Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Welcome to the new-look Head for Points

Links on Head for Points may pay us an affiliate commission. A list of partners is here.

OK, we’re back after a couple of hours of downtime.

Things look a little different as you can tell ……

After eight years of using a layout which was, to be honest, already dated when we started using it in 2012, we have pulled the site into the 21st century.

I know that our core readers didn’t really care how we looked but the old theme was starting to take its toll.  HfP should hit 20 million page views this year (we are around the 450th biggest UK website) with a further 9 million articles read via email.  However, the old look was starting to impact our ability to attract new readers and secure large advertising contracts.  We hope you like what we’ve done.

I don’t want to say any more at this point because my prime consideration today is making sure that everything is working as expected.

If you see a technical issue – a broken link, a formatting issue, something which simply looks wrong on your device – then please tell us. Do NOT comment in this thread.  There is a separate ‘noise free’ thread for technical issues which is here.  Post your problem and we’ll get onto it.

If it’s a formatting issue, please say what device you are using.  We expect some issues with some mobile devices.

If you simply want to say that you like or hate the new look, then feel free to say that in this thread!  If you have any requests for new features we could add in the medium term, please also put your ideas in this thread.  The other one is exclusively for short-term problems requiring a quick fix.

You will see some minor differences around the site in terms of menus and layout.  However, there are no fundamental changes and all of the old content remains.  There are no changes to the usual ‘three articles, all posted by 6am’ scheduling.

Tomorrow I will run an article explaining exactly what has changed in terms of site functionality.

In a couple of days I’ll write a longer piece on what we’ve done, why we did it, who did it and what we learnt whilst doing it.  Given that we started approaching design agencies back in November, it has been a long process.

Thank you for your continued support, especially in the current climate.  Our revenue may be down but our page views have been consistently higher than the same period in 2019 which keeps us motivated.

Rob

PS.  If you made a comment on the ‘old’ site this morning then you might find it has disappeared.  Apologies.  Please feel free to post it again.

Comments (207)

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

  • Chris L says:

    I like the new https://hfp2022.headforpoints.blog/flight-reviews/ page. It would be cool if you could filter this list of reviews rather that have to scroll to find one you’re interested in. For instance, you could let visitors filter by airline, alliance, aircraft type etc so users could easily get to an article which is relevant to them

  • barnaby100 says:

    Very white- not so good for those with older eyes/dyslexia.
    Nothing to suggest airlines or travel any more with the loss of logos.

    Why is the new logo 2 house roofs? Are you changing the site to me more like moneysaving expert- generic?

    Oh and the nutmeg logo in the top right hand corner is larger and more prominent than the headforpoints logo on the left- so it looks like the site is nutmeg.

    • Rob says:

      We had a LOT of discussion over logo size. I was the one who insisted it was small. If you make it bigger, you create a lot of extra white space at the top.

      The space where we have (for free) put a Nutmeg plug will hopefully become very attractive real estate 🙂

      • barnaby100 says:

        Are they a house roof? It is causing some debate in our household (furlough and waiting to go to the pub to help out by downing a few pints and a burger.) Suggestions are roof, folded paper and side of a building? Who wins? (there is a pint of gamma ray on this)

        • Dubious says:

          Looks like a pointy roof of a museum not dissimilar to the Guggenheim in Bilbao. May need to head there to see the points.

        • Dubious says:

          Is there a way to jump to the article categorizes? Used to be in the right hand side pane but can’t find it even in the drop down menu.

          Using iOS Apple mobile

          Oh and I don’t think my name and email address were saved after my last comment despite clicking the ‘save…’ button.

          • Dubious says:

            Strange. I thought I created a new comment but it replied to an earlier one.

            Also name / email definitely not sticking.

            I find the email box a bit short – I can’t see if I have entered the email correctly or with a typo.

            iOS.

          • Rhys says:

            The option is still there in the sidebar – now a drop down.

          • Rob says:

            Not there on mobile. Was it there before?!

          • BJ says:

            +1, name and email nit being saved on my android ether. Galaxy tab S5e running latest android, currently on desktop view.

      • BJ says:

        I was going to add a comment later that I find the
        picture/logo that you use for this and the ‘noise’ article both eye-catching and pleasing. I think you should consider making mire use of it.

    • RussellH says:

      Also an older reader, but the white does not really bother me.
      That said, I would prefer a pale yellow [I was never that keen on the old blue, I now realise!]

    • Simon A says:

      If you struggle with white background/black text, you can get a browser extension for Chrome called ‘Dark Mode’ that will flip it. I have HFP with a dark grey background and white text 😀

  • Ian says:

    Nice layout, and I like the consistency between your own “ads” (Amex, Nutmeg, Virgin cards) and Google ads. Thought a dark theme might be more contemporary though, rather than this one with so much bright white. Overall, an improvement, but you can probably expect a call from Facebook’s lawyers over the selection of font for the ‘f’ in the HfP logo.

    • ChrisBCN says:

      The ‘f’ was my first thought… White on blue, very similar font, looks like facebook (which is a bad thing!). And the H looks like a side on pinocchio with a sneering nose!

      Logo aside, it does look fresher and more modern.

  • OT says:

    Looks much cleaner with all the white space.

  • Alex says:

    I agree the update is nice, it has needed one. I also agree with some others that it’s far too white! After reading a page or two on my IPhone my eyes felt tired, even just an off white tone would be easier on the eye. I also miss the banner, something to show it’s more aviation and hotel focused that generic

  • stevenhp1987 says:

    It’s very… bright! Can we have an optional dark mode because it sort of hurts my eyes :/

  • RussellH says:

    “Save my name, email and website in this browser for the next time I comment” no longer works, even though this is one of the few sites I use where cookies are allowed.

  • ChrisBCN says:

    There is a lot more scrolling needed now (pixel 3a, Firefox), with less content above the fold. And there’s only a handful of comments on each page of comments now, could easily have double the amount (I do appreciate the comments page numbers though).

    • ChrisBCN says:

      Also it’s quite hard to tell what comments page I am on, the small underline under the page number doesn’t do the job

    • Rob says:

      Nothing … has … changed … re … comment … pagination 🙂

      This article looks different because it paginates by TOP LEVEL comment and everyone is leaving top level comments.

      • ChrisBCN says:

        Translation… There are the same number of top level comments per page as there were before? Are you really sure?

      • ChrisBCN says:

        For example, this page has only 8 top level comments, with 11 replies. That’s it. (Still Pixel 3a, Firefox)

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.