Talk:Frequent flyer programs

Tables

Do we want to set this out through the medium of tables or are lists better? --Nick ^talk 22:49, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

If you are talking of comparing programmes, I'd use a table. Let us agree on criteria (table headers) first, shall we? PrinceGloria (talk) 23:04, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Frequent flyer quirks - money spent vs miles flown

This is a long and disjointed header. Can we choose one half or the other? If there are other "quirks", keep the first and use the second as a subheader. If not, just throw out the "frequent flyer quirks" part and get straight to the point. Texugo (talk) 23:25, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Sorted. :) --Nick ^talk 23:27, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Do plunge forward and feel free to copyedit any part. The article is one big work in progress. I am just dumping my thoughts as they come and will greatly appreciate better structuring and copyediting, especially curbing my verbosity. Many thanks for your active participation! PrinceGloria (talk) 23:29, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

You're doing a great job Prince! --Nick ^talk 23:33, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Agree. Article is coming together nicely. Wife & I must fly econo, but still learned several useful things. Suggestion: Have read that Delta, perhaps others, are now granting rewards based on money spent rather than miles or number flights taken. "Flyer quirks" seems to hint at it. Can someone who knows provided explicit insight? Might also be discussed in main "Flying" article. Regards, Hennejohn (talk) 00:47, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Did we forget anything?

We're looking more or less complete now, with all sections filled with some content. I guess we could work on every section further to enhance and clarify it, as well as cut away superfluous verbosity (I am guilty of writing many of the article's numerous words, and I am often guilty of unnecessary verbosity), but I guess we have by now covered most of the topics required to explain the nature and modus operandi of frequent flier programmes to a layman.

That said, I am still wondering if there is any other important topic we forgot that should be covered? Besides, can we think of any pics we could use to relieve the boredom of long blocks of text, or perhaps can you think of ways to present the text in a more clear way that wouldn't put the user off (or put them to sleep halfway through the article) and enable easier, more comfortable consumption?

Finally, please continue copyediting and spellchecking the article. I find my English slipping when writing long sections over a short time, which is how most of my contributions to this article were made.

Thanks in advance! PrinceGloria (talk) 19:58, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

I think the whole article is a bit generic (not so much the words more the content) but as a frequent flyer maybe i'm too much thinking of details. Should we mention such things as promotion to purchase miles (especially US Airways Dividend Miles and Avianca Lifemiles are notorious for that and offer terrific value) or get easy status (e.g. A3). Maybe we need to discuss where we draw the line when it comes to detailed programm and advice. jan (talk) 20:04, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

I would leave that to Flyertalk and such, we may perhaps link to Flyertalk or other quality sites offering the discussions of such peculiarities so that interested readers can continue on to them (as long as it is not against Wikivoyage policies). I think this article should just discuss frequent flier programmes in general and explain the concept to the uninitiated or less familiar with them. Besides, the notion of a particular programme offering "terrific value" or "great promotion" is both very volatile and subjective. I would hate to have either outdated information and/or edit wars over such, with the nagging notion that we should not really promote or demote particular companies in way. Which is why, BTW, I am happy to have the JAL cards pics in this article, as English-speaking readers are unlikely to join the programme anyway. PrinceGloria (talk) 20:11, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Not so unlikely. There are a decent number of English-speaking expatriates in Japan and Japanese people who could be reading the article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:24, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

What other pics would you recommend then in lieu of those? PrinceGloria (talk) 23:40, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Bankrupt airlines/FFP are always best. I got to check if i find a picture of my old Swissair FFP ;) Or maybe the fancy Varig one. For me JAL does not bother me as they are struggling and i think its the old cards that are displayed. FT is owned by IB, therefore i stopped editing there. There are some other good pages and don't want links here to IB promotions. jan (talk) 07:25, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't bother me either. All I was saying is not to assume our readers wouldn't be likely to belong to or join JAL's frequent flyer program. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:32, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Frequent flyers around?

Swept in from the pub

Hi, everyone! Frequent flyer programmes has been nominated for Featured Travel Topic. But as you can see in the nomination’s comment section, the article doesn’t mention that the airlines can and do change the rules and end the program as they see fit (something common in the US, among other places). As the article lack this important piece of information, there has been opposition to putting the article on the Main Page.

So, if there are Wikivoyagers who are or have been members of a frequent flyer program and can write a more detailed section about those ugly practices, I would very much appreciate it. Prince who’s written most of the article maybe would like to help out? Otherwise I will tinker together something from second hand sources. :P --ϒpsilon (talk) 16:51, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Spelling

Why Oh why is it called "frequent flyer programmes"? Are the British now the lords of aviation as well as spelling? Did the Wright Brothers live in Brighton? Was PanAm a subsidiary of British Airways? Do we need pseudo-French silent E's everywhere? Seriously though, is there any justification for it not being simply named "frequent flyer programs" ? Or "miles collecting schemes" if the Commonwealth English fans can't agree to have this one spelled a l' Americaine. Best wishes. Hobbitschuster (talk) 21:54, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

I believe it is because Commonwealth English is the standard spelling on the site, unless it applies to articles about america or about countries with a predominant American influence. For evidence have a look at the spelling for the Travellers pub

Anyway it is consistently applied throughout WV, and doesn't bother the vast majority of contributors. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 22:01, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Wasn't it the other way round? American English everywhere except Europe (for some reason) and places that have English as their (co-)official language but refuse to do away with all the colourful theatre. Anyway I am of course willing to budge to consensus, but if I recall correctly, the (tenuous) consensus was, to have American English unless somebody could shoehorn how British English was somehow the "preferred" variety in some place. (How that is supposed to apply for every single country in Europe is beyond me, but that's neither here nor there.) Best wishes Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:27, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Like I said, Travellers pub not Travelers pub --Andrewssi2 (talk) 22:33, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

That is the one odd one out due to historical reasons. If I recall correctly, at least. And how one spells in ones contributions to a talk page is and should never be anything but a private issue. Best wishes Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:40, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

See here for reference. By the way this page doesn't even say anything about Europe. We should technically speaking be writing American English in all articles on non-English speaking nations of Europe. Best wishes Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:46, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't believe anyone has disputed how you or anyone else spells on a talk page. Also why bring it up as a point of contention when it wasn't? Andrewssi2 (talk) 22:48, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

I believe I was the one who started this article, and I tend to use British spelling automatically, I do not pay it much heed. Why does this matter in any way? I thought issues arising from spelling words according to different variations of English only arise when an article is inconsistent about it. Are we here? And, if so, cannot we do as Wikipedia does and standardize to the prevalent one (which I thought is the rule here as well). PrinceGloria (talk) 22:59, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

(starting at the left end of the screen again) Sorry I may have misunderstood your reference to the travel(l)er's pub. And yeah internal consitency within articles is more important than strict adherence to policy imho at least when it comes to "weak" policies and guidelines such as those on spelling. However, I do think that it would reflect negatively upon this page if an issue that is of vastly more interest to Americans (nothing to be proud of for them, Europeans don't have to fly every time we can't use a car, because European trains actually exist) than any other people in the world is spelled in British English. Most Brits are used to reading American spellings, the other way round this is not so. According to the letter of the spelling page it is implicit that all travel topics (unless about - say - rail travel in Canada) should be preferably written in American English, but it is "no big deal" if the original author writes in his/her preferred dialect of English. However these kinds of issues (spelling internal consistency) are and should be important once we are talking about "destination of the month" "guide status" and the likes. I am less invested in this than it might appear and will gladly accept if consensus overrides my opinion, but for the reasons outlined above (and my personal preference for Noah Webster's slightly more logical way of spelling a horribly illogically spelled language) I would like to see the superfluous m and the superfluous e excised from the article's title. And yes I learned English as a second language and thus can be accused of being an over-zealous convert. Best wishes. Hobbitschuster (talk) 23:11, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

I think the policy is that American spelling is the default, but that there's no good reason to change an article on a travel topic or other neutral subject from one form of spelling to the other, as long as there is internal consistency. I don't think either form of spelling will bother many people, but I suppose I could be wrong. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:15, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I think that regardless of the outcome of this discussion here, our spelling policy needs a bit of clarification... Hobbitschuster (talk) 13:03, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

It was perhaps before your time Hobbitschuster , but there were some commonwealth English zealots (since banned) who negatively impacted the community mood over this issue. I feel that because of that there is some reluctance to revisit this question, and a preference to maintain the status quo (as ill defined as it is) for the time being. You can push for it now if you really want, but the general feeling was that 'we have bigger fish to fry'. Andrewssi2 (talk) 22:25, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

It was before my time, otherwise I would have run into one of them sooner or later... But anyway... I do think our spelling is ill defined, but we do have bigger fish to fry. Best wishes. Hobbitschuster (talk) 23:15, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

There appears to be a consensus against such a move. Why was it moved without re-opening the discussion? Ground Zero (talk) 20:29, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ One year later, Wikipedia uses flyer w:Frequent-flyer program. I'm not surprised why because mostly it's airlines that are European that mostly promote FFP, and a google search quickly redirects me to "flyer". But we shouldn't be changing the title of spellings for neutral articles.

OTOH, I have changed some of the spellings for internal consistency. It made no sense to have the title as "flyer" and the lede say "flier". SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 08:31, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Government travel

"This restriction usually does not extend to personal travel." I don't get what this sentence is supposed to mean. In what cases might the government restrict personal travel when it comes to FFPs? Griffindd (talk) 09:13, 15 August 2018 (UTC)