Duke787

No H/T to Travel & Leisure or CNTraveler websites either. The new mini logo that shows up in my Chrome tab looks hideous too.

eeflyer

Wow, what a mess. At least before, there was some sort of flow. Now this reminds me of the bulletin board in the break room

JetAway

Brian's individual identity has been totally lost and it no longer looks like a blog. Instead, it's a totally impersonal, corporate, commercial website. And it's unreadable to boot. Hurts my eyes to look at it.

josephstern

It's kinda funny how corporations strip away the look and feel that was their initial point for the acquisition.

iadisgreat

Apparently one mildly critical tweet of the the points guy gets you the block. With nary a reply from his corporate overlord when you ask them if they have such a policy.

Astrophsx

Can someone explain why Brian Kelly hasn't moved on from this website? I have a feeling (and correct me if you feel I'm wrong here) a lot of it has to deal with the notoriety he gets from being "The Points Guy". You'd think if he was talented and wasn't at the right place at the right time he'd start a new business venture?

Though, the notoriety is more of an amplified version of those real estate agents that has ads on the side of a bus and benches. Ben has the notoriety of flying first class all the time and living out a hotel room. Brian seems like the type that might think it is demeaning if people thought he had to use points to travel. I wonder how much those appearances on CNBC and what not pay.

Adam1222

He probably sold the IP rights to the term "The Points Guy." I don't think he has much marketable skills other than the crowded luxury travel market.

As for the website, it looks like a blatant ripoff from USA Today's website. I wonder how Gannett feels. It seems an intentional attempt to make people believe its a journalistic entity as opposed to a commercial one.

josephstern

Why would he move on? I assume he's basically retired at this point.

Astrophsx

I would assume due to the circle of people he surrounds himself with.

Raffles

People do like this sort of stuff, remember. It is fun. I started my site as a retirement project and spend about 50 hours a week on it (plus I have an employee) and - after 16 years in private equity before that - I have absolutely no need to bother. But it's enjoyable.

paramount

I started to understand and read about FF miles/points on the points guy. I regularly logged on to see what new posts he had and some adventures he posted. Now unfortunately, I have spent 6+ months wading through "5 ways to enjoy this", "6 reasons to get the chase card" etc. Its been terrible and I wish it hadn't ever changed from a one man deal.

I hope he gets away from the current terrible site, starts over with a simple blog and lets us enjoy his words again.

84fiero

That's never going to happen, as the site was sold to Bankrate.com a couple (few?) years ago. While Brian has still been doing videos and some posts and had I believe retained some degree of editorial control - the details of the business arrangement aren't publicly disclosed (this has been discussed in this thread). But the "Points Guy" now is more like a Betty Crocker, Ronald McDonald or Col Sanders than a one-man effort.

In fact IIRC Brian had a small staff fairly early on for that matter. Very early on the site was useful in some ways but like many others, went off the rails for me. Someone mentioned upthread having read that Brian said in an interview he always intended it to be grown into something that could be sold and didn't do it as a labor of love. Which sounds about right based on how the site has progressed.

The recent site revamp with its changes in focus seem to suggest that Brian's role may be even less going forward as the owners try to make it broader in scope - though it's even less appealing to me.

SanDiego1K

Brian is very active on snapchat. If you want to follow him as he travels, that's where to do so. He will occasionally talk about the points and miles he used to get to his destination.

diburning

Has anyone here ever read the comments on TPG's facebook posts? His commenting readers all appear to be "unwashed masses" (for lack of a better term) who like to read and share his articles, but don't actually know the first thing about (FT/TPG/etc style) travel or points planning.

I guess that's his target audience now. This is further reinforced by the fact that they publish "reader stories" (which I am convinced are made up as an excuse to shill credit cards with benefits to negate some of the really awful amateur mistakes and lack of planning) where they describe mistakes that I'd assume that no one who has ever set foot on a plane would ever make.

Raffles

What do you expect though? He gets 3m unique visitors per month - how big do you think the active FF base is?

The issue - and this is the issue for all of us in this space - is whether the 'noise' from the 'unwashed masses' justifies the revenue they bring in.

I decided a long time ago that, in the UK, it doesn't, mainly because fuel surcharges make redemptions pointless unless you have Ł500 per person to pay the taxes, and because credit cards require far higher income levels and credit history here.