About a month ago I posted on the 16,000 point promotion with Wyndham Rewards. There was definitely some skepticism here since it was unclear if this promotion was targeted or not and if the points will actually post. In the terms of the promotion it stated that only the person who received the email would qualify for this promotion. I still do not know if others who did not receive the email will receive the 16,000 points (if you are one who took the chance, please share with your experience!).
To quickly recap the promotion: Stay at one of the 20 participating hotels and receive 16,000 points after your first stay (up to three stays) through October 6th.
My experience: I had two stays at the Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham Chicago-Schaumburg and one stay at the Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham Hartford Meriden (which actually is a decent highway hotel near Hartford). Since they were both Hawthorn hotels I changed my earning preference to miles so I could earn a flat 600 Rapid Reward points instead of the 5 points per dollar spent. For most other airlines you earn 500 points/miles per stay. These stays also took place during the 4x points/miles per stay offer starting with my 2nd stay (which has expired), so I earned a total 5,400 Southwest points as my base points earned. I will then earn an additional 16,000 Wyndham bonus points per stay (per the terms of the promotion) for a total of 48,000 Wyndham points. These Wyndham points can then be transferred directly my Southwest account giving me 14,400 Southwest Rapid Reward points, for a grand total 19,800 points! Since Southwest has a fixed redemption award chart, 19,800 points is equivalent to $330 towards future Southwest travel. The amount I spent out of pocket was $184.75. For me this is $145 of free travel money (although there is an opportunity cost there as I won’t be earning miles while redeeming, but that is fine by me!).
Instead of Southwest points, I could have selected another airline instead, i.e., American. In this case I would have received 500 points as my base points earned (and then 4x miles on my 2nd and 3rd stay) and then the 48,000 Wyndham points would transfer over as 19,200 miles for a total of 23,700 miles. That is like buying points for .61 cents/mile which is great!
Additionally, you can use those 16,000 Wyndham points for hotel stays as well. A night at the Ramada in NYC will cost you about $300 (which is ridiculous, but true!) or you can use your 16,000 points! Not a bad ROI to spend $50-$60 on bonus points when you can then redeem for a night in NYC!
Now, my 16,000 points have not actually posted, so I am still park of the skepticism group, however, the stay credited to my Mom’s account actually did post! I posted a screen shot of her account below, but she checked out on 9/8 and the points posted within the past few days. It looks like they backdated the bonus points as well because up until a few days ago there were no bonus points credited to her account. Now since my Mom reads this blog, I have to quickly explain. I used your account for a promotion, you were not actually in Chicago, you are not losing it!
So there is proof for you all that the points really do post! Although, since mine have yet to post I have a feeling I will be making a phone call in the next few weeks. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt though and allow the 6-8 window to pass before inquiring.
To get the full synopsis of this promotion make sure to check out my prior post.
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mine have all 3 fully posted
@Tim – That’s great! And did you receive the email?
All of my stays posted as non-eligible rates (i.e. 0 points), so I’m wondering what happened there…
@Michael A – Where you charged for the stay?
my 16K points posted. 🙂
My 2 stays posted the bonus points a few days ago (Schaumburg as well), I was charged at the time of the stay (though was a complete no-show. didn’t call or contact them in any way beforehand), and I did book the rooms through the original email.
@deals, yup, and the rate was “Book Now, Save 15 Pct.” for 56 USD a night.
@Michael – id call the hotel and ask for them to manually post the points.
I want in on this one but I am torn……
All 3 of my stays posted. I did have 2 no-shows that posted as 0 points. I called the Wyndham rewards # and they posted the stays as qualifying. I expected to have to fight for the 16,000 points, but all three stays posted for a total of 48,000 points.
@Katherine – that’s great!
So is it confirmed that you need to actually receive the email and click through it to book in order to receive the 16k and show up at the hotel?
@Maury – that has not yet been confirmed. I haven’t heard any positive or negative reports of people who did not receive the email, so I am not sure.
I received the email and my points just posted. I stayed at the Hoffman Estates Hawthorn Suites. It was cheap and convenient to an early morning meeting I had.
I booked at the Hoffman Estates Hawthorn Suites. I have done 2 no shows so far and my credit card did get charge. On the first no show stay, it posted as non-eligible rates . I had to call Wyndham Rewards to have them change it. The second booking, I called Hoffman Estates to let them know what I was doing. Talked to a gal named Christine and she was willing to work with me so I can get the points for the no show. It’s something to do with the computer system with Hoffman and Wyndham that post the stay as non-eligible. You’ll have to call Wyndham Rewards if it doesn’t post correctly after the no show in order to get the credit. I’ve booked my 3rd no-show stay and have called Christine at the hotel to have her make a note of the stay and still charge the card. She was very helpful and appreciate for the business.
Yeah received the emails and clicked thru to book. Charged for 3 no-shows. All 48k have posted.
I received the email and clicked the links. I had two yes-shows at Altamonte Springs (one for my wife, one for me), and then three no-shows at the same place. For the no-shows, as others have mentioned, they appeared in our accounts as non-qualifying rates with 0 points. I called up Wyndham Rewards, and after a long phone call (where they called the front desk of the hotel), they credited the base points for those stays. The other day, 16k x 5 bonus points appeared in our accounts (so easy!) Although we had registered for the 4x bonus program as well, and our stays were within that time period, we didn’t get the 4x bonus points (perhaps because the stays were initially “non-qualifying”). I need to call up Wyndham Rewards again to find out about the 4x bonus points, but I’m excited about the ease of getting the 16k bonuses!
has anyone had luck with points posting that were not booked through the targeted email? I think that’s the main unknown at this point. i didn’t receive the email so I am waiting for some other brave soul to try it and report positive results before attempting.
[…] My experience with the Wyndham Free Night promotion […]
it says “book at a qualifying rate”. while it’s understandable that BAR is qualifying, but how about other rates, like AAA or corporate? those rate surely are qualifying for stay credit/points, but would they qualify for this promotion? nothing says they wouldn’t…
What do you think?
@alexander O – they absolutely earn points!
Wyndham Rewards is a rip off! They stole my points too. Yes, I said stole. Those were point I earned based on money I already spent. They took them due to inactivity. After speaking with a supervisor, they said my only other alternative was to leave a voicemail. Voicemail???? What kind of customer service is that? And they expect me to return for 4 more trips to “earn” all of those points back? They have LOST their minds. Never. My company spent $300K+ on their hotel over the course of 5 weeks and I have to earn them back?! I ALREADY EARNED MY FREE STAY. GIVE ME MY POINTS BACK!!!! I will search every forum out there and post as many comments as possible until I feel better! I’m thinking 300K posts will suffice!
@Krista – I absolutely understand your frustration. Wyndham though has an 18 month no activity expiration policy. Actually, almost all of the hotel and airline programs have some sort of policy were you must keep your points active within a certain timeframe to keep them for expiring.
My husband had minimal points with Wyndham and after speaking to a supervisor was able to get them reinstated. Here is a compiled list of all the point expiration for many hotels: http://dealswelike.boardingarea.com/2012/02/23/hotel-point-expiration-rules/
@deals we like; can you use Wyndham points to stay at the Gaylord Palms in Orlando, Florida? I was told by someone else that I couldn’t… However, you seem very knowledgeable on this subject… 🙂
[…] ran a similar promotion that ended October 6, the Deals We Like blog wrote about it and I’m not sure how I missed it. Hopefully this is a recurring offer for new hotel […]
Gaylord Palms is now a Marriott property and will be participating in Marriott Rewards as of this month. It wasn’t part of Wyndham before anyway.
[…] My experience: I took full advantage of this promotion during the last go around and had two stays at the Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham Chicago-Schaumburg and one stay at the Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham Hartford Meriden (which actually is a decent highway hotel near Hartford). Since I stayed during the 4x point/mile promotion (that is now over), I earned a total of 48,000 Wyndham points and 5,400 Southwest points. I had my stays credited to miles instead of points and with Hawthorn hotels you earn 600 Southwest points per stay (typically 500 miles if crediting to another airline). The 5,400 Southwest points alone is worth $90 towards Southwest travel, and the 48,000 Wyndham points can be transferred to 14,400 Southwest Rapid Reward points, worth $220. For my three stays I will ultimately end up with $320 in Southwest points. I spent $184.75 out of pocket, so will end up with $145 of free money with Southwest! You can read more about my experience and my success in this prior blog post. […]
[…] Gary’s article notes that according to Deals We Like (who detailed the old version of this promotion), the Orlando hotel was canceling some […]
[…] http://dealswelike.boardingarea.com/2012/09/20/wyndham-16000-point-promotion-update/ […]
interestingly, Wyndham posted points for two of my stays for this promotion, but then these points disappeared from my account
@Eugene – Same think happened to my mom’s account and many others from what I read on FlyerTalk. Seems like there is some glitch that they are looking into.
[…] the past Wyndham promotion where you earned 16,000 bonus points per stay at a participating hotel, many were planning on transferring those points to a partner airline program instead of actually […]
[…] past Summer, Wyndham held a promotion where you would receive 16,000 points after one stay at a participating hotel. You could earn these bonus points up to three stays for a total of 48,000 points. The terms […]