There have been lots of attempts to riff on Groupon’s popular daily deals model — most of them unsuccessful.

But try this one on for size.

Loopt, the original show-your-friends-your-location mobile app, has created a way for users to request a deal from local businesses, which you share with friends to get them to agree to buy and then Loopt contacts the business to see if they will agree to the deal — and open it to others.

Call it a crowdsourced Groupon, which cleverly removes the labor intensive process that deal sites use to land new deals with businesses.

Loopt’s u-Deals, which launched in the Bay Area Wednesday morning, has already landed a top-notch client: Virgin America, which offered 500 $35 vouchers worth $100 in credit for fall flights out of San Francisco.

We use the past tense because the deal went on Twitter and sold out in 48 minutes. (That despite the fine print mistakenly saying that travel had to happen on Aug. 16 and Oct. 27, rather than between those days.)

“We thought it would go fast but not that fast,” said Abby Lunardini, Virgin America’s communication chief.

While it’s not likely that every Loopt u-Deal will be as enticing or sell out so fast, it’s a testament to the cleverness of the idea. This deal also got a bit of a jumpstart, because usually Loopt only knows about places, such as bars and cafes. But Virgin America had worked with Loopt before to offer two-for-one coupons to Loopt users near taco trucks in California, when it was launching new service to Mexico last year.

If you want to get in on the roll-your-own-deal action or convince Virgin America to repeat the offer, you’ll need to download the Loopt app for Android or iPhone.

Lots of deal site gimmicks and knock-offs pour into reporter’s inboxes daily – causing what’s known as daily deal fatigue, but this stands out as one that just might work. Heck, some clever reader might even find a way to wrangle a deal on a Wired Magazine paper-and-app subscription.