Let me say at the outset, this is meant to be a light-hearted rather than a critical post.
A little insider info from the world of blogging. There are these things called embargoed news releases. Generally, these are earned after cultivating a relationship with a PR person at an airline or hotel: they are not just given out. These news releases detail upcoming announcements and/or promotions, giving the writer some time (sometimes hours, sometimes days) to prepare a story. But the rule is that the contents of the release cannot be publicized before the date and time specified.
Every blogger wants to receive these embargoed news releases, certainly myself included. It is a sign of trust and a “reward” for diligence. But sometimes you have to know when to say no.
Why didn’t I write about the rather attractive American Airlines – Hyatt promotion yesterday? It’s a great promotion. World of Hyatt members can earn unlimited bonuses of 1,000 American AAdvantage miles for any Hyatt Place or Hyatt House stay through June 30, 2018. Simply register with your American AAdvantage and World of Hyatt numbers before April 30, 2018. These are bonus points: you’ll still have the ability to earn either Hyatt points or AA points for your stay. Furthermore, you can stack this offer with Hyatt’s own 500 point bonus promotion. Earning an extra 1,500 points per stay is worth considering…
I didn’t write about it because the rest of the blogging world already did and I figured you didn’t need one more blog rehashing the same press release. Why would a dozen stories repeating the same news appear at exactly the same time? That’s often the power of an embargoed press release: they make us dutiful foot soldiers. We want more embargoed releases, we treat them as inherently special, and therefore many are willing to publish whatever an airline or hotel wants if it comes under “embargo”.
CONCLUSION
Hyatt loves bloggers and is quite liberal in handing out embargoed new releases. And while that is great as is the latest promotion, I’ve decided I’m not going to be one the lemmings enchanted by the word embargoed. Surely if you read my blog often you know I write about Hyatt enough already. Then again, you never know how many people the embargo was shared with. It’s all part of the game.
Oh liddel Mattew no feel special no more. Cry cry sob sob.
If you’re sending out embargoed press releases to as many people as it appears Hyatt does then it loses a core purpose of its use – giving a few select (more significant) writers/outlets the news ahead of the masses. Hyatts just trying to make bloggers feel special.
While Hyatt is big on sending embargoed releases over the most trivial items and sending them very broadly (I do not write about them all or at least don’t give them standalone posts) this one wasn’t sent embargoed, to me at least. It was blasted out a couple days after the promo started.
The picture is the Hyatt House in Scottsdale.
And MAtthew wrote about it by saying he wasn’t writing about it.