FlyerTalk Badges Launch
 

Hi everyone!

We're very happy to launch our latest feature: Badges.

These are viewable in both desktop and mobile skin and signify your personal accomplishments in the world of travel. While some, like your time on FlyerTalk, are automatically assigned, others are on the "honor system" and you may assign the travel badge that best corresponds to your milestones at your leisure.

We have more in the works!

I'm sure someone will ask, "Can I turn it off?" The answer is no, but we have made every effort to make them as unobtrusive as possible within our supported usage guidelines.

Very interesting. Note that the Secret Santa Badge has gone missing.

Ugh, thanks for the head's up!

Understood that they can't be turned off, but is it necessary to have these blank placeholders where badges haven't been earned/chosen? That seems to add unnecessary clutter.

On another note, is it intended that the date earned for badges only starts in October 2024? For instance, someone who joined the site in 2015 theoretically earned their 5-year badge in 2020, not 2024.

How exactly do you add badges? Where is this located?

We tried fixing the placeholders, but just couldn't come up with a solution. It's still being worked on.

I'm not really sure what you mean regarding the badge. The next level up from 5 years is 10 years, so someone who joined in 2015 hasn't been on the site long enough to get the next badge. That badge category is determined by "Profile age ≥ N-days"

Link is in my first post

click on the link in the first post

I think this would be a very useful change in both reducing clutter and helping make sure the many empty placeholders don't lead many people to just scroll past the badges altogether.

This is what I'm referring to. I've been on the site since 2015, so in theory I earned my 5-year badge in 2020, but it says it was "obtained" in 2024.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...4ee35236e5.jpg

I'm not fussed, but I imagine some people might be sensitive to this

For the ones we choose ourselves, I suspect some people might also want to display when they actually crossed that threshold, e.g. someone who flew their millionth mile in 2017 might want people to know that happened in 2017, even though they only added that badge to their profile in October 2024 (I'm assuming for the self-selected badges, it's choosing the date based on when you add it).

Interesting idea. I'd suggest that you may need to add higher options for the countries visited badge, I am far from the most widely travelled Flyertalker and have hit the badge limit at 50.

Should add a badge for X number of post likes. Such information and wit from yours truly shouldn't go un-noticed.

We definitely have some stuff in our back pocket (100 countries, 25 years on site, new categories). Any Likes-based badges will require migration to a different Likes system (like we tried in 2021). Another one that we don't have logic for is contribution to different sub-forums (British Airways, Hyatt, et cetera)

Oh yeah, that's just going to be the floor for all badges. We don't have retroactive attribution options

interesting from a gee-whiz standpoint, but I’m not a fan of the implementation — suggest reducing the left column width to accommodate only two (rather than four or five) badges

this will reclaim some screen space for displaying info that’s actually useful (i.e., thread/post content)

Agree with this. 75 and 100 makes sense for Flyertalk. I know a few digital nomads who are over 125 but not many (and not me...yet!).

There are also a few of us who have already been Flyertalkers for over 25 years. :o

Interesting feature. I've been to over 100 countries ... there are almost 4x your max of 50 of UN countries (and it's not clear whose country list applies here). Y:eek:u need an option for more than 50.

Well, duh. Sorry, I didn't catch the context. :D :D :D

What does the "nights" badge refer to?

And I'm guessing many FTers would proudly display the number of DOs they've attended.

I can't find my badge for 80+ countries, or enough hotel nights 135 between 2 chains alone.

A few of us are confused what yearly hotel award night means. Total stays? Status qualifying? Points but not paid? The info button leads to no extra detail--just a typo that says defines 'annual' as 'lifetime'.


Does FT intentionally discourage travel past 50 countries, or staying in hotels 101-365 nights?
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...666cfe1e7c.png

Please add the ability to turn off.

So annoying.

I tried using the link you provided, but all of the badges are showing as "locked". How does one actually add them? TIA

Apparently they didn't show up on past posts, but after posting the above they appeared..

If anyone uses TamperMonkey then this will hide the badges:

This is a really cool feature. Thanks for adding it.

Lets just hope someone tells the bots/spammers how to enable badges. make them look more reputable and human and all :p

One thing more constructive to note is I rarely remember to look at my own profile membership tagline. Could that and these goofy icons reset or be hidden if the user sets them a long time ago, without returning to update?

Does a time on FT badge AUTO apply or is there some magic to do it.. and will it capture the PRE 2000 timeframe.. ;-)

just capturing 2000 would be enough, I’d like to see a 25 year badge NEXT year.

Can I turn it off? Pretty please?

Looks like some people didn't read my immediate follow-up post in this very thread

The ORIGINAL POSTER tag isn't visible anymore when using Forum 'Dark Mode'.

Also, would it be possible to left-adjust everything? At the moment the name and role is now centered but the join date, location etc is left adjusted. It just looks a bit odd to me.

It would look better if the empty badge outlines were not displayed if not filled.

How many free nights you earned this year. I will admit that this was the most difficult badge to gauge. No shade to our anonymous research group, but I would have liked more input on this category specifically. I saw a record of 200 nights earned in a year, which I found pretty insane, so I halved it.

See above for comments for countries and FT profile age but, essentially, while I recognize there are 200 countries (give or take), visiting even 10 is an extremely privileged position to be in. Less than 5% of the developed world has travelled to more than 30 countries. BUT a 100 countries badge will be coming.

Hmm, wonder why countries end at 50. Where is the challenge? :)
All I can say is that these seem to add to the clutter in the desktop site version (but I am sure we'll all quickly adjust and learn to ignore them, much like the rest of the "flair").

​​​​​​So badges are a combination of the honor system, what the user assumes nights / miles means, and whether they find how to adjust. Android dark mode doesn't seem to have a badges option under edit profile, unless I force reload in desktop mode). I wonder if the UI team could have made it adjustable by clicking on one's own badge/badge "holder" on a post.

I now wonder if the number of 'airline miles' was itended to convey frequent flyer miles earned? (Rather than miles flown, which I assumed). A friend was confident they only earned 500k airline miles but 5+ million airline points on different airline that termed it accordingly

For hotel nights earned, how do you think folks will consistenly record an example of 350k Hyatt points earned, usable for 100 nights at a Category 1, or usable in full for 7 nights at a Cat7.

That's definitely an edge case!

True, however, FT is privileged by it's design - frequent travelers who tend to skew wealthy. The whole concept of mileage running is foreign to most regular folk.

With the lack of industry standards for points and rewards, a lot of these are just going to boil down to your personal interpretation, at the end of the day and whatever arguments people want to have about that... talk amongst yourselves

For the time being, changing the background hexagon color from gray to white would help many cell phone users (my usual viewing mode).

The "free nights" section took a while to populate in my area, but it's there now.

If it's meant to be "free nights stayed this year," then I call BS even on 100 nights. Seriously? Honestly? In calendar year 2024 to date?

I think this one would be better served by "free nights stayed lifetime" or some such.

And I still think a badge for number of DOs attended lifetime would be popular.

Earned? Or do you mean “stayed”? I just earned a ton of Marriott points that will eventually be a certain number of free nights, but until I actually book and stay, I don’t know how many. And I bought a bunch of Hyatt points and used them for award nights… hardly free nights, but they are award nights, so do they count? Then again, award nights booked with points from credit cards aren’t actually free either…

I am not trying to parse words here, but when I just went through the settings, I figured it simply meant how many nights per year I am staying in a hotel, and went with that. Seems to be a more meaningful metric, to be honest.

And I would have no idea how to estimate that. So it becomes a meaningless number, and I would just skip it.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have to count the number of countries I have visited. Do airport layovers count? ;)

I would suggest "Yearly Hotel Reward Nights" is not a useful metric. For example those generally using "Accor Live Limited" are at a disadvantage as such are not a thing with that program.

"Yearly Hotel Bed Nights" would be much more indicative.

What is a "Lifetime Airline Mile"?

Is that lifetime miles flown in a aircraft? Or, is it an Airline Mile (or point) earned from a reward program?

Ditto on this question too!

Butt-In-Seat I'm just north of 3MM,
Are we counting Mileage earn by flying or CC, then thats awhole different ballgame...
Or Just Elite Miles earned lifetime via Revenue Tickets?

Ibjoel, might want to consider a 100/125/150 and All on the Countries Visited Badge :p
I can easily think of 3-5 FTers on the Trip Report forum who've hit those numbers :)

I don't this it is intuitive to measure air miles on a lifetime flown basis but hotel nights on a current annual earned reward basis, Especially when you look at the values for each.

Hotel reward nights as explained above cannot be measured in most programs because the redemption levels are dynamic. There is some confusion here.

Air miles is subject to interpretation, you should change the wording to "miles flown" or "miles earned".

However, to make this simple and clear all badges should be lifetime based: countries visited, air miles flown, hotel nights stayed. Cash and reward miles/nights both count. There is too much left to individual interpretation which will make the badges less meaningful.