You are at netAirspace : Forum : NOTAMs - Site Related Forums : About netAirspace

Dear Members of netAirspace.com,

We would like to inform you that we decided to discontinue the airline miles reward program.

When we launched it, the idea was simple: the admin team carries enough miles from most major airlines. So if a member claims an airline miles reward, we simply transfer the miles from one of our accounts to theirs.

Sounded like a great idea in theory. Then, reality hit. In other words - first members actually claimed airline miles.

Turns out that, with most airlines these days, transferring miles from account to another costs almost as much fees (payable in real $$$) as buying them. And not all airline reward programs offer that option anymore.

We still don't make any money with the website. And that's okay, we never considered it a business. Hosting is covered, so we're cool on that side. But adding a few hundred bucks a year from our own pockets to cover miles rewards isn't really an option.

We will keep our own rewards program. So you will still keep earning netAirspace miles for photo views, and will be able to buy premium memberships with them. But until we find a way to transfer airline miles without paying any major charges, we ask for your understanding that we won't offer that particular reward option anymore for the time being.

If you have any questions or concerns about that, we're here for you!

Best,
Zak

Totally understandable.

To be honest I was sort of surprised when I first saw there was that...option.

I thought it was discontinued a while ago, actually.

Out of interest, is it ever likely that Ultimate membership will be available through miles or is it always likely to be for cash investors?

I think we admins discussed the possibility and decided against it, when we introduced the miles thing. That was a lot of beers ago, though, so my memory may be hazy.

Damn! I could have reamed you for a return trip on the LHR shuttle

A sensible move.

I don't want to speak for anyone other than myself but (I will anyway )...I think most of us would agree when I say we'd rather make sure the site's hosting fees are handled (hopefully by the site itself) first and foremost.

Anything extry is bonus and should be put back into the site or made available to those that somehow keep the whole thing running.

GQfluffy wrote:I think most of us would agree when I say we'd rather make sure the site's hosting fees are handled (hopefully by the site itself) first and foremost.

ShyFlyer and his representatives approve of this message.

Good call. I don't know anyone personally that would call in the Rewards, but that's just me. I just play the games.

Let's take a couple of steps back and examine the overall success of the program anyway... How many people often take advantage of the miles for the purposes now available, such as using them to upgrade to 1st Class site access or Chicken Wings discounts?

Just between you and me and the fence post, I wouldn't have a problem dropping the program completely if it's rarely used.

Of course, I don't get 5,379 views of my photos per day.

The most frequent use of our miles program is indeed to buy First memberships. And that's perfectly fine for me.

The initial idea was - if we place ads on the photo view pages, we will make a little money with views, so we may as well reward photographers for generating those views, if only by waiving the charges for a paid membership.

The flaw in that plan is that we still don't have ads. But that's not our photographers' fault.

I should also mention that there are generous photographers who pay for their First memberships, even though they have more than enough miles to cover it.

We will have to make a few more changes to the Miles program - the 2 details we are currently discussing are to limit the time a photo can collect miles for each view, and/or let miles expire after a certain time. This will be necessary to avoid miles accounts to grow indefinitely.

Especially when we can one day offer some goodies for miles again. Which I cannot promise, but if we find a way to do it, we will

I like the miles concept, be it for the fun or for membership upgrades. If one look at the "motive request - earn extra miles" thread, I think it's the most popular thread on the website so there's definitely an interest

Queso wrote:Let's take a couple of steps back and examine the overall success of the program anyway... How many people often take advantage of the miles for the purposes now available, such as using them to upgrade to 1st Class site access or Chicken Wings discounts?

In the last year or so, we had 30 1-year First Class rewards, to 30 different members, and 42 1-month First Class rewards going to 16 different members.

There was a Chicken Wings discount in there somewhere as well, I think, but I'd disconnected from the server before I thought to check.

Now that I think about it, I think once or twice I used miles to upgrade my membership. That was...a very long time ago.

Ok then, just wondering. Not having access to the data, I didn't have much of an idea about how they were being used, and I'm glad to see that is working out.