Several months ago, Wyndham Rewards revealed plans to make changes to its award pricing. The updates are live as of today, so I’d like to take a look at how these changes work in practice.
We’ve seen the program move from having an award chart with three tiers to having one with four tiers — the cheapest properties have decreased in price by up to 33%, while the most expensive properties have increased in price by up to 50%
Wyndham Rewards rolls out award chart changes
Up until now, Wyndham Rewards has had three tiers of award pricing when it comes to redeeming for free night awards, where properties cost either 7,500 points, 15,000 points, or 30,000 points per night.
That’s no longer the case. For bookings as of September 15, 2026, we’ve seen the introduction of four tiers of pricing, as hotels cost either 5,000 points, 15,000 points, 30,000 points, or 45,000 points per night.
As you can see, two tiers have remained unchanged, properties in the cheapest tier have decreased in cost by 33%, and properties in the most expensive tier have increased in price by 50%.
With the new pricing now being live, what are we seeing? Well, I think the changes are more or less what one would expect. The Wyndham properties that are generally considered among the better ones, and which have reasonably high cash costs, now retail for 45,000 Wyndham Rewards points per night.
What I perhaps find most interesting is the relative jumps between the tiers. 15,000 is 3x as many points as 5,000. 30,000 is 2x as many points as 15,000. 45,000 is 1.5x as many points as 30,000. So in terms of relative pricing, what’s most remarkable is the jump from the lowest tier to the second lowest tier.
For example, take the two below hotels. The property that costs 5,000 points per night retails for $58, while the property that costs 15,000 points per night retails for $74. So the more “premium” property costs 200% more if redeeming points, but only 25% more if paying cash. That’s something to keep in mind as you consider the program’s new sweet spots.
By the way, the below is the more premium of the two properties, which has a rating of 4.1 stars, while the less premium property has a rating of 1.4 stars. YIKES.
Obviously this is bad news, but I’m not surprised
To Wyndham Rewards’ credit, I appreciate that the program provided advance notice of pricing changes, and that it continues to have an award chart, as those are two things that not many hotel loyalty programs offer nowadays (World of Hyatt is basically the only other one). Furthermore, this is Wyndham’s first introduction of a new award category since 2019, so that’s pretty remarkable.
Wyndham Rewards is also the only major hotel loyalty program to not have any sort of dynamic award pricing, so you pay the same regardless of the time of year you redeem. I appreciate that conceptually, in terms of potentially offering the most outsized value.
Wyndham Rewards emphasizes how these changes are part of its “commitment to simplicity and helping members get the most out of their points.” It goes without saying that these changes are overwhelmingly negative:
- The properties going for 5,000 points per night are of course an amazing deal on points, even if they’re not particularly nice
- It seems like we’ve seen a lot of hotels go from costing 7,500 points per night to 15,000 points per night, so that’s a pretty big price increase
- Wyndham doesn’t exactly have a huge number of aspirational properties, so seeing a 50% increase in award pricing at top properties limits the ability to get great value
When it comes to my valuation of Wyndham Rewards points, I used to value them at 0.7 cents each, though recently lowered my valuation to 0.6 cents each. With these changes, that might still be a bit too high, unless you’re primarily redeeming at properties costing 5,000 points per night.
Bottom line
Wyndham Rewards has updated its award pricing for bookings as of September 15, 2026. On the plus side, the program is maintaining an award chart, with non-dynamic pricing.
We’ve seen Wyndham move from three categories to four categories — while redemptions used to cost 7,500, 15,000, or 30,000 points per night, we’re now seeing costs of 5,000, 15,000, 30,000, or 45,000 points. Of course it sucks to see top properties increase in price by 50%, but I also can’t say I’m surprised to see this.
What do you make of these Wyndham Rewards award pricing updates?
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