Wyndham is the largest hotel franchising company in the world in terms of number of properties, as there are around 9,300 properties in 90 countries. I don’t talk too much about the program, since there are limited opportunities for luxury travel, but the program still offers quite a bit of potential value, and typically has worthwhile offers on buying points, plus good promotions for stays.
As flagged by LoyaltyLobby, Wyndham Rewards has just revealed plans to adjust some award pricing in the coming weeks. Let’s go over the details.
In this post:
Wyndham Rewards changing some hotel categories
As of Tuesday, March 26, 2024, Wyndham Rewards will be adjusting award pricing at some of its hotels. For context, Wyndham Rewards has just three categories of hotel pricing, as properties cost either 7,500, 15,000, or 30,000 points per night. That will be staying the same, with the update being which properties belong in which category.
With these upcoming changes, we’re going to see 3% of properties move to higher categories, while we’re going to see 4% of properties move to lower categories. While more hotels going down in price than up in price of course sounds good, I imagine that those popular with redemptions will be going up in price, while ones that aren’t popular will be going down in price.
Unfortunately Wyndham isn’t actually publishing which properties are changing categories, which is kind of frustrating. If you book a future stay at the current rate and the cost goes up, the current price will of course be honored. Meanwhile if you book a stay at a property that ends up going down in price, you’ll receive an automatic refund of the difference in points.
I quite like Wyndham Rewards’ simple points redemption structure, though there’s no denying that any hotels changing category leads to a drastic pricing change. A hotel moving up a category represents a 100% increase in award pricing.
Wyndham Rewards adjusting Vacasa award costs
One awesome use of Wyndham Rewards points is being able to redeem them for Vacasa vacation rentals. Historically it has been possible to book these for 15,000 points per bedroom per night.
As of Tuesday, March 26, 2024, we’ll see changes to the value of that. Redemptions will cost either 15,000 or 30,000 points per night. Which tier a rental falls into will be determined by the rental’s average cost of a bedroom per night, inclusive of all taxes and fees.
If a rental has an average cost of up to $250 per night, it will cost 15,000 points per bedroom per night. Meanwhile properties costing more than $250 and up to $500 will cost 30,000 points per bedroom per night.
Suffice it to say that this is a pretty significant devaluation, as many Vacasa redemptions will be going up in price by 100%.
Bottom line
Wyndham Rewards is updating award pricing as of March 26, 2024. With these updates, we’ll see about 7% of properties changing categories, with more hotels going down in price than up in price. Furthermore, we’ll see a new tiered pricing system for Vacasa rentals, whereby you’ll pay either 15,000 or 30,000 points per night, depending on the cost of the rental.
What do you make of these Wyndham Rewards changes?
That's because a lot of <$80/night are charging 15k or <$200 are 30k for awards
This probably doesn't change anything much for members as there are unlikely any good 7.5k property and the good 15k would go up but unlikely any good 30k would drop down.
I'm with Gary in that I'd bet big money that the places you'd actually want to stay are the ones going up and the crappy places you don't want to stay are dropping.
Is there a list?