Wyndham will devalue its points redemptions effective September 15, 2026, going from 3 redemption prices up to four.
- Currently, they charge 7,500; 15,000; and 30,000 points per night for hotels.
- The bottom price is dropping to 5,000 points. But that doesn’t mean all of the current 7,500 points price hotels get cheaper. Some will go up to 15,000.
- They’re adding a new 45,000 point top tier for the places you actually want to stay (which is a pretty limited set of hotels in this program).
If you have Wyndham Rewards points, I’d make top-end bookings before September 15. Generally you can always cancel and get your points back. But you lock in current pricing. And if the points price go down for a hotel you booked, they’ll automatically refund the difference to you.
It seems like an odd time to do this, only a week after unveiling a new suite of credit cards because it completely undermines the value proposition of those cards.
- The business card still worked, even at a higher annual fee, for those able to generate bonus category spend and redeem at 30,000 point properties like Wyndham Grand Cancun All Inclusive Resort & Villas; Wyndham Grand Barbados Sam Lords Castle All Inclusive Resort; Wyndham Grand Rio Mar Rainforest Beach and Golf Resort Puerto Rico; and Wyndham Grand Crete Mirabello Bay.
- But at 45,000 points the best properties no longer make sense from a value for spend perspective.
- And they’ve already lost the best redemption path the program had, which was Vacasa short-term rental redemptions, and the business card no longer offers the ability to match to Caesars Diamond status.
My overall view is that the program stopped being fun. Back in 2015 they really gave it a jolt with a single redemption tier (not great for redeeming at low end properties!) and those homestays redeemed per-bedroom where fantastic. But all of that is long gone and we’re spending three times the points for the best properties compared to what we did back then, at least starting in September.
As a regular customer, I’m going to defend Wyndham here.
-They gave almost 3 months notice of the change, during which we can book.
-They will automatically crediting price drops (following Hyatt’s pro-customer lead).
-They almost had to devalue somewhat, given bigger point discounts for cardholders and cheaper selling prices for points.
Obviously, we’ll need to see how many new properties hit the top tier, and what other adjustments they make before rendering a final judgement. But I don’t feel overly upset by any of this.
At the current 80% bonus, a 45K hotel would be 325/nite if purchased on points. While that’s up from 195/nite with 100% points bonus and 30K per nite, 195 per nite isn’t sustainable for Wyndham reimbursements at top properties. Plus 5K = 36/nite at present bonus. That’s a deal even if those properties are underwhelming.
Yeah, Wyndham is really trying to expand its luxury options. They simply couldn’t continue to do that at a cap of 30k per night.
I think all the Wyndham Grands will be 45k and I think by rolling out the credit card they are saying hey if you want to pay 34k get this card. For me it’s definitely worth it, and then I may cancel the regular card, undecided on whether it’s worth keeping the business card.