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

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• Simon says:

  2 Jan2 January 11:35

  Happy New Year Rob,

  Like most people I like the site how it is, the 3 posts a day works well for me and the reader comments are generally of a high quality.

  I don’t subscribe to the emails as I know if I log on at about 7:30am I’ll see the posts, if there was an option to subcribe to breaking news only emails, that would appeal to me. I know you don’t run many posts during the day but if there was a short lived deal e.g. the Tesco giftcards glitch on the AMEX site last year or a link for Platinum Accor status which often doesn’t last for very long it would be good to get an email about it.

  • Jonny says:

    2 Jan2 January 21:39

    I also thought of this independently- it would be great to be able to subscribe to “stop press” emails only.

    I go onto the website every morning so don’t need to be emailed the regular posts, but would be good to be notified of any “need to move quickly” posts!

    Fantastic site overall though.

    • Rob says:

      2 Jan2 January 22:02

      Following Twitter is your best bet, as new posts get pushed onto that automatically.

      I really try to do less than 5 midday posts per year, though! Ironically, though, there may be one on January 6th if the first Avios.com / ba.com sale deal is good and limited; it goes live at noon.

• Hingeless says:

  2 Jan2 January 11:51

  How about the occasional (or more) international post, I’m getting into my qantas miles and it’s a steep learning curve, you would have plenty of contributors from overseas readers

  • Rob says:

    2 Jan2 January 12:15

    To be honest, I like to stick to what I know. It is impossible to master the nuances of every frequent flyer scheme, and I think sites like Australian Frequent Flyer can offer you masses of detail which I never could.

• skins says:

  2 Jan2 January 12:33

  Hi Rob,
  I too love the site, the early morning posts, and your valuable analysis of the various points related offers out there. The only thing that might help (and I don’t know how to do it), is the ability for readers to update an offer after 7 days when there is doubt that points might be awarded. For example, I’d like to take up the virgin wine offer (that still seems to be live) at ; https://headforpoints.com/2013/12/04/an-even-better-laithwaites-wine-deal-with-virgin-flying-club/ but the penultimate comment suggests that the points are unlikely and the 7 day rule prevents anyone having success from updating.

  • Rob says:

    2 Jan2 January 13:44

    It is a 14 day rule!

    You need to remember that people also need to read your comment for it to have any impact. If you comment on a very old post, it will show in the margin until 4 more comments have been posted (about an hour) and then disappear from view and no-one will know you posted it as no-one is checking that post for updates.

• Empers says:

  2 Jan2 January 13:09

  I only discovered your site in mid-Dec following a quick Google search on how to best use Avios points on a trip to Las Vegas in July 14 to celebrate my wife’s birthday. I loved the website design immediately with the simplicity of navigation and minimal adverts. I now read the articles daily, so I am definitely a Google hook! I think the biggest attraction for me to the website is Rob’s excellent balanced editorial on offers and opportunities rather than the many sites out there that simply syndicate PR releases and other website’s original content. The 3 updates that are emailed every morning are perfectly timed and allow me to dip in first thing then come back at lunchtime for a read of the comments.

  The only improvement I can think of is the ability to search through the hundreds of comments, ideally with options around date posted and time posted. I know Disqus and Livefyre offer Wordpress based comments systems, I am not sure if they offer the functionality. Also I have often seen page load times increase substantially when using some of these 3rd party comment systems, so that is another factor to look at.

  Thanks for the invaluable information I have read so far, keep up the good work. I have recently become the proud owner of an Amex Platinum for the Marco Polo (BA Silver) benefits and 30k reward points. I am an infrequent traveler and lounge access was attractive to me. My wife travels a lot and is BA Gold so this website is helpful for her, she is already fed up with me reading it out to her over Christmas. We got the Vegas flight booked, Club outbound, 1st Class Return 🙂 Keep up the good work!

  • Rob says:

    2 Jan2 January 13:43

    That is the issue with Disqus. Whenever I load, say, Loyalty Lobby there is always a long delay until the comments load. I don’t think the benefits of that system outweigh the trouble of installing it.

    • Alan says:

      2 Jan2 January 13:44

      I’d agree with that, I like how comments display at the same time as the post on here.

• Louie says:

  2 Jan2 January 13:20

  This is a question rather than a suggestion…. is there any way of being able to view just those comments that have been posted since you last viewed the website? I suspect I am missing many replies that would interest me because I don’t realise that they are there…..

  Other than that, everything is great as it is.

  • Rob says:

    2 Jan2 January 13:42

    No. What might be possible is to put all the comments from all posts on one page – there are some external bits of code you can install which theoretically can do this. Might be worth a look.

    • AndyGWP says:

      3 Jan3 January 07:52

      That would be really useful… I sometimes don’t like to (or forget to!) put up alerts for follow up comments to threads I post on, or don’t want to post just for the sake of subscribing, so this would be really really useful

• AndyGWP says:

  3 Jan3 January 07:50

  Hey Raffles – not sure if you’re aware but there’s a new (to me) Avios Suitcase sticker for “Tweeting your Avios ‘Goal'” 🙂

• Ben E says:

  3 Jan3 January 09:33

  Wow… so many comments. Someone may have already posted this but with so many lines I stopped reading. How about a forum? I’m beginning to feel like there’s a HFP community here that we could all share and chat about things related to the whole HFP concept? I’m sure you, Rob, get loads of emails, and certain things non-article related could easily be opened up for community discussion in a forum?

  • Rob says:

    3 Jan3 January 14:45

    I have considered it, but the moderation etc required would be very time consuming. Revenue wise, ads on forums are generally ignored so it wouldn’t be massively profitable. Not too keen.

• Jedi Donkey says:

  3 Jan3 January 17:41

  Raffles, I enjoy the site as it is. I appreciate the clean layout, the ads are not over the top or in your face andI use the amazon ind IHG links whenever I buy from them, as I am only to glad to give a little something back for the information I have gathered here.
  Above all I value the content. The information is very useful and the overall lack of padding and ‘noise’ is refreshingly low. I also use Flyertalk, but often miss information there as I only check certain boards and the general chatter and often pettiness between egos there can make it difficult to find the useful stuff.
  Many thanks, keep up the good work and thank is also due to many of the other posters here who make it a genuinely helpful community.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.