farbster

Why is it that many bloggers go to the PH but not to the W? Both are in the Maldives.

Is it just the easy availability of Hyatt and UR points? Bloggers love their SPG card but are they only using those points for airline transfers?

Is the PH a really great hotel when you are going for free, but compared to the other super luxurious options in the Maldives is it a dreck joint? Would anyone pay the rates the PH wants if they couldn't hack it in some fashion?

skunker

I believe most bloggers have a relationship with Chase Hyatt CC.

Astrophsx

Correct me if I am wrong it is 90,000 SPG points vs 30,000 Hyatt points.

There are many flavors of Chase cards that transfer to Hyatt and with Ink flavor cards earning 5x at particular stores. You can also sign up for Hyatt cards every two years to get the free nights or sign up bonus.

farbster

I had not considered the difference between 90k and 30k. That becomes somewhat obvious then, even with a "relationship" with Chase.

I've done a very cursory check of rates vs one of the 4S and also O&O and the PH is much less. And that's not even hacking it in any fashion.

sbm12

I bet you're wrong.

skunker

I said I believe. You may not, but Lucky specifically mentioned that one of the reasons he was going was due to the 20% off points stays....that you get with the Chase Hyatt CC.

From MommyPoints:
From VFTW:
All three are now pushing the Chase Sapphire Preferred and points transfers to Hyatt GP.

sfoactuary

I think you have the answer right there. 90,000 SPG points per night is just obscene.

Doctor of Credit

Chase Hyatt has no affiliate links, which is what I imagine Seth is alluding to. Personally neither of these properties excite me, but I don't like luxury travel.

farbster

And there is also a Conrad in the Maldives...

Perhaps it is just a matter of easy to earn points...

A recent TR recently called out the Hyatt as a dump. I'm sure it's not a dump, but when you go for free, your perspective is a bit different I think.

sbm12

How are you defining "most bloggers" and what a "relationship" means?

Most bloggers have no Chase CC relationships and the Hyatt card does not have any affiliate links AFAIK. If you cherry pick a couple folks/posts you can "prove" anything you want. But that's not necessarily reality.

Raffles

Is it really 90k SPG?! So you are giving up 110,000 airline miles per night?! Even when I was sitting on over 1m SPG last year I would not have done this.

Ironically, despite devaluation, I have come around to thinking that the Conrad is a decent deal. May even take the family down there in the next 18 months. 76,000 Hilton per night with the elite discount is still a decent return on the cash cost of $1,500 per night inc tax.

Those Hilton points are easily picked up via Amex transfers if necessary (38,000 Amex = 76k Hilton via the UK scheme). Even Tesco to Virgin (during a 30 per cent transfer bonus) to Hilton makes some sense given the cash cost of the Conrad. You are trading £155 of supermarket vouchers for a £1,000 room.

sbm12

Getting 1.9cpp from HH is a spectacular value.

skunker

You sure about that?
Chase Sapphire Preferred and Chase Miles Plus Explorer are all over Boarding Area. Just look at the wiki of this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/exter...rd-offers.html

And the Hyatt card may not have affiliate links now but when it came out, everyone and their mother was pushing it.

lwildernorva

Chase is smart. Why would they need affiliate links for the small-fry bloggers? They know that if they hit a couple of the leading bloggers, the rest will follow. FTG, The Points Guy, OMaaT, GTL have large and loyal followings, and I suspect that those four blogs (maybe along with MMS) get the vast majority of income off affiliate links. A lot of the other blogs will end up giving free publicity to Chase and other cards as a result of a "me-too" philosophy.

Think about it for a moment. What's the received wisdom on the best hotel chains? SPG and Hyatt. Marriott, IHG, Hilton all get clobbered, just as DL and Southwest do for flights. Just as some at FT like to accuse the leading bloggers of just lifting stuff off FT (maybe true some, not true to the extent alleged), the smaller bloggers are likely to parrot the received wisdom.

Thus, Chase and other travel companies that want to advertise are smart enough to figure out which blogs they need to seed. The rest, with some exceptions, such as sbm12, will follow.

As a consumer of Seth's work, I think he writes about what he wants to--and he mostly doesn't find credit card stuff interesting enough to write about. Because he has an interesting, inquiring mind, a lot of what he wants to write about is interesting to lots of folks. On the other hand, a lot of other blogs, written by folks who jumped into the pool long after the initial pioneers, write about credit cards because that's what the leading blogs are writing about--in other words, they really don't bring an interesting, unique perspective to the work. And the leading blogs are writing about credit cards because the banks make it well worth their while to do so.

The irony is that I suspect, for a significant subset of readers, sbm12's opinion about the best credit cards would carry a lot of weight--mostly because his blog is almost totally not about such things and because, even if you don't always agree with his analysis, he brings some form of independent analysis to his work. For similar reasons, I think Ric at Loyalty Traveler has a good following, though not as big as the most popular blogs, because he doesn't ignore the outlying hotel programs, like Choice, Best Western, and Wyndham.

Kagehitokiri

if youre going to redeem 100K starpoints a night, at least stay at w maldives over XMAS/NYE/easter

there are other (non starwood) hotel options via starwood/credit card at that kind of award price