Opportunity to Buy Miles at $0.008 in Your Choice of Airline Programs Thanks to Wyndham Rewards

A reader pointed out to me that Wyndham has a new promotion to highlight 20 of their new hotel properties, offering 16,000 points per stay as a bonus on top of the usual points earned. The bonus is valid on up to 3 stays through December 31, no registration required.

That promotion is stackable with Wyndham’s fall promotion (that does require registration) of 5500 bonus points on your second and fourth stays between September 26 and November 3026.

You’re thinking, the 16,000 point bonus applies at only 20 hotels and I’m not headed to Greensboro and really don’t want to stay at the Hawthorne Suites there anyway, right?

But according to the terms and conditions of Wyndham Rewards, no show stays earn points.

If the property requires a credit card for a reservation, the Member is a no-show, and the hotel charges his/her credit card for the first night of the no-show stay, the Member will receive points for such night as if he/she had stayed.

This has always been my experience as well. And some of the hotels on the list are really quite cheap.

I’m seeing the prepaid rate at the Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham Orlando Altamonte Springs for $50.99, a total of $56.60 all-in with taxes.

So if you book 3 stays there — you don’t even have to show up — it will cost $169.80.

And you’ll earn:

  • 48,000 bonus points from the new hotel promotion
  • 5500 bonus points for on the second stay for the fall promotion
  • 1530 points for the cost of the rooms (10 points per dollar on the $51 base rate three times)

That’s 55,030 Wyndham Rewards points earned earned (and doesn’t factor that you will earn miles for your credit card spend).

And Wyndham Rewards points transfer at 2.5 to 1 airline mile (minimum of 8000 Wyndham points to transfer). So you earn 22,000 miles in your choice of airline program (per account, you can repeat this for each of your family members) at a cost of $0.0077 per mile.

Of course you can book free room nights with these points or move them into miles now or whenever you wish later (such as when you know what miles you need to top off an account, or if you need to drop a few miles into an account for ‘partner activity’ as part of a promotion or when there is a bonus for transferring hotel points into miles).

Wyndham’s points transfer partners are:

  • Aeromexico
  • Aeroplan
  • American
  • Amtrak
  • Delta
  • Frontier
  • Southwest
  • US Airways
  • United
  • Air Berlin
  • Czech
  • Saudia
  • China Southern
  • Air China
  • China Eastern
  • Hainan Airlines Fortune Wings Club

That’s an interesting list since it includes some of the more obscure programs that don’t seem to partner with anyone else. Transfers from Wyndham to Hainan Airlines, for instasnce, can be especially useful for upgrades to business class on their Toronto or Seattle to Beijing flights.

I think it’s well worth transferring US Airways miles under the current share miles promotion, and this is about 40% less expensive and applies to a number of airline programs. So a very very good deal.

Register for Wyndham’s fall promotion then book three one-night stays at any of the participating new properties. Book the cheapest rate you can, and the points are supposed to post even though you don’t actually check-in.

Wyndham 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 properties and we can buy miles inexpensively each time as a result.

Thanks, Wyndham!

Update: as far as which property to use for this promotion, Deals We Like emails me that the property in Orlando I suggest above “was canceling reservations for those who did not show up and not charging the credit card.” So another property might work better.

Update 2: The Salt Lake City property is a good one for cheap stays. Also I made a small calculation error in the number of points you receive, I noted that you earn 10 points per dollar spent on the base room rate — and that’s standard for the Wyndham Rewards program — but when you book a Hawthorne Suites property it is only 5 points. So calculate the number of points you want and if you need to jump over a threshold then consider booking a rate that includes 1000 bonus points.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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  1. Does the AAA rate work for all of this? I didn’t see anything in the T&C saying otherwise, but I wanted to check…

  2. Having never tried to transfer Wyndham rewards before, can you transfer them into someone else’s Wyndham account?

    Can you do family member transfer?

    Can you transfer rewards into another person’s airline account?

  3. Got my 48,000 points last time for 3 no-show stays. Going big this time with some family member accounts as well. 🙂

  4. According to T&C a no-show does get points, i.e. regular points. Do we know for certain that the promotional 16K will also be awarded?

  5. @ArizonaGuy — How long did it take for promo points to post? I’d love to be able to see one work out before I book stays two and three.

  6. Can these Wyndham points be transferred to any FF account or only one that matches the Wyndham acct holder name?

  7. @Eugene apparently they did on the last bonus, and I don’t see why they wouldn’t, although I suppose you’ve suggested something to them to short-circuit us 😛 Seriously, I don’t think Wyndham distinguishes for points earning whether you show up or not for the reservation.

  8. don’t forget the room has to be booked through a link from the email. I didn’t receive one and wyndham replied that they can not resend the email. anyone has any suggestion?

  9. Last time it wasn’t set in stone on posting. I waited about 4 weeks (there’s a thread on FT, others had similar experiences) for the first 16K to post after a stay.

    I waited for the first bonus to post before paying for two more stays. But the second bonus posted the very next day after the stay, and the third bonus posted a week after that stay. So YMMV.

  10. @ArizonaGuy Thanks. I will do the same here. We’ve got until December 31 for the big promo, so it’s worth waiting for me.

  11. Thanks Gary. I’ll use this to top off my United account as I value the flexibility of having one-way award fares.

  12. I take it names / addresses don’t have to match for transfers into airline programs?

    Anyone have any experience with how long the bonus points take to post / how long airline FF transfers take to post?

  13. @Gary – Are folks getting e-mails that their reservations were canceled without being charged? I booked a room for tonight and it’s past the cancellation deadline. I guess I’m best off just taking a chance?

  14. @Gary – I am just imagining a scenario where the Orlando hotel will be fully booked and yet stay empty. It may not be a bad thing for them, but who knows.

  15. It’s a bummer that the Altamonte Springs property has been canceling such reservations. I wonder if prepaid reservations vs. not pre-paid reservations makes any difference to what that property does? In any case, I went in for three nights over the next couple of weeks, and if the hotel does cancel my reservations, I should have time to try again elsewhere.

    What we don’t know here, unfortunately, is whether the property itself has to take the brunt of the cost of the bonus points, or if that cost is borne by the corporate program.

    Note that there are some even cheaper rates available, I booked one, but I’m risking depending on how they calculate the base points of falling just under 55,000 points and thus having some points orphaned.

  16. Here are some answer to the various questions:
    1. The last time this promotion was offered, all rates that earn points earned the 16,000 points, this includes pre-paid rates, AAA, AARP, etc.
    2. Points were posting all over the place. My moms account had her points post within a week or so, where my points still have not posted. Wyndham rewards will not manually post the points until a full 8 weeks have expired since the points from the stay post to the account, which is really annoying.
    3. People did not get an email that there reservation was cancelled, just the points did not post and no credit card charge.
    4. Regarding transferring points to another loyalty partner, I am not sure, as I have yet to transfer points, but I remember reading something about it recently, so will try yo dig up that thread.

  17. T/C says booked at a “qualifying rate”. Anyone have any info on what a qualifying rate is? The example they use of what rates are available is for the “best available” rate. I’m wondering if prepaid and/or AAA and senior rates count…

  18. So I’ve found a hotel that has a slightly higher rate than what Gary posted above but it also says I cancel up to the day of check-in with no penalty. Seems like it’s worth the premium to be able to cancel if this promotion doesn’t pan out…

    That being said, I’d hate to ‘overpay’ for a room if this is basically guaranteed.

    What do people think?

  19. Anyone else having problems registering? Trying create accounts for family members and the “register now” button doesnt seem to be working for me (in 2 different browsers)…

  20. Gary,

    You’ve mentioned that the it transferres by the 8000 point packages. Any way to easily top off the 55k+ to the required 56ooo to simplify the transfer?

  21. I have a LifeMiles hangover from the weekend and am a little concerned about this… I hope we don’t bring the whole thing down.

  22. @Nate: Take a risk. You’re probably way ahead of the game as it is, if you’ve been in this community for any amount of time.

  23. Booked 3 rooms. All spread out a few weeks. Earliest night I could book @50.99 price was 10/25. Last two reservations are on AA rate and refundable if first one doesn’t pan out.

    Tempted to sign up my friends and family but until proof this posts don’t want to expend futile effort.

  24. Data Point. I booked just one no-show for $56 on September 27. I have not called in yet, but I was not awarded points. A friend was for a different property was after he went through the hassle of calling in, etc.

  25. Okay, well three nights booked at one of the above that isn’t Orlando. We’ll see if it posts.

  26. If you book a room at the Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham Orlando Altamonte Springs with dates that are a little closer in, then the rates are even lower than Gary mentions. I booked three 1-night stays for about two weeks from now and it was $158.49 all-in, instead of $169.80 (which is the total for 3 nights a little further out in Nov. and Dec.). Less than three-quarters of a cent per airline mile is pretty sweet.

  27. Guess what people. STOP BOOKING TODAY. Use your brains. You have over two months to do this. If you all hit Florida, is it any wonder the property is canceling these reservations?

  28. Do you think it’s best to set it at earn mileage? It looks like for the Fall promotion, it would be 1,000 miles for the second and third stays………….That’s 2,000 miles as opposed to 11,000 Wyndham points. I’m bad at math here, somewhere help me out………..

  29. @Mileshore, at a 2.5:1 conversion rate from Wyndham points to miles, you get 4400 miles from the 11,000 Wyndham points, rather than 2000 miles directly. Also, this fall promo gives the bonus points on the 2nd and 4th stays, but apparently not the 3rd stay.

    Re Orlando canceling reservations, I booked the prepaid rate for a couple of weeks from now. If those get canceled, I’ll have plenty of time to rebook elsewhere. It’s worth the risk for the lower rate.

  30. Jeff,

    I stand corrected, if I would have read it more carefully, I would have seen I would need a 4th stay, which isn’t going to happen. I assume, for this promotion, leave it on earn Wyndham points?

  31. And for those wondering if your Wyndham points can be transferred to a different person’s FF account, I can confirm that you can. I successfully did this to get a hit during last year’s GS promo.

  32. Also….2.1% cash back via bigcrumbs; 5 UR points per dollar on hotel spend with the Chase Freedom card.

    There shouldn’t be much risk of your reservation being canceled/refunded if you book the pre-paid/nonrefundable rate (just hang onto a copy of the current Wyndham Rewards terms & conditions in case they change it later).

  33. Ok.. I am in. Not for the airline miles..but because we already know we want to stay at the Koloa Landing in Kauai next year again. It is 30K points per night….or $300 per night to book the condo after rate and taxes. Booked my first night in Utah for $63.74. If this works and I get the points I will book another. That will be $127 investment on a $300 room we had already planned on staying in. Last year I was lucky enough to buy the points using Daily Getaway. Not sure if I will be that lucky again! Sure hope I get the points otherwise I just wasted $64!!!

  34. I did this promotion last time and earned 48k wyndham points that I promptly transferred to United for a total of 19,200 united miles. I paid between $55 and $65 per hotel stay (though they were no shows). The FL hotel required emails and phone calls in order to get the points (though they did charge my credit card). It took about 4 to 6 weeks for the points to post. Remember, though, that you can transfer points in chunks of 8k so even if you sign up for a few promotions, you would only be able to transfer them in multiples of 8

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