chexfan

Cholula, gleff, missydarlin, ScottC, Spiff, wharvey why did you vote for-
"a Hotel Deals subforum be created in the Mileage Run forum for discussion of hotel deals condusive to "mattress running" as well as pricing glitches and lowest price guarantees."?

ozstamps, why did you vote against it?

****

doc, ozstamps why did you vote for-
"that a new full forum, (not a subforum), called "Mattress Run," be established, open to all, for "Discussion of hotel itineraries solely for obtaining stay credits, maximum points and/or miles, or for only for the miles or points, or because it's nearly free."

Cholula, gleff, missydarlin, ScottC, Spiff, wharvey why did you vote against it?

ScottC

I voted for this because I felt the need to move the large amounts of hotel deals out of the mileage run forum; I voted for the 1st and against the 2nd because I felt that this new forum should be a part of the exiting forum, thus eliminating the need for new modertors.

gleff

The Mileage Run forum has become home not just to airfare deals geared towards earning status in a loyalty program inexpensively or quickly (the original idea of the forum). It has grown to include all sorts of travel deals, including airfares with carriers offering no loyalty programs, cheap hotel rates, etc.

I don't want to see these exciting offers go away. But I also want to protect the core conception of a mileage run, and as I understand it several regulars and key contributors want this as well.

While airfares booked on, say, Expedia will generally earn miles and qualifying points, hotel deals often will not. And many of the deals posted for hotels are bookable on Expedia only, or Travelocity only, or Cheaptickets only, etc. In other words, many of the hotel deals aren't really potential mattress runs -- they're cheap hotel stays.

They've become a part of Mileage Run but I'd like to see them organized better and perhaps cordoned off so that -- while valuable -- they don't detract from the core mission of the mileage run forum.

At the same time a good chunk of such postings really are not potential mattress runs. (e.g. Four Seasons Jimbaran Bay offers $3 rooms, but no stay/night credit or redeemable points there...)

So anyway a mattress run forum made less sense to me in the context of what people are actually posting and with the goal of preserving and advancing the mileage run concept without diminishing the deals that people post for non-mileage run travel.

SAT Lawyer

Is there a reason why bhatnasx's general idea for a separate subforum for dead deal discussions was not considered and submitted for a vote? Since he, as a MileageRun moderator, wants the discretion to move threads discussing expired deals to a separate sub-forum so as to allevate clutter and prevent live deals from being displaced, I say why not give it to him?

Randy Petersen

In this context, might we carefully consider what we are asking a volunteer to do. This is not a funded fully-staffed effort to make FlyerTalk available to the many. It's a collection os givers, volunteers and otherwise busy people with their own lives and of course, that will include time for them to personally enjoy what others do. My personal guess, and i may be wrong, is that there was consideration of how to make this work as if there were no volunteers or moderators. The time required to move threads around should never be a requirement when consideration of new venues for FlyerTalk. We can give it to him, but what does he get in return, but a requirement to give even more time to FT? Hardy fair. He won't complain, but we all owe it to ourselves to not create environments that require maintenance at the outset. Again, my personal opinion.

SAT Lawyer

I agree with you wholeheartedly that the objective should be to further reduce the burden on moderators, rather than the other way around. But in this case the specific moderator has asked for that responsibility.

My suggestion is that a dead deal discussion subforum be a discretionary subforum. In other words, no MileageRun moderarator is obligated to spent time searching for dead deals that must be moved, but rather those moderators have the option to make a move to reduce MileageRun clutter if and when it is convenient and in their best judgment to do so. Why not give them that option? If bhatnasx, dmfriedman, and/or DLSIZE determine that it is too burdensome to relocate dead deal threads, then any or all of them can decline to use that option. But bhatnasx at least seems ready, willing, and able to do so (it was his proposal, after all).

Spiff

I voted for a subforum and against a new forum so that one would be able to shop for deals for airfare and hotels in the same forum and because hotel deals may be conducive to one traveling to a new destination but might not earn any points on their own.

I do think that the hotel deals that have been posted of late are very valuable and do not want them to stop being posted. I felt that from an organizational perspective, the subforum made more sense.

wharvey

I totally agree with what Gary said here.... I personally had no problem with the hotel deals being handled the way they are today in the Milease Run forum.... but felt this option was the best solution with the least member disruption.

William

ScottC

Yes, there is a pretty valid reason; Initially Bhatnasx approched the Talkboard president with the proposal of creating the hotel sub-forum (this was in a PM he allowed Gleff to share with the Talkboard). We acted on THAT PM and created the votes for the sub-forum idea. It wasn't until AFTER that that the new thread was created proposing all kinds of other ideas. FWIW; we acted upon Bhatnasx's idea on December 14th and started our debate. The "new" debate with other ideas didn't start till 3 weeks later; by then we had already started voting on our initial ideas.

SAT Lawyer

Fair enough.

Does you or the TalkBoard as a whole have any plans to consider the idea of creating a sub-forum for dead deal discussions, available for use at the discretion of the moderators? If not, I think you should.

ScottC

And THAT is enough for us to consider it; we are here to serve the members of Flyertalk. I'd like to get some more member input on this idea, especially from the moderators of that forum.

FWIW; I also proposed that we create new thread icons for in front of the thread; simple icons like "dead", "hot" or "deal" might make reading the forum a much easier task, perhaps we can combine the whole process.

bhatnasx

SAT Lawyer,

Just so you know, to my knowledge, the moderators were not solicited for feedback on this decision. Any feedback we provided to the TB was in the form of the thread that I started.

bhatnasx
Mileage Run Moderator

missydarlin

The TB motion and subsequent vote came almost verbatim from a request by bhatnasx made via PM to the TB president, so I don't understand how feedback wasn't solicited.

ozstamps

Speciifc answer chexfan - as I believed the new Forum should be a SEPERATE Forum, not a sub forum. And I seconded the motion that would have made it so.

I voted agains the other motion as it was for a sub-forum and as I belived it was sloppily worded, and made no mention of whether all members would have access or whether it would be closed to many here, like Coupon Connection, SPAM and OMNI.

bhatnasx

I don't wish to get into any negative discussions & I do respect the TalkBoard & its mission - yes, I did make a recommendation via PM to the TalkBoard. However, it was a basic recommendation with some thoughts that I had discussed with dmfriedman, my co-moderator. To my knowledge, after this PM (which was presented to the TB with my permission) was sent, no MR moderators or general members were asked for any input or feedback. That is the reason why I started the thread that I started.

bhatnasx
Mileage Run Moderator