A few years ago, Wyndham essentially threw away their award chart and put in a place a structure where all nights would cost a fixed 15,000 points per night. It did not matter if you were staying at a Days Inn off the highway or a night resort in the Caribbean. While this wasn’t ideal for those who preferred to redeem their points at low level properties, it was a huge hit for those looking to maximize their points and wanted to stay at some of Wyndham’s top tier hotels. Unfortunately though a few months ago, Wyndham announced they would be changing this structure and instead putting in place a three-tier structure. This new chart went into affect yesterday, Apr. 3.
- 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
Not surprisingly, Wyndham did not announce which hotels would tie to which Tier ahead of time, so I suggested making Wyndham Reward reservations in advance for the properties we speculated would go up in value. I personally cashed in all Wyndham Reward points for a weekend stay in Newport, Rhode Island; a ski trip to Park City, Utah; and a Caribbean vacation to Puerto Rico. You can check out all locations and their respective point value here.
200 Moved Up; 3,000 Moved Down
Unfortunately, approximately 200 properties did move up to the 30k point level. Of course many of them are the better Wyndham properties in popular cities. If it has a Wyndham or Wyndham Grand in it’s name there is a decent chance it moved up. Although, with my speculation, the Wyndham in Newport Rhode Island across the street from the beach stayed at the same 15k point level!
On the flip side, approximately 3k properties actually went down! Of course these are the lower level Wyndham properties, but might provide some great value for your needs. I also did find some decent properties in desirable locations, such as Jerusalem and Krabi Beach, Thailand.
Vacation Club Resorts and Rentals
Wyndham also has about 20,000+ vacation club resorts and rentals where you can use your points to stay in one of their timeshare properties or a partner condo/home. Fortunately, all of these properties, except for three, stayed at the exact same 15k point level. This is huge since many of the higher end properties, such as the Wyndham Park City, stayed the exact same in regards to the number of points needed for a free night stay. There are many Vacation Club Resorts throughout Hawaii and Orlando, so staying in those two popular locations have not changed.
The three that moved up to the 30,000 point tier level include: Margaritaville Vacation Club – Wyndham Rio Mar, Wyndham Clearwater Beach Resort and Wyndham Bonnet Creek Resort.
Overall…
While I am definitely sad to see the 200 properties move up, especially since some of them are the more desirable properties, there are still a ton of great hotels that cost the exact same number of points. Overall, this is definitely not a huge devaluation and for those that still have Wyndham Reward points left in their account, you should still not have a problem using them at some great properties.
The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.