coleslaw

Pretty much the same as the point I've made in my previous posts.

Points aren't going to encourage most people to make a trip they otherwise wouldn't. They're also not going to make people spend more of their own (hard earned) money to stay at a property that would earn points if there is a cheaper property available. Points promos also aren't going to get make someone who has lots of money more likely to spend it at a points earning property if there is a better property available.

Using loyalty based promotions is a much more targeted way to attract more business - and the target audience isn't mass market 1-2 trip a year type of people where price is a major constraint, or at the other end of the spectrum, people where price isn't a constraint at all.

UA-NYC

What do I know, I'm just another podunk high upper-middle class working schlub who apparently has a less productive understanding of money and relationships

Beckles

Guess not.

For someone who has been commenting on others' manners in this thread, calling someone else's speculation 'laughable' seems kind of rude, not sure what makes their speculation laughable compared to your speculation.

Based on the frequency of folks I see paying for breakfast in full-service Hyatts with a credit card or cash, I don't buy your estimate of 90%-95% for one second. Heck, I've seen too many people sitting at my own table who are paying for their own breakfasts. Beside that, if the glut of Globalists you believe exists, why wouldn't a hotel like the Machester GH you mention have opened its lounge back up for those Globalists? Instead the management of that hotel thinks its better to comp Globalists full breakfast, and they even go above and beyond and comp a daily credit for the evening too. Seems like opening the lounge to feed the (alleged) glut of Globalists would be a more cost effective option, unless that (alleged) glut of Globalists doesn't actually exist.

I think FT'ers have a tendency to think that FT and travel blogs have a bigger influence than they do, because it's so important to us, we find it hard to believe it's not important to anyone else who travels and has knowledge of the frequent traveler world. I have a neighbor who travels a fair bit for work (not so much anymore) and with his family, he's a Hilton Diamond and proud of it, so he knows the game, we have talked about it many times the past few years. When I tried to tell him about the Hyatt deals at the beginning of 2021 his eyes glossed over quickly, I know he could have benefitted from it, he could have done 15 nights at our nearby airport Hyatt Place, he has the money to do it, but he had zero interest. Flyertalkers find it difficult to believe that the concept of spending $1,000 cash money to do a mattress run that will get Globalist benefits for two full years just is not appealing to most people, even if we know they would easily receive multiples of that value doing it, it's not easy to convince them of that value in points, perks, free nights, and upgrades.

notquiteaff

Heck, even I (former many-year Diamond) don’t feel like gambling $1000 on mattress runs (more tricky for me than many since the nearest HP is 140 miles away). I have no idea where my travels will take me next year, let alone 2023. No idea if I will be somewhere where a Hyatt will be a convenient hotel to stay at. And I don’t particularly value suites, so I’d have to make up the $1000 in breakfasts, lounge food/drinks and bonus points. Seems like a difficult value proposition to me.

But yeah, your overall point is very true. I don’t think many people in the real world pay attention to promos.

WasKnown

Ok so what does that have to do with point promos lol

WasKnown

Great post. I have noticed the same thing. Even some of my friends that actually earn elite status don’t care to think about it. My friend never registers for promos, does a ton of stays, and it legitimately pains me lol. Clearly the breakage there is intentional.

HHonors OUTSIDER

I like you flyertalk username did you join on May 24 2004? Hopefully Hyatt announces something by 01.11.2021

Matt4200

I feel like FT, OMAAT, DOC even Forbes and others have made promos for Hyatt not only very relevant, but prevalent.

I definitely feel like a significant amount of people started to pay more attention after the Forbes article last year. So it’s clear things are changing and these things are becoming much more commonplace than before. Especially when Hyatt runs 5 promos concurrently as they did in Q4 last year.

js1993

People started caring more about loyalty programs in the middle of a pandemic that resulted in single-digit occupancy percentages for half the year than they did in the pre-March 2020 boom times?

Beckles

I think you are over-estimating the reach and impact of Forbes Advisor. As for OMAAT and DOC and the like, they'll shill any promotion and then tack on the usual advertisements and promotions for credit cards. Here's OMAAT's recent post about 1,000 AA miles for each stay at select hotels that says it's an 'awesome promotion'. I mean come on, 'awesome'? It's nice, if you happen to be staying at the select hotels participating on short stays, other ways, it's pretty meh as far as promotions go. Blogs will hype any promotion, it's not an indicator of how successful it is, and every promotion is 'prevalent' if that's how you're measuring prevalence, but it in no way indicates how widely used a promotion is.

notquiteaff

Agree on Forbes and OMAAT etc. but DoC is a bit different of a blog in that they don’t sell credit cards. They report on credit cards, but I don’t think they have any affiliate credit card links and thus generally don’t spend all day desperately trying to come up with an angle where every story somehow can mention the awesome benefits of a card.

WasKnown

A bit off topic but DoC is great. FrequentMiler is a more travel oriented blog that, like DoC and unlike OMAAT, does not shill credit cards or travel advisors in every post.

FM also has a great segment in their podcast where they evaluate promos called “mattress running the numbers”. It is awesome for people that like to think of things more analytically but also definitely very niche. Anecdotally, I can’t imagine any of my friends reading or taking these blogs seriously.

Beckles

Maybe they don't rely on affiliate credit card links to the extent some sites do, but when I just now went to their site, just to refresh my memory because it's not one I visit often, there was a banner at the top and bottom of my screen for a Wells Fargo credit card. I opened up a new browser and went incognito just to be fair and see if it was just dumb luck, and I got different non-credit card advertisements when I did that, even after a couple of refreshes (ads for QuickBooks and Square Space), so it doesn't appear they rely solely on credit card banner ads. Plenty of ads on that site, like Forbes Advisor, they're building content to generate ad impressions and clicks, which I'm not knocking, but just saying, the fact they write about 'something' doesn't lend that 'something' a lot of gravitas in my opinion, but maybe I'm too cynical in my old age.

Matt4200

I’m not saying that some blogs won’t hype them up. My point is the information getting out there and being more noticed,

If you add up all the readers of all the different blogs and travel sites that mention Hyatt promos it’d easily be in the hundreds of thousands.

I would estimate the Q4 2020 promo was Hyatt’s most widely used promotion ever,. Not only because it was discussed pretty much everywhere, but also because it literally covered all the bases for all stay types as well.

WasKnown

DoC is a pretty honest blog. Like all businesses, they need to make money so they will run ads. No hate for them trying to make money. There is a nuance though. Unlike some blogs (ie TPG), they will not allow their need to generate revenue conflict with the best interests of their readers. DoC and FM will promote the best offer for credit cards (like the Chase Sapphire Preferred in branch offer or the Amex Platinum Resy offer) whereas blogs like TPG and OMAAT will shill referral links. I don’t think that makes TPG and OMAAT necessarily bad but it definitely makes DoC and FM very good IMO.

In the context of promos, I’m not sure that it matters other than shill blogs telling you to sign up for the WoH credit card in posts promoting the promo. Regardless, the blogs are definitely very niche.