Credit card forums should be country-specific

The credit card forums are dominated by Americans, with others scrambling to create separate threads. To a Canadian, all information in a forum about, say, Amex Membership Rewards, is completely irrelevant if it's US information or UK information. But few threads specify the country. Most threads are written by Americans, providing information of no value to foreigners. The problem is that some don't know this and finding relevant info is not easy or reliable.

The arrangement is not satisfactory. Airline, Alliance, Mileage Run forums do not suffer this problem in the same way.

But Credit Card programs are ALWAYS country-specific. There are NO credit card points programs for which the rules are the same across borders. FT's credit card forums structure should reflect this reality.

yyzgayguy, many thanks for your comments. As it is, any proposal to change the existing forum structure rests entirely with our TalkBoard. Do feel free to pitch your suggestions to them using the tried and tested TalkBoard Topics forum.

In the meantime, I am comfortable leaving this thread in situ so that the regulars here can add their own views on the matter.

Prospero
Senior Moderator

So how many country-specific credit card forums would be needed? I can't see the Talk Board going for this, but good luck if you post over there.

Too many to be really workable IMHO and I agree that TB is unlikely to consider what could possibly add another dozen or more forums to FT. Just MHO though I do appreciate the reason OP has raised the issue.

@yyzgayguy
I am with you.

I am definitely for this. Perhaps it could be narrowed more but not necessarily have a thread for each country. Canada and the US need their own, then possibly groups of geographically close EU countries/Asian etc. at least it would cut down wading through every single thread on the global forum that exists now to just those that contain your country of choice..

A couple of suggestions:

Have US, Cananda and regional forums as suggested above.

Force people to select the country from a dropdown when creating the thread (I think vbulletin has this feature)

Thanks, wayfahrer, finkface, bridgair. I confess that I can't comprehend the purpose of a "suggestions" forum that responds to suggestions by telling the poster that he's in the wrong place. Obviously I don't know the board as well as many others; I rarely stray outside AAdvantage, Aeroplan and Credit cards. Apparently I should pose my "request" elsewhere where I might have "luck". I had thought I was "contributing".

Were my suggestion implemented, the greatest beneficiaries would be non-US FTers. US FTers would also benefit somewhat. I'm told admins and mods would be negatively affected.

I am ignorant and indifferent on how to accomplish it (or why it's a non-starter), but clearly it would benefit non-US users to have a way to cope with the Credit Card area of the board. A mandatory Country tag on each thread? Two forums? (US and non-US).

I have no expertise in administering FT, obviously. But my observation is sound: Credit Card forums have this unique problem, not found on other forums, because unlike airlines, alliances and hotel chains, credit cards are always country-specific. Non-US FTers would benefit, if they were insulated from (or have a tool to avoid) the domineering tide of irrelevant American credit card info they can't use.

I've described the problem and I have no well-informed (or well-formed) idea how to solve it. I haven't the expertise, the patience or the generosity to take it further.