Wyndham Rewards has revealed plans to make changes to its award pricing. With this, we’ll see the program move from a chart with three tiers to one with four tiers — the cheapest properties will decrease in price by up to 33%, while the most expensive properties will increase in price by up to 50%. At least Wyndham is providing notice of the changes, I guess?
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Wyndham Rewards unveils major award chart changes
Currently, Wyndham Rewards has 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.
For bookings as of September 30, 2026, we’ll see the introduction of four tiers of pricing, as hotels will cost either 5,000 points, 15,000 points, 30,000 points, or 45,000 points per night.
As you can see, two tiers will remain unchanged, properties in the cheapest tier will increase in cost by 33%, and properties in the most expensive tier will increase in price by 50%.
Of course this says nothing of which properties will be part of which categories, as I imagine we’ll see quite a bit of movement upwards.
Speaking of which, Wyndham Rewards will also be making its annual changes to award pricing as of September 15, 2026. So we’ll first see a typical annual adjustment, and then a couple of weeks later we’ll see the introduction of a fourth tier, which Wyndham is currently promising will only have a limited number of hotels in it.
That seems like a weird order in which to go about things, rather than doing everything at once, but that’s not a huge deal.
Obviously this is bad news, but I’m not surprised
To Wyndham Rewards’ credit, I appreciate that the program is providing 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, Wyndham Rewards is actually 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 probably overwhelmingly negative:
- I imagine the properties that go for 5,000 points per night will be pretty sad-looking, and aren’t where most points maximizers are looking to redeem
- Wyndham doesn’t exactly have a huge number of aspirational properties, so seeing a 50% increase in award pricing at top properties will limit the ability to get great value
Bottom line
Wyndham Rewards will be updating its award pricing for bookings as of September 30, 2026. On the plus side, the program will be maintaining an award chart, with non-dynamic pricing.
We’ll see Wyndham move from three categories to four categories — we’ll go from 7,500, 15,000, and 30,000-point redemptions, to 5,000, 15,000, 30,000, and 45,000-point redemptions. 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?
Ben, you need a slight correction to this sentence as the lowest tier will decrease: 'As you can see, two tiers will remain unchanged, properties in the cheapest tier will increase in cost by 33%...'.
Also, to their credit, the is the first change to the award chart since 2019, and, hopefully, not an every couple of year thing.
My travel is skewed more toward the rural areas and business purposes. Therefore, I tend to stay in a lot of 5000-point Wyndhams and not the Nepo Baby Grand Egotism Resorts that most avbloggers concentrate on. I have a lot of Wyndham points, and if I didn't get reimbursed for my hotel stays, this re-evaluation would be absolutely perfect for me.
ngl 5000 points looks pretty good for quick road trip stops. When transfer bonuses go on that can be like 4K points for a night