the next big step? Deposit it in the bank? FT gives hand to folks, teaching them how to earn rewards with minimal out-of-pocket cost. FT helps create "smart earners." But TB don't think it's time to consider how to help people become clever spenders in awards?

Disappointed some TBers are not seeing the parellel dynamics between strategizing cc spending and award redemption for the next "generation" of FTers.

Yes, we do have Oceania Forum, but no, destination foa are not for discussing how to use award or redeem miles/points.

Did you go to Japan Forum and ask about how to get there (which airlines/hotels to redeem...etc) when planning your Tokyo trip? I thought you've known better.

SkiAdcock

I've been traveling overseas & have limited time to review everything in depth until I return this weekend. AFAIK nothing has been set in stone by TB & dif TB members are suggesting ideas, etc. I think the one thing we're agreed on, based on FTers input in this forum, is that something needs to be done. What that something is ultimately hasn't been determined yet to my knowledge, but given the interest by FTers it is something we're actively tackling (sp?).

Cheers.

HansGolden

I'm not sure our visions are actually that far apart. Most award queries deserve about a three sentence answer with a link or two for them to learn more. That's going to be very similar to the amount of response need for newbie questions with much the same experience level required to answer both.

"Best award to use for Europe flight...
I'm planning a Europe trip for me and my fiancé next year and I'm wondering which award program would be most beneficial when flying to Europe.

I already have about 35k in my delta miles, about 20k in my united miles.

I'm looking to visit Italy and greece"

"Your best bet is to apply for the Chase Ink Bold and Chase United Explorer cards. Getting the bonuses will get you to 125k United miles which is enough for two coach tickets to Europe from the US. United's website is good at finding award space."

--

"Best miles program for travel within Asia?
What's the best airline miles program to accrue miles in (preferably via credit cards) to redeem for flights around Asia?

By "best" I mean has the cheapest award redemption and lowest fees for coach class flights.

We have some miles in American Airlines and British Airways, which we'll use to fly the family over and back... but what about flying Bangkok - Jakarta, or over to Burma, or to Hanoi, or Siem Reab?

Also, we're planning to do few weeks layover in Hawaii along the way and would love recommendations for which airline miles to use (if any) for flying among the various islands... or would you all recommend just buying those outright?

Thanks!"

"British Airways Avios are the best if you're flying to/from Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, or Tokyo, which are OneWorld hubs. However, for hopping around Southeast Asia, your best bet will be to buy tickets on discount carriers. SkyScanner.com searches many of them and Wikipedia airport entries should provide clues on which carriers fly to a certain airport."

"Advice Shanghai - Seoul (best miles redemption / most economical ticket)
We have a trip coming up in March 2014 where we (family of 4) need to fly from Shanghai to Seoul round trip and I have been looking at options and they all seem quite expensive for a very short 500 mile journey.

Paid ticket - Cheapest I have found so far is $320 pp
Miles - United is 25K miles + taxes seems the most reasonable so far but was wondering if there are any cheaper options.

e.g. Aeroplan only needs 20K miles but not sure about fuel surcharges.

I have enough miles in most major US carriers and also UR, MR and SP.

Any ideas would be welcome"

"If you have not yet done so, check Chinese sites such as elong.com and ctrip.com, which often offer very different prices from Western sites. Also check transferring American Express Membership Rewards to ANA, which would only be 20k miles RT." (First sentence stolen from thread, post by KL895.)

"I want to go to Bali with my whole family."
"Use American AAdvantage miles on Cathay Pacific or Delta SkyMiles on China Southern. Here are the links to the AA and DL charts. You can search for China Southern space on ExpertFlyer.com."

"I have Ultimate Rewards and want to visit South Africa."
"Your best bet is to transfer to United. You probably won't be able to find space on South African, but you'll probably find space via Europe on Lufthansa Group."

All except the last two are real threads from MB.

nsx

I agree with Hans. It's possible that FT needs a forum for advanced multi-program award planning. Anyone planning to fly around the world would probably benefit from reading such a forum. Would the necessary volume of posts appear, or would the forum wither and die? Hard to say, but what's there would be fun to read. I'm open to the idea, but let's proceed one step at a time so we have a clearer view ahead.

Here's my latest draft for everyone's comments.

The TalkBoard recommends the following changes:

• Add a new "Information Desk" forum at the top of the list of forums, with the subtitle "New Member Q&A and Award Travel Advice", subject to revision over time by the Community Director as the best uses of the forum become more clear.
  
• Redirect all newly registering members to the Information Desk forum as their first post-signup screen.
  
• Re-title "MilesBuzz!" to be "Miles & Points Hot Topics", with the subtitle "Breaking Program News and Hot New Deals". The TalkBoard recommends that mission of this forum be to highlight hot deals and new devaluations and to present blog-like subject matter, all at a jargon-free introductory level suitable for new arrivals. The TalkBoard recommends that all detailed Q&A on these topics occur in the home forum for the topic. Threads in Hot Topics would be, in effect, double posting of deals already covered in their home forums. In large part Hot Topics should resemble a continuous TalkMail.
  
• Modify the FlyerTalk Terms of Service to explicitly permit cross-posting of hot deals and breaking news to the Hot Topics forum, recommending but not requiring that the poster include a link to the thread in the primary forum.

The TalkBoard encourages members to create and update per-thread Wikis in support of the mission of the Hot Topics forum. In particular, the TalkBoard recommends that members use the Wikipost feature to add any necessary links to detailed discussions in a home forum at the top of a Hot Topics thread.

tcook052

They're not? Coulda fooled me.

lin821

No, they are not. Destination fora are not for award redemption discussion.

Thanks for the headsup, I just RBPed that thread so MODs can move it the the proper forum. Can't visit my usual corners of Asia as often due to my computer problem recently. FWIW, I've RBPed quite a number of threads "misplaced" in destination fora over the years when award redemption's involved. MODs generally move those out of destination fora.

tcook052

While I would like to see the MB renaming done as part of a broader realignment of the FT forums structure but I think these proposed changes are for the better.

goalie

The way I stand on this is simple...

I have an issue with grouping unrelated items into one proposal as imho, I think it does a dis-service as the focus on one item may over-shadow one of the other items in the proposal. For example and for sake of argument, the majority of the members support say items 1,2 & 4 but not item number 3 and the motion passes-then what? Another motion to rescind item #3? So with that, I would like to see this split out so that "like items" are included in one proposal and other "like items" in another proposal. Or in other words, The "Information Desk" (or whatever it might be called) should not be included in a motion/proposal which involves action on another unrelated forum (MilesBuzz) and/or changing F/t ToS

HansGolden

nsx split it into easy to follow points in the motion, but really this is one smooth action: Split MilesBuzz into a MilesBuzz and an InfoDesk forum with the InfoDesk serving as the landing page for new users. Unless there is substantial opposition to one of the points, there is no reason to add paperwork by dicing them up. The only scenario where it makes sense to split them up is if 50+% are opposed to one part of it; then we should vote on them separately. But up until opposition is shown to certain points, it makes no sense to add work and complication to an already volunteer board.

kipper

Shouldn't it just be create an InfoDesk forum, and provide guidance on what the forum encompasses then?

I look at the proposed motion and think that it should be split into 3 motions.

Motion 1

• Add a new "Information Desk" forum at the top of the list of forums, with the subtitle "New Member Q&A and Award Travel Advice", subject to revision over time by the Community Director as the best uses of the forum become more clear.
• Redirect all newly registering members to the Information Desk forum as their first post-signup screen.

Motion 2
Re-title "MilesBuzz!" to be "Miles & Points Hot Topics", with the subtitle "Breaking Program News and Hot New Deals". The TalkBoard recommends that mission of this forum be to highlight hot deals and new devaluations and to present blog-like subject matter, all at a jargon-free introductory level suitable for new arrivals. The TalkBoard recommends that all detailed Q&A on these topics occur in the home forum for the topic. Threads in Hot Topics would be, in effect, double posting of deals already covered in their home forums. In large part Hot Topics should resemble a continuous TalkMail.

Motion 3
Modify the FlyerTalk Terms of Service to explicitly permit cross-posting of hot deals and breaking news to the Hot Topics forum, recommending but not requiring that the poster include a link to the thread in the primary forum.

The ones that I have listed as Motions 2 and 3 concerns me for a few reasons:

• I could see some of the forums getting extremely clogged with various deals, when most in those forums don't want to see said deals;
• If the deals/hot topics get posted in airline forums, what about a "comparing airlines" thread? Does that get posted 3 times?
• Allowing for double-posting means that for every 1 "real" post, some people will receive 2 posts, thus meaning that the 180 posts access restriction for CC and OMNI may, for some, really be 90 posts.

The TOS would have to be very narrowly revised so as to prohibit cross-posting elsewhere too.

HansGolden

kipper, I'm not sure why nsx worded it as if it's creating a new forum. It's not. It's splitting MilesBuzz. There are a TON of Q&A threads in there already that have nothing to do with buzz.

If you're opposed to what you labeled motion 3, make your case. "Motion 3" is really just defining how the HotTopics half of the old MilesBuzz forum will work. We kicked around a lot of ideas in the private TB forum and doing summary threads in HotTopics with full threads in the FFP's forum is the best I've heard, but if you have a better idea, please make the suggestion.

It doesn't make sense to separate the split and the definition of the split forums. (How would that work? Split a forum leaving it with a default definition that is contrary to the TOS or provides forum confusion as to where things should be posted? That'd be the height of irresponsibility.)

We're open to hearing from folks (non-TB and TB) on HOW the mechanics of a Hot Topics forum works and we'll craft the motion accordingly.

However, we must include the mechanics of how the forum will work within the forum split itself. We can't have that limbo.

ETA: Here are the four basic ideas we were considering:
1. Provide no direction. Chaos. People do what they will. Cross-posting happens. Some info one place, some elsewhere. Or mods are strict and move stuff to MilesBuzz while it's hot, back when it dies down, etc.
2. Ask IB to set up a feature where mods could designate a thread within their forum as a Hot Topic and it would appear in Hot Topics as a shadow topic. Hot Topics would have no original content, it would just be a mod-curated collection of the hottest deals from around the FFPs.
3. Do #2 without additional coding by IB. Whenever a mod would want to designate a Hot Topic, they'd move it to Hot Topics, and then move it back with a permanent redirect.
4. Ask that summary threads be posted in Hot Topics as nsx's motion spells out.

I'm the one that came up with #2 and someone else came up with #3 as an iteration of my #2. I'm a fan of either. However, the vocal members of TB seemed to indicate they preferred #4 and I was fine with that. However, I'm happy to see debate on this point.

HansGolden

• I find that strange. Why would anyone be opposed to having a hot UA deal in the UA forum, for instance? And even if they would object, it seems like a fairly off-base objection. That's the definition of the UA forum and is how it works: it's everything about UA. And that's how it is now. Are you suggesting banning anything exciting from the FFP forum? I don't follow your thinking on this at all.
• No. Things that are not FFP specific would have their sole home in Hot Topics.
• Double-posting would only apply to starting threads AFAIU. It wouldn't mean you could copy and paste the same content to both threads! In fact, the definition discourages that. Hot Topics is for summarization, the main thread in the FFP forum is for the details.

Those responses are based on my understanding. nsx can step in to correct me if I've misrepresented or given a different emphasis than he would prefer.

goalie

Bolding mine: So you're deciding what is "substantial opposition" as opposed to letting the members speak?

Thank you ^ and a very good point brought up regarding the post requirements to CC and OMNI ^

HansGolden

No. That's why nsx has posted his draft motion publicly, so we can hear everyone speak and modify the motion BEFORE it's formally made. The idea is to develop consensus BEFORE the vote, not figuring out what people think THROUGH the vote. It's much more efficient and friendly that way. At least, it should be.

I don't understand how you think the process should work. Could you outline your thoughts on this?

kipper

If it's not creating a new forum, then it needs to be changed, as the post currently says, "Add a new "Information Desk" forum at the top of the list of forums, with the subtitle "New Member Q&A and Award Travel Advice", subject to revision over time by the Community Director as the best uses of the forum become more clear."

As far as cross-posting, what about having a wiki post, that is updated as new deals are added, etc.? That way, it's not cross-posting.
I'm not suggesting banning things, I'm just saying that now, people who aren't interested in hot deals don't have to see it. If you change it, those who frequent the UA forum to find out about latest program changes, questions about if they can access the United Club, etc., don't have to see the hot deals.

Rather than see all of the hot deals threads moved into the specific airline forum, why not create subforums for the airlines in MilesBuzz, to try to organize the forum?

I don't see how dumping threads into existing forums is going to do much, other than make those forums more chaotic. If you're after organizing MilesBuzz, then organize it, but don't just dump things into other forums and say, "See, we cleaned up MilesBuzz." While you may have accomplished your mission in cleaning MilesBuzz (the kitchen), you've not really "cleaned" the kitchen, but rather, have simply scattered the dirt and pots and pans to all the other rooms of the FlyerTalk house.
If cross-posting is allowed, then I'd like to see TalkBoard also increase the post count necessary to access CC and OMNI to 360 posts as a preventative measure. In light of one of the recent threads there, where a trade for 6 GPUs probably went bad, I'd think that if cross posting is allowed, it would be good to increase access requirements.