The Wyndham Rewards Review: How Useful is it to the Long-Term Traveler?

by Ryan Vagabundo

To be frank, Wyndham is a brand I would probably spend little to no time with were it not for their connection with Caesars Entertainment (CET).

They almost exclusively compete in the budget and midscale markets, and they don't tend to be one of the best options for either. I generally find their budget properties to be worse than other options (inferior to even Motel 6 in a bunch of cities I could name), and the midscales for some reason tend to be overpriced and lower quality than other offerings around the price range. They do have some gems here and there, but by and large I feel like they don't hold franchisees to standards the way other chains do and a lot of them take advantage.

They have made some improvements as of late, though. After the pandemic started, they began copying Choice's frequent "stay 2 or 3 nights for enough bonus points for a free night" promotions, and they also revamped their points system to make more sense.

Their main advantage is still status-matching with (and points transfers) to CET, though ... so the usefulness is really conditional on how often you go to Vegas, Atlantic City or some other of the handful of casino cities where they have a substantial presence.

PROPERTY QUALITY

Of the three chains that dominate the budget and midscale space across the US (Wyndham, Choice and Motel 6), I consistently find that Wyndham's tend to be the worst options.

There are exceptions, of course, dotted here and there. Both Wyndham and Choice almost exclusively operate properties on a franchise model, so it's a wide range of individual owners paying for the brand with a wide range of ownership competence and building quality. But the pattern I tend to find, over a LOT of cities, is that they'll have like maybe ONE good Wyndham property and then 2 or 3+ more that are ratty and/or overpriced.

The budget-end ones are often in worse shape than the local Motel 6, and the midscales are often overpriced budget motels masquerading as a better brand. My theory on this, given that both Wyndham and Choice are franchise models, is that Wyndham just doesn't put the same quality control on their lower-end franchisees that Choice does (and many Motel 6s are run by corporate rather than a local franchise owner).

Again, there are exceptions here and there. I can think of good examples of every one of their brands (though Days Inn is the toughest to come up with one), and there are some cities where a Wyndham is my first choice for an affordable property. But the story is usually that small cities have one good location and a few bad ones, larger cities might have two or three good locations and a whole bunch of bad ones. And the bad budget ones are often the worst option short of an obvious mom-and-pop drug dealer dive.

POINTS SYSTEM (FOR FREE NIGHTS)

Wyndham's points system has been schizo for the past decade or so, changing every year or two and only starting to find some semblance of stability in the last two or three years.

The current system is a small improvement over what came right before it, though still not a great value in my opinion. Free nights now start at 7,500 points per night, with each property setting their own price (which usually varies with seasonal demand). The amount asked goes up in multiples of 7500, so the next highest price is 15000, and so on with an overall cap of 30000. Some properties also offer a "points plus cash" option where you use 3000 points to get a small discount on the rate, but the actual discount seems to be set by each property and they can also choose to opt out entirely and not offer this option.

Naturally, you usually only see the lowest-price budget properties offering rooms for 7,500. And usually only when tourist traffic is not high. The lone advantage to this system is that certain budget properties will have a handful of nicer rooms, such as suites with hot tubs and whatnot, and all rooms at the property must be at the same points rate. So you can occasionally find a bargain on a good room at this rate, though it's hardly an option in every city.

Wyndham guarantees at least 1,000 points per stay. It's generally 10 points per dollar spent, so say if you stay one night for $60, they round it up to 1,000 points instead of the 600 you would normally get. Higher status tiers add a bit of bonus earning (+20% at the highest tier level).

STATUS MATCHING

Wyndham's best status match option is with Caesars Entertainment (they have a special business relationship, Wyndham has kiosks in a lot of their casinos that they sell condos from). The "Diamond" status levels at both properties are matched with each other, and you can easily match them online each year through one account or the other.

Even though it has been watered down somewhat in the last couple years, Caesars Diamond is MUCH more valuable than Wyndham Diamond and would cost you a LOT more in spend to reach the normal way. You can get Wyndham Diamond with 40 nights in a year; that includes all the budget properties that go as low as $45 a night, and free/discounted points nights also count toward your total. At an average rate of say $50 per night staying at budget properties and making smart use of points/promotions, Wyndham Diamond can be had for about $2000 in spend per year. Knock it up to $60 (probably more realistic these days) and it's still only $2400. If you live mostly on the road, that's not much at all over a year's time (you'd pay more than that for two months at a budget extended stay hotel), the only real trick is finding budget Wyndham properties that are good to stay at offering those rates. They do exist, they just aren't falling off trees exactly.

Wyndham also matches status with most of the other big hotel chains, it's just more of a typical process where you have to fill out a form and email them and wait a week or two for them to process it.

TIER REWARDS

Wyndham's tier benefits are "meh" aside from matching with Caesars, easily the least interesting program for the top tier that I have a membership with.

The best benefits are added points earning for each tier level (10% / 15% / 20%), and the fact that extra nights over 40 roll over to the following year's count. So if you need to stay in an area for months and find a really good Wyndham deal, you could milk it for a couple years of Diamond in one shot.

They list "early check in" as a benefit, but most properties will do this for you free anyway if rooms are open and they aren't dicks (or in a place like Vegas). They also list "late check out" but from my experience a lot of counter clerks don't know about this, you'll have to talk to them day of checkout and there's a chance they'll fight you and make a little scene about it. They also list a "free suite upgrade when available" at Diamond level but in seven years and many different properties in different places I have never been offered a room upgrade, not once, not ever. It's happened at Choice properties with Diamond a number of times, even getting suites at a couple places, even though they don't advertise it as a benefit. Never once with tight-ass Wyndham franchisees.

POINTS TRANSFERS / THE BEST USES OF WYNDHAM REWARDS POINTS

Transferring to Caesars is the absolute best use of Wyndham Rewards points. When spending them on property at their casino (hotel rooms, food, drinks, shows, etc), you get a 100 point to $1 value; that's a much better value than using them for Wyndham's own free hotel nights!

Unfortunately, you can only transfer $300 worth in a calendar year (in three chunks of $100 every time for some reason). I've heard around that they aren't super rigorous in checking this and people have snuck more through, but I haven't tried it myself and wouldn't count on it.

Wyndham does have other loyalty transfer partners: a bunch of the major international airlines and Amtrak. However, all are at a 5:1 ratio; none are at the 1:1 level of Caesars. The actual value you lose in transferring differs by program, but it's a significant chunk every time.

So the best uses of Wyndham points are probably as follows: Caesars > free night cash-ins (added value when in pursuit of Diamond status) > Amtrak if you travel in the US > airline miles if traveling outside the US.

PROMOTIONS

Wyndham's promotions are fairly irregular and unpredictable. They've started adopting the Choice formula of "stay X nights and get Y bonus points", but they appear more randomly and infrequently and usually you can only do each one two to four times during the promotion period (Choice usually offers infinite cash-ins on their "Stay Two and Get 8k" promos).

Updates 3/27/2022 -

As of 2022 an interesting new chain has been created: MGM is now status matching with Caesars, so you can match from Wyndham Diamond (if it was earned via 40 nights in the previous year) to Caesars Diamond, and then from there to MGM Gold. This is interesting as MGM has also just waived resort fees for its casino-hotels at the Gold level and above. This also allows you to match into MGM partner Hyatt's program as well at the second-highest level (Explorer).

Wyndham also now has a partnership with crypto platform Bakkt, and is offering a bonus of 3,000 points (enough to get one discount hotel night) for linking your Wyndham account to a Bakkt account and converting some of your Wyndham points to Bakkt holdings (at a rate of about 100 Wyndham points to somewhere south of $1 of crypto funds).