Open forum day …. any suggestions for tweaking the site?

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• Matt says:

  1 Jan1 January 11:03

  I love the site and visit every morning to check out the latest deals. You do a great deal keeping us up to date.

  I agree with others, a few more back to school articles to help newer readers find the best deals via tools like ITA, reward availability etc. would be good, hopefully catching new readers and keep them.
  Occasional YouTube might be a good way for you to take people though how an expert would book a trip from scratch. Also this might catch new readers, and YouTube has some revenue generation as I understand it.

  Would it be possible to have a calendar with all the current deals marked on it? Thus would highlight the best deals for a given travel. This would busy but a sidebar that allows schemes (Avios, Hilton, Avis etc…) to be checked on and off would. A bit like awardmapper (which I love) where hotel chains can be switched on and off.

  An article for work travel dept. These often get new people that can be thrown in at the deep end. They are tasked with saving money for work but don’t know all the tricks. Common problems (for me) are getting them to book directly via BA than via a TA: better for me to change or upgrade with Avios etc.) better for them with on business points, booking a car via Avis with my code on it so I can go straight to the car from landing (eg in USA), to book into a hotel better for me rather than the cheapest one on Expedia etc. I like hilton and the public sector discount is good here. I also push hidden costs such as WiFi that I won’t have to pay off I have status but would with what APPEARS to be a cheaper deal. It would be great to be able to point them at an article.

  Anything on the more budget hotels/motels chains that our travel dept book me into often to save £? E.g. Best Western, Days Inn etc. Am I missing something here – some do have some nice properties in their chains.

  Finally what to do with few miles points you have in various schemes that aren’t enough for redemptions eg for UA the magazine subscriptions looks good.

  • Rob says:

    1 Jan1 January 11:20

    Re your last point, try https://headforpoints.com/2013/12/19/how-to-use-small-orphan-amounts-of-miles-and-points-part-1-hotels/ and https://headforpoints.com/2013/12/20/how-to-use-small-orphan-amounts-of-miles-and-points-part-2-airlines-and-shopping/

  • Volker says:

    1 Jan1 January 11:38

    I would love to see HfP on youtube, too. I am convinced 100,000+ subscribers would be guaranteed! It might be the end of redemption availability though.

    • Lady London says:

      2 Jan2 January 03:00

      Good idea though to fully exploit the revenue-earning opportunities on youtube which is a completely separate channel. I mean, if Loella can do it, surely Rob can 🙂

• Peter Taysum says:

  1 Jan1 January 11:07

  Hi Raffles/Rob,

  Happy New Year, and THANK YOU!

  I’ve come new to the site last year. I’d previously collected Air Miles for a long time, when Sainsbury’s used to do Airmiles rather than Tesco’s and had taken advantage of Internal Flights from Newcastle to London, and Newcastle to Europe in Economy.

  Coming to the site opened up a new world. I now check in daily for the updates, it’s part of my routine, and because of that I’ve used Rocketmiles, Tesco for the wine offer (Chateau Neuf du Pape for my Dad for his birthday), I now have an Iberia account, and have used the Public Servant discount on HH – which is amazing at weekends, and gain HH points and miles (usually Iberia – at the higher rate – unless it’s triple and then BAEC). I’m probably going to take the Economist deal with Iberia. I also started using East Cost, but will probably now change with the change over there… ;-(

  I’m looking at doing a Tier Point run (or two, or three!) and to be honest – on flyerforum that was “a step too far” for me at first. I’m now getting my head around it (and I’m proud to be a geek!). I found that you introduced me to ITA Matrix slowly, and “held my hand” through the basics, whereas flyer forum is too much at first. Through work, I’m probably half way to Bronze, so a little trip to Helsinki (I was there from my cruise ship ealier this year) and with Avios from the hotels, and probably car hire – will get me there, and then probably Honolulu next year will take me past Silver straight to Gold 🙂

  Being based in Newcastle, I can’t benefit from the “free additional trips” on Avios, but I already benefit from being Newcastle based, and love T5 (hate having to change) and now want status for baggage in domestic, and access to the lounge – clearly now “I can’t live without it”.

  I find the “University” articles really helpful, and go back to review them often. I like the search format on the site, so when I wanted to check the Economist offer, I was taken straight there.

  I like the feel and tone of the site; I don’t feel stupid if I ask a stupid question (there’s no such thing). On flyer talk I pointed out a sale – which was then updated “properly” and I felt slightly patronized – for pointing out a sale that had been missed. There’s nothing like that on here – thank goodness.

  You’ve pointed out the recent sales on Fly Be, BA etc, which I find really helpful.

  You can’t please all of the people all of the time, but I think you’re doing an excellent job. I think the most important part for me, is that you do this because you love it, and it shows. Reading about your hotel experience made me MAD, and the whole point is that we all want to enjoy our lives, and have a little bit of pampering and luxury, which without you I wouldn’t do anywhere near as much as I have.

  Thank you – and keep up the good work. I hope there’s constructive comment, so that you can keep building to go forwards. I’m just delighted I found you.

  Peter

• David says:

  1 Jan1 January 11:19

  Fantastic site, without your help we wouldn’t be flying First to California in September.

• Brad8891 says:

  1 Jan1 January 11:21

  Forum would be the biggest improvement.

• Nick says:

  1 Jan1 January 11:25

  In my opinion there’s no need to change anything Rob.
  You’ve an excellent site.
  One post concentrating on the best and cheapest Avios redemptions with step by step instructions on bookings may help many of these people’s comments from readers this morning though.
  Here goes another year of collecting and redeeming.

• Daz says:

  1 Jan1 January 11:27

  Raffles,
  I think you’ve got it about right mate, like other people your site has introduced and helped me navigate through the world of points, credit cards and hotel loyalty. This time last year I had nada, now it’s fun time! I understand the need to have advertisers but please keep to a minimum. Keep it simple and don’t mutate into similar US sites.

  To summarize: your formula is about right, especially for the newer folk to this subject. Don’t over complicate as you will lose readers.
  However I don’t like odd numbers, maybe 4 posts a day ;-).

• Chris says:

  1 Jan1 January 11:33

  Morning Raffles.

  Happy New Year to you and all other readers.

  With regards to the timing of your post I think you have it nailed personally. We know when there will be posts and that if anything else comes along during the day it’s normally a juicy offer.

  Adverts – probably one of the sites out there with the least intrusive adverts which again I like. I understand the site doesn’t fund itself and that they need to be there to balance the books.

  Post content – It’s wide and varied which again is good. Whilst the main focus is on Avios you also look at other areas which affect both business and leisure travellers – eg hotels, rail, taxi etc.

  Competitions – I actually don’t mind them tbh. Most of my business travel these days is internal so I didn’t enter the lounge one but did enter the others. It’s one post every few weeks dedicated to it AND the standard and quality of the prizes clearly demonstrates that operators as well as us readers clearly like and appreciate the standard of your post content. I’d make the competition an additional post though and keep the regular three a day news items.

  I also have enjoyed your reviews from this year, in particular your most recent one from Brussels and would like to see more of these although again I would like to see a review as an additional post rather than replace one of the three a day news posts.

  Finally, I have emailed you a few times over the last year asking for advice and you have replied every time which is something a regular blogger would not tend to do. Please accept my thanks for this.

• Craig says:

  1 Jan1 January 11:36

  Happy and safe New Year to you and your family Raffles!

  My family and I really appreciate all your hard work over the last twelve months and the countless airmile,earning opportunities you have highlighted have been of particular benefit to us.

  We don’t feel your site needs any tweaking and we like the little competitions you post so keep them coming

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