Please see a response to my inquiry below from one of the mods:

"I know change is something that can take a bit to get used to and after long deliberation (And I do mean LONG. We're talking months of discussion amongst ourselves and with members of the travel community) it was decided that the Travel forum would be best used for discussions and Deals would be merged into HD.

The rationale was that the number of "deals" posted in travel was really light in comparison with the number of request threads that it made more sense to simply make it a forum for travel and keep all deals in one place.

Hope this help! "

Several weeks ago, when they changed the names of the forums (that time when they changed the name of Deal Discussion to Consumer Research and wisely back again to Deal Discussion), I asked them on their threads that announced these name changes to actually explain in Travel what their new "view" and policies were towards Travel, but they don't seem to have explained to the users of Travel what the new system is. Or maybe they did and I missed it.

I remember during our lively thread about half a year ago where the moderator said exciting changes were coming to the travel section - maybe this is it?

I can see where it's hard to categorize threads that cover more than one category. For example, with frequent-flier-program credit cards (like the Delta AMEX), news/deals about them could easily fit in Finance or Travel.

In a situation like that, I would have the topic listed in both sections, to have the widest possible audience for it, but maybe the technology isn't there for them to allow one topic to show up in 2 places on the site.

Oddly enough, a few weeks ago they placed a thread asking about rental car policies in "deal discussions", with the poster claiming he had originally put it in Travel and then they moved it to Deal Discussions. I think that's going too far.

I am not sure what the point of having a Travel section is now. If they keep siphoning off the topics that were traditionally covered under Travel, it's not going to have any content.

I guess these days people don't travel as much as they used to.

Maybe they should just have a "Las Vegas" forum and get rid of Travel.

I have always been for having Travel discussions and deals in one place. I think that makes sense.

I do not take the time to weed through the thousands of "hot deals" every week, so now I will miss the travel deals that are posted there. Maybe they figure that the greater good is served by having the bulk of the site's visitors, who probably do not venture past the "hot deals" forum, having the travel-related deals show up in their own forum.

Since I've been visiting the site, there's always been a light touch on travel, the kind of "you need to see the Flyertalk website (etc.) if you really want to know what's going on in the world of travel deals and information", and that is continuing apace. Seems a shame to concede the travel aspect of saving money, sharing coupons, sharing deals to other sites, but maybe it's a minority subject that isn't worth scattering the attention of FW for. There is something to be said for specializing, firming up the brand image, not trying to be everything to everybody.

Thanks for posting this. Now I know where to look!

And off topic be renamed trippleB's posts

I have read through travel deals and posts alike in the travel forum for maybe a year now. I don't see why travel deals should be moved, they don't 'pollute' the travel requests in the forum. Maybe I'm missing the point, but wouldn't one surmise that 'hot travel deals' would be found under a travel forum rather than sort through the 'hot deals' forum with twenty something categories? Perhaps once we as readers are use to something, change doesn't come easily, however, it makes me think 'if it isn't broke, don't fix it'.

This is what I've been advocating for a while.

MarsdenFubar said:One option we could do is put the deal in HD, and drop a place holder link into travel. This makes the deals viewable in travel, but keeps them deals Hot Deals.

I think the real problem is with mediocre-travel deals, like "100 free Continental Miles for doing x survey". While the HD crowd will eat that post alive, it would likely get a positive reaction from the Travel forum.

I'm a regular at another deal site, but check FW pretty much daily, if only to see what's popped up in the travel deals section. I love travel, so I always appreciated having a dedicated forum for travel deals. This kind of kills any incentive I had to come to FW over any other deal site. Not trying to sound like a traitor or anything, just pointing out that I'm certainly not the only one in this situation.

I totally agree. I usually just look for travel deals. Who wants to sift through a million hot deals to find a good travel deal?

benjiem1 said:I'm a regular at another deal site, but check FW pretty much daily, if only to see what's popped up in the travel deals section. I love travel, so I always appreciated having a dedicated forum for travel deals. This kind of kills any incentive I had to come to FW over any other deal site. Not trying to sound like a traitor or anything, just pointing out that I'm certainly not the only one in this situation.