A little less than two months ago, Wyndham announced a massive change to their current award structure. To back peddle a little… as of today, all Wyndham properties cost a fixed 15,000 points per night — it does not matter the price or quality of the property. A Days Inn in the middle of no where costs the same as an all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean. As long as the room you are booking is a 1 bedroom, even a 1 bedroom deluxe suite, it is 15k points across the board. Two bedroom hotel rooms costs 30k points. While this has been a great program for those looking to fully maximize their hotel stays, especially since you could purchase Wyndham points for pretty cheap, all of that is about to change… tonight!
With the recent announcement, they are introducing a three tier award structure starting tomorrow, April 3rd.Â
- Tier 1: 7,500 points for a free night
- Tier 2: 15,000 points for a free night
- Tier 3: 30,000 points for a free night
Impacted Properties
Unfortunately Wyndham chose not to tell their members in advance which properties will be tied to which Tier, but they did tell us about 200 of their properties are moving up to that Tier 3 level. Out of 5,000+ properties in the Wyndham Rewards group, this is an extremely small sampling, although I speculate it will be the better more full service properties moving up. Some of the more popular properties that I expect to cost more points include: Wyndham Grand Clearwater, Wyndham Santa Monica Pier, Wyndham Boston Beacon Hill, Wyndham Canterbury at San Francisco, The Mills House Wyndham Grand Hotel, Wyndham Bonnet Creek Resort, Wyndham Newport Hotel, Wyndham Grand Rio Mar Puerto Rico Golf & Beach Resort, Wyndham Reef Resort Grand Cayman, all of their all-inclusive properties in the Caribbean, and all of their their properties in Hawaii. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see some of the lower Wyndham brands in expensive cities moving up, such as those in New York City, San Francisco, London, Paris, etc.
This means if you are looking to redeem your Wyndham Rewards point at a property that most likely falls within the “200 properties moving up” bucket, you’ll want to make your reservation now! And do wait until the 11th hour. On the Wyndham website there is currently a warning stating that the site will be down starting this evening.
I personally have cashed in all of my Wyndham points for stays multiple vacations throughout the next year. Right now I have reservations in Newport, Rhode Island; Park City, Utah; and Puerto Rico. All three properties were unbelievable redemptions as the regular rates were at least $400+ a night, since they stay is during peak dates. While I am not 100% certain all three of these vacations will actually stick with my 2019/2020 travel plans, I am glad I have some places locked down using my points. And hopefully these vacations do in fact happen!
Wyndham Homes and Condos
Fortunately, I do not believe the partnership with redeeming your points at partner homes and condos will be impacted. There are tens of thousands of places across the world where you can redeem your points for the same 15k points a night per bedroom — this includes slope side at some of the mountains out West, castles throughout Europe, beach side condos in Florida, etc. In speaking to my Wyndham contact, he informed me that those redemptions will most likely not change, so I am really keeping my fingers crossed that is a true fact. There are definitely some great opportunities with this partnership and at just 15k points a night, it is definitely a steal.
Overall…
I am definitely interested to see which properties fall into the three Tiers come tomorrow. Not only will there be a new award chart, tomorrow is the day for some additional changes throughout the program — the full integration with LaQuinta properties, new earning and redemption partnerships, a Wyndham Rewards shopping portal, and bonus points earned on revenue stays for all members with status.
Ultimately, I wish they were not making changes to the award structure as the 15,000 point redemption worked well for my families needs, but I do know that many will benefit moving forward with a lower 7,500 points redemption many of their properties. For now, I highly suggest you go ahead and make those award reservations with your Wyndham Reward points so you do not miss out!
Where did you redeem your Wyndham Reward points?
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Thank you so much for this reminder post!! You just made my wife and I go to Playa del Carmen in Oct for a couple of nights of all inclusive bliss!! Very thankful for your blog!
Thank you so much for this reminder post. Now thanks to you my wife and I have a couple of days of all inclusive bliss in Playa del Carmen in October. Very grateful for your blog! I would have totally forgotten about it.
I booked 4 nights @ the Aztecca in Plya del Carmen over a 10 night Thanksgiving stay. The other 6 nights are @ the Grand Hyatt. I’ve used 15K @ Caesars, Bally’s & Harrah’s in Atlantic City on Saturday nights when cash price is $500+ but all those properties have not had availability on Saturday’s over the last year. They just blacked out every Saturday so now I stay @ Ocean Resort using Hyatt points. Ocean is much nicer than the CET properties and having Globalist gives us an awesome free breakfast. I’ve stayed in the Poconos, renting 3 condos for family get together on 15K points which was a good value. Also stayed @ the Bonnet Creek condos for 15K which was an excellent value. Some of the Dolce hotels were good since Diamond get’s a suite. Overall I like the condo stays best. We have about 300K points and will burn on different condos as long as they remain 15K for one BR. I’m disappointed because I was planning on going to the new Barbados hotel in 2020, but I’m sure it will be 30K per night now. Might still go for for 5 nights and another 5 @ the Hilton.
Thank you so much for informing about the Wyndham Hotels change implementation! I personally love the change and will book asap!