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

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• Frenske says:

  1 Jan1 January 08:44

  Great site. Only minor thing is in the comment section. It is not verry clear when a post is comment to the article or a reply to a someone’s comment e.g. the indentation could be stronger or maybe use smaller font size.

  • Tom h says:

    1 Jan1 January 09:52

    +1, great work raffles, it is difficult to keep track of all replies/comments, anything that helped would be useful.

  • avidsaver says:

    1 Jan1 January 10:05

    Agreed! A minor thing but a tweek here could be very helpful for clarity.

  • Rob says:

    1 Jan1 January 11:10

    Not sure how easy it is to change this, I will take a look. On a laptop it is clearer than, say, on a phone.

    Spare a thought for me, because (as Admin) I simply see all the comments in one long list, with all the comments from all posts mixed together, with no idea what they are responding to!

    • Mr Bridge says:

      1 Jan1 January 11:23

      I think its the way the software works, and that not a lot can be done about that

      • James67 says:

        1 Jan1 January 12:03

        And there is the human element. Some of us are more disciplined a d better than others at ensuring responses are submitted as a comment or reply, and sometimes we simply make a mistake. Added to this is the problem that when two or more people are replying to a comment at same time then the responses can at times seem a little disjointed. Given these factors, most of the time the discussion unfolds remarkably well and it is difficult to see how it could be much improved without Raffles spending unrealistic and unreasonable amoounts of time edtting.

    • Will says:

      1 Jan1 January 14:39

      I guess you can read them in both admin and public modes to be sure (if it isn’t obvious)?

      • Rob says:

        1 Jan1 January 15:20

        I can, but its quicker in Admin mode as I get them all on one page.

• Tenkings78 says:

  1 Jan1 January 08:48

  HNY! With thanks to helping me enjoy some amazing avios filled adventures in 2013 too (first to Tokyo, first to Vegas on 241….oh and a BA241 from London to Glasgow to get to the outer Hebrides from where I write this….it was expiring).

  Anyhow – I very much agree that things work excellently. I don’t use the site itself much but rather the three email updates. I really like the limited number and consistent timing. I too read them first thing before heading to work.

  In short – it’s already excellent.

• avidsaver says:

  1 Jan1 January 08:54

  Happy New Year to all! I found this site a few months back and on first visit it was very easy to navigate. I agree with all the positives above. It looks and works great. I too visit every morning as part of my routine please don’t ever change the timing it works perfectly. Good to know one is up to date with the latest first thing and can refer back to comments throughout the day. This site has provided a tremendous boost to my collecting. Thanks Rob for all your hard work and a brilliant web site.

• Mr Bridge says:

  1 Jan1 January 09:03

  I concur with the others, as a HFP reader from the onset.
  Its one of the easiest sites to navigate, I have looked at some of the other forums/sites which are a million miles (miles: avios: ho ho ho: happy new year) behind HFP.

• Thywillbedone says:

  1 Jan1 January 10:14

  Hi Raffles, I think adding a table showing main credit card/hotel & airline loyalty features would be very helpful so it would allow a reader to see what the criteria/main quals & benefits are for each programme in an easy to read format. For example, next year I want to change my hotel loyalty credit card away from IHG – a table would allow easier comparison of alternatives. Thanks for the posts in 2013!

  • Rob says:

    1 Jan1 January 11:08

    I am planning a series of introductory posts on the hotel schemes, and may make it a sticky. There are a LOT of business travellers in the UK who never fly, and their entire exposure to miles and points is via the hotel schemes – it would be good to pull more of those people in.

    • Simon says:

      1 Jan1 January 12:23

      A review of different hotel schemes would be most helpful, especially for us corporate travellers who have some options when travelling and don´t have any specific strategy when booking them.

    • Thunderbirds says:

      6 Jan6 January 08:39

      You are correct this hotel series would balance the Avios nicely. This may also answer that age old question of: Can 76 million IHG Rewards members be wrong! Do your contacts tell you what the drop in Platinum members has actually been? I have to say that as a Platinum Ambassador I’ve seen a noticable improvement in my treatment over the last couple of years.
      With 90 nights a year, almost all IHG hotels, and a couple of long haul flights a year I get just about the correct balance between “free” flights and free hotels. Off to Singapore/Sydney this February with a “two nights for the price of one” weekend voucher at IC in Singapore then 6 free nights at the Holiday Inn in Old Sydney, only taxes on the 2-4-1 First flights to pay.
      I’m currently waiting for my 40 carried over IHG Reward nights to be re-posted to my account for this year. With the remaining 10 nights already booked for this year I’m Platinum for next year so it would be good to see if future nights could be distributed for the best reward.

• squills says:

  1 Jan1 January 10:17

  Site is great but I’m directing my thoughts to membership. A few points here;
  1. HFP needs income & participation = readership.
  2. More brains = better input.
  3. Spread too wide = low quality and erosion of input.
  4. So good idea to get more FT, PTS, Elite [etc] members involved – but not (say) HUKD or wider MSE.
  5. I’m no all-knowing guru so there are obviously more forums out there I’m not aware of along the lines of FT & PTS where the quality of membership is high – issue: how to recruit them (both readership & occasional input)?
  6. Answer to 5: we have to do it, nobody else will. Eg I personally could drum up interest on PTS but not (say) FT where I am just ride-along not a contributor.
  7. Continuing thought in 6, this should clearly be with Raffles’ OK, & should be done privately probably by email contact with Rob.
  8. OTOH others might prefer to keep membership under c.2000, which of course is another perfectly acceptable outcome.

  • Rob says:

    1 Jan1 January 11:07

    Running a forum alongside the site has been an option from Day 1. However, I’ve never convinced myself it would work – the admin would be substantial and, frankly, ads run on forums don’t pay much. Ads on blogs do work well, because people are reading the page differently.

    • Mr Bridge says:

      1 Jan1 January 11:27

      As a reader from the start of HFP, I have seen that as it has grown, its started to attract one or two ‘kids’ to the adult conversation, quite frankly keep the kids out!

      • Rob says:

        1 Jan1 January 15:12

        It’s fine for now, but don’t worry, I am watching it. I have seen how the Business Traveller forum – despite being the forum of a very sensible magazine – is an astonishing mess at times. That won’t be happening here.

    • Steve says:

      1 Jan1 January 16:54

      PTS &FT cover the forum side and were a good launch pad for HFP at the start. In my opinion it’s fine as it is. Keep up the good work.

  • Rob says:

    1 Jan1 January 11:16

    My key issue at the moment is retaining Google people (which, to be honest, I think I do OK with anyway). Yesterday – a quiet day, obviously – we had 2,069 page views which originated from people coming from Google. No idea how many people that is, but probably 1,000. No idea how many of those like what they see and stick around.

    • AndyGWP says:

      1 Jan1 January 18:28

      I come here from ‘Google Bookmarks’… not sure how that tracks but thought I’d mention it 🙂

• Ant says:

  1 Jan1 January 10:39

  Happy New Year! I love the website as it is, works perfectly for me. Please do not change the timing of the emails – first thing i do in the morning is read the 3 emails 🙂

• Sideysid says:

  1 Jan1 January 10:48

  One thing to think about Raffles is mobile browsing. Quotes of comments etc appear fragmented and very difficult to read (with iPhone anyway). Apart from that great site.

  • Rob says:

    1 Jan1 January 11:05

    I have just bought an iPhone – once I get the box open and see how the site looks, I will see what can be done.

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