Lock the topics in Announcement forum

The Announcement forum is locked. However, the topics in that section are not. Please lock each individual topic so that no one can reply. That way, the RSS feeds for the Announcement forum will ONLY contain official Cleartrip announcements.

Neerav—we like hearing from customers, so while we’re the only ones who can create topics in the Announcement forum, customers are free to respond to our announcements.

I understand and very much appreciate that you want to hear from customers. However, there are enough other forums where customers can post. Matter of fact, they are quite nicely categorized. :-)

It may not seem like much now since the forum is new. In the long run the Announcement forum will become cluttered with non announcements and irrelevant replies which will clutter the wonderful RSS feature you provide (for example, the one request which has nothing to do with the announcement itself). Again, the benefit is that the announcement RSS feed can be used as an alternative, fast, official method of getting messages/updates out to users.

Currently, the Cleartrip “newsletters” are just advertising promos and those too few to be useful for site announcements. Emailing tens of thousand of users takes a large amount of resources. Emailing small updates, such as those posted in the Announcements to all users through email is not efficient, nor preferred by all. RSS readers are available on a variety of devices and even built into browsers and email systems. This has a much larger scope and efficiency than mass email anyway. It lets users keep in touch with what’s happening on the Cleartrip site without having to visit the site constantly just to see what’s new.

Cleartrip is already more personal than any other site. RSS could make it moreso. In addition to new site features, think of the possibilities of regularly alerting users: preannouncing site maintenance/downtime, announcing new promotions/specials, warnings to travelers (e.g. security increased at airports -> arrive earlier than usual OR abc Airline employees strike -> double check for cancellations, expect delays, arrive early), etc. From Cleartrip’s point of view, you would also be placing yourself more visibly on users’ computers, cellphones, pdas and more. Free advertising and visibility at nearly no cost.

An announcement section (only 1 out of 5) should just be that—announcements. Making it completely locked down increases the users’ trust in the announcements/replies posted, especially when read through RSS. It is something you should consider exploiting for the long-term benefits to Cleartrip and users alike. All this, without decreasing the customers’ ability to interact personally with Cleartrip in the numerous other forums, through email, and on the phone.

Neerav—we hear you, we’ll let it run as is for the moment and adopt your suggestion if we do see the announcements forum getting cluttered. Glad you like the RSS, we think it’s pretty nifty too.

while we go to book tickets u ask us about the details, while that time i suggest that whatever trip we have selected before the payment should be always on the screen for any doubt.

Maurya—we’ll look into what we can do, thanks for the suggestion. Also, might be helpful if you posted a new topic instead of a reply to this unrelated topice. More people are likely to notice it and if we find a lot of people agreeing with you, it’ll make us give your suggestion a higher priority.