Significant Devaluation of Wyndham Points for Airline Transfers

A few weeks ago I wrote about an excellent way to use your Wyndham Reward points to earn the Southwest Airlines companion pass. At the time, I was able to transfer 336,000 Wyndham Reward points to Southwest at a rate of 8,000 Wyndham points = 2,400 Southwest points.

Unfortunately, as of yesterday, January 31, 2014, Wyndham devalued the transfer ratio for all airline partners. All partners now transfer of a rate of 6,000 Wyndham points = 1,200 airline miles/points. This gives a transfer rate of each Wyndham point equaling .2 miles. When I transferred my Southwest points earlier this year, each Wyndham point equaled .3 miles, so this is a significant decrease. Prior to this devaluation, many of the airlines actually had a transfer ratio of 8,000 Wyndham points = 3,200 airline miles, so this transfer ratio has actually slashed in half for those partner airlines. You can look at the current transfer ratio chart and partner airline here. 

While Wyndham gave NO NOTIFICATION of this devaluation, I am very glad I pulled the trigger a few weeks ago. If I waited I would have had to transfer over 500,000 Wyndham Reward points to end up with the same 100,000 Southwest points that I got! Unfortunately though, I still have about 160,000 points in my husbands account. While I was debating transferring them to airline miles vs. using them at a Wyndham hotel, I will now definitely be using them at a Wyndham hotel stay.

While I understand programs devalue over time, I am never pleased when the loyalty program gives no prior notice. Wyndham has done this in the past with their hotel categories, so it is a program I absolutely would not hoard miles.

I guess I should start looking into some Wyndham hotels for a future vacation! Any good ones that you’d recommend?!

Thanks to Mommy Points for pointing out this horrible devaluation!