I came across a forum called, Traveling Better Forums, and it instantly occurred to me that I was invited years ago to join this forum by one of its founders. This was in October of 2006 and I was already a member of FlyerTalk when I was sent a private message by another member, JonNYC:

I apologize VERY much if you’ve gotten this before, or have already joined!

We’ve put together a l’il Yahoo group of AAvid AA members– NOT as an alternative to FT– or any kind of “F you” to FT– just a place that we can exchange ideas, tips, and new info from our sources, etc. FT is still a great place, but a bit “cluttered” for good info exchange, presently.

Use your FT name– or, be completely anonymous.

We have at least two FA’s (who are/were also FTers) participating there– I’m sure you’ll see who they are.

If you’re so inclined, gimmie an email.
Warmest Regards, -jon(NYC)

p.s. please let me know if you know of anyone else who might be interested, email: jon@angel.net

American Airlines Working Behind the Scenes

JonNYC (Jonathan Posner), asks members about me:
“Is this guy slightly mentally ill? I’m starting to wonder”

I thought it was a bit strange that this person was crawling the FlyerTalk site to “poach” members and move them over to his new site. It was not until April 7th, 2012 that I came across the Traveling Better Forum after seeing an article in which the founding member, JonNYC, asks members the question “Is this guy slightly mentally ill? I’m starting to wonder”. He is obviously referring to me in the post since he then has links back to my articles related to American Airlines. UPDATE: Jonathan Posner has since deleted this post. 

Read Post About AAdvantage Aluminum in FlyerTalk

Why would someone say such a thing? Of course, it is never pleasant to come across something like that written about yourself in the internet but then again we are dealing with someone that has been trying for almost 6 years to copy FlyerTalk and all they have to show for it is a very basic cookie-cutter forum called Traveling Better Forums with blogs that have not been updated since 2009.

However, I have received emails from those who know Jonathan Posner and they express overall satisfaction in his ability to provide information about AAdvantage even before the information has been made available to the general public through special connections he maintains within American’s headquarters. This may explain his comment regarding my state of mind since it resembles other comments made by American Airlines when referencing me that I will cover in an upcoming post. Their strategy is falling further and further behind.

So, to answer the question; yes, Traveling Better Forums is definitely an all out fail compared to FlyerTalk.

UPDATE: We discovered that the word on the net is that TravelingBetter.com is closing down. So maybe there is more to this than just about being a “copycat”. Perhaps there is a little hating coming from JonNYC as well. JonNYC, I wish you only the best.

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