Start Rant.
Yesterday seemingly every blogger except yours truly posted about Hyatt Points & Cash awards being available online along with other features such as the ability to upgrade to club rooms using points online. That’s lovely and all (and actually quite useful for many people) but if you took the time to read through all 5,683 posts on this yesterday you could quickly figure out the good bloggers from the bad. How could you determine that? All by looking at their affiliate links or lack thereof in these posts.
Personally, I don’t believe any credit card links needed to be included in a post about Points & Cash award being available online but let’s say I’m wrong and you had to have one or two links because some bloggers are allergic to posts without credit card links (cough MileValue). One would think that breaking news involving Hyatt maybe warrants the inclusion of I don’t know the HYATT CREDIT CARD?!?! You know the one that offers 2 free nights at any Hyatt, a $50 statement credit and 5,000 points for adding an authorized user? That’s a pretty solid offer right there that you never hear about from all these “expert” bloggers.
This drove the blogosphere crazy yesterday
Instead my eyes were repeatedly slammed with Sapphire & Ink links in most of these posts. Yes, I understand that Chase Ultimate Rewards points transfer to Hyatt and you are presenting your readers with an option to earn Hyatt points via those cards. Fine I don’t love the way you’re doing it but I get it. But please explain why it is so difficult to add in a link to the Hyatt card as well? Oh wait you didn’t include it because it doesn’t pay you anything? Ah that makes more sense but for the sake of your readers you couldn’t just included it in your post along with your Sapphire and Ink links? Is it too much to gamble that a reader might choose to apply for a card that *gasps* don’t make you any money? I mean look I just included a link to it here – that wasn’t hard, it doesn’t pay me a dime and look I survived!
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again – before you go trusting all these bloggers and signing up for cards left or right from their links think about how they handle themselves on topics like this. Did they at least mention the Hyatt card in their post ? Or did they say screw the logical insertion of the arguably the most applicable credit card for the post (if one was even warranted) and instead just took it as another opportunity to blast their Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase Ink links? It’s almost like they care more about padding their wallets than helping their readers….
And don’t get me started on bloggers finally getting their links for the Citi AA 50k offers and claiming the offer just returned. Newsflash the 50k offer never went away if you knew where to look!
End Rant.
Good Day.
PointsCentric 
Hi Ralph, let me disagree slightly. I didn’t include any credit card links in my posts about Hyatt’s cash and points awards going online or about renewing ‘Guest of Honor’ benefits for Diamonds. I didn’t include Sapphire Preferred, yadda yadda. But I actually think Chase Ultimate Rewards are more appropriate to talk about than the Hyatt credit card. That’s because you can transfer Chase points to Hyatt to redeem cash and points. Or to redeem an award for someone else and gift them Diamond benefits for the stay if you’re a Diamond member. But the free nights that come with a Chase credit card cannot in any way be used in conjunction with cash and points, and the nights are not officially giftable [I do, however, in my own post talk about reserving a room in your own name and adding another guest’s name to the reservation… not relevant to guest of honor, but a Diamond could get their gift recipient of those nights their Diamond benefits in that way].
Anyway, just a different perspective on whether or not Ultimate Rewards vs the Hyatt card is most relevant.
Cheers,
Gary
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Fair enough and as my post mentions, I do understand why Sapphire/Ink links are included in these posts. I just believe there is no harm in also mentioning the Hyatt card as well. I think we could both agree that certain bloggers would have included the link if it paid. That’s the problem I have.
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I have a Hyatt Visa. I never even use it at domestic Hyatts because (and this goes away end of year) Amex OPEN cards are better for domestic full service properties with their 5% rebates on top of points earned. I’ve liked the SPG Business Amex for domestic Hyatt stays myself.
Hyatt Visa is a good card, but not one of the best.
You agree that Ultimate Rewards are relevant to the discussion. I don’t think free nights from a credit card are actually relevant to a discussion of cash and points or Guest of Honor (you can’t use the free nights for either).
So I don’t think anyone fails as a blogger by not including those links. In fact, if the card was offering any kind of referral credit it would be reasonable to criticize anyone that DID include the card as it’s non-germaine to the topic. Darned if you don’t, darned if you do.
I didn’t include any credit cards in my discussion of these new benefits yesterday, and I don’t doubt it was a vehicle for some to do so even gratuitously. But I’m still not sure the “included this one/not that one” hits the mark in this case.
Best,
Gary
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Gary,
I understand your argument and I actually find it refreshing that your post didn’t have any links in them as I don’t believe it was truly necessary to have any. I’m trying to express that some bloggers yesterday only used the news as a way to sell certain, commission paying cards and you seem to agree with that.
However what about those that either already have the family of Chase UR cards and/or would violate Chase’s 5/24 rule (which isn’t an insignificant population)? For a frequent Hyatt guest who wants to earn the maximum Hyatt points per stay, the Hyatt Visa is a solid card to use with its 3x earnings. Sure we can debate 3 Hyatt points vs 2 Chase UR points (and I would admittedly choose 2 Chase UR points) but if someone’s goal was to earn the most Hyatt points over time so they could then book points & cash stays, the Hyatt Visa has to at least be considered an option as outside of the Chase UR cards, there are not many other ways to rack up Hyatt points.
I think if bloggers chose to include links on their posts having a Hyatt card link presented a more complete picture of all options. I could be wrong and it seems you disagree here but I do believe many of them eschewed the link not because of the free nights angle but rather it didn’t pay anything.
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HA HA – Awesome post ! Keep them coming !
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Kudos! 🙂
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Right on!
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I haven’t written a post on it because I don’t think it’s a huge development as far as my target audience is concerned. Will probably mention it in a round-up or something.
Anyway, I do agree with you. I think it’s relevant to mention UR program as well as UR-earning cards. That said, why not mention Hyatt card as well? It gets 2 points on travel and restaurants. I don’t know which blogs you refer to, so I’m not criticizing anyone in particular. But yes, this is valid criticism.
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[…] There Was a Ton of Bad Blogging Yesterday […]
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Always a good read Ralph, appreciate the honesty
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[…] rant was inspired by Point Centric post on what bad blogging is and how to identify it. I debated on whether to make a commentary, but feel this is a good chance to re-state my message […]
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I’m actually thinking about applying for the card and one of the things that stands out as a limitation on the native Hyatt offer is the stay requirement for getting the offer. Are these being actively enforced by Chase in practice? Seems like that would be a big difference in what card to recommend although I understand your larger point.
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One thing that might be a limitation on the native Hyatt offer is the stay requirement for getting the offer. Are these being actively enforced by Chase in practice? Seems like that would be a big difference in what card to recommend although I understand your larger point.
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