🏨 Let’s talk about Wyndham

Estimated read time: 4 minutes and 21 seconds

☀️ Good morning and welcome back to Daily Drop! Today is going to be a fun newsletter.

You see, there’s been a major shakeup in the points and miles world, and it’s probably something you haven’t heard much about.

But after digging in, I think these various bits of news are quite exciting.

So today, let’s talk about none other than Wyndham Rewards:

• 1️⃣ Wyndham revamps its credit card lineup

• 2️⃣ New Wyndham award tiers and pricing

• 3️⃣ Don’t forget about this transfer sweet spot… to Wyndham

1️⃣ Wyndham revamps its credit card lineup

Wyndham hasn’t exactly been the sexiest loyalty program over the years.

But lately? They’ve been making moves.

Over the past few months, we’ve seen them add new transfer partners, revamp their award pricing, and now completely overhaul their credit card lineup.

It all feels like part of a bigger push to make Wyndham a program worth paying attention to. So let’s start with the new cards.

Wyndham finally has a true premium card

The biggest addition is the brand-new Wyndham Rewards Earner® Premier Card, which is Wyndham’s first real premium credit card.

It comes with a $395 annual fee, but the benefits are actually pretty serious:

• Up to 120,000 bonus points as a welcome offer

• 8x points at Hotels by Wyndham

• 4x points on eligible dining, grocery, and travel purchases

• Automatic Wyndham Rewards Diamond status

• 30,000 anniversary bonus points after paying the annual fee

• 25% off free night redemptions

• A free night worth up to 30,000 points after staying five nights annually

• A bunch of other credits and stuff

Am I crazy, or does that sound… like… really good?

The 30,000 anniversary points alone are meaningful, since Wyndham’s top award tier has historically been 30,000 points per night.

But the 25% discount is where things get really interesting…

These cards now make your points go further

Across the revamped card lineup, Wyndham cardholders now get discounted award nights.

The no-annual-fee Wyndham Rewards Earner® Card and Wyndham Rewards Earner® Plus Card both get 10% off free night redemptions.

The Wyndham Rewards Earner® Business Card gets 20% off. And the new Premier card gets 25% off, as I mentioned earlier.

So with the Premier card, a 30,000-point award night drops to just 22,500 points.

And to be clear, this discount applies to you just for holding the card. So even if you transfer points to Wyndham from somewhere else, you’ll get the discount.

And speaking of Wyndham points… the card refresh is only one piece of the puzzle. Wyndham also just made some major changes to its award pricing, which we’ll get into next. 👇

2️⃣ New Wyndham award tiers and pricing

Now for the less-fun part: Wyndham is also changing its award pricing.

Starting September 15, 2026, Wyndham Rewards will move from three award tiers to four:

• 5,000 points per night

• 15,000 points per night

• 30,000 points per night

• 45,000 points per night

Right now, Wyndham awards cost 7,500, 15,000, or 30,000 points per night, so this is technically a devaluation at the high end.

Some of Wyndham’s more premium properties will soon cost 45,000 points per night instead of topping out at 30,000.

But honestly? This could’ve been worse.

The cheapest award tier is dropping from 7,500 points to 5,000 points, and the two middle tiers are staying at 15,000 and 30,000 points.

And in my opinion, that simplicity is still one of Wyndham’s best features, with just four possible award prices.

Compare that to Hyatt, which has award charts for standard, peak, off-peak, all-inclusive, standard suite, premium suite, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and Miraval, and you can understand how the addition of one tier isn’t such a big deal.

And if you hold a Wyndham credit card, the math gets even better… 😏

With the new premium card’s 25% award discount that I mentioned earlier, those four tiers effectively become:

• 3,750 points per night

• 11,250 points per night

• 22,500 points per night

• 33,750 points per night

33,750 points for a top-tier Wyndham redemption with the premium card? That’s a lot easier to stomach.

Of course, this is probably only the beginning. If we fast-forward five years, I wouldn’t be shocked if Wyndham’s program looks a little more like Hyatt’s, with more tiers and more complexity.

But for now? I’m kinda into it. 🤷🏼‍♂️

If Wyndham keeps offering value through credit cards, status, award discounts, free nights, promos, and transfer partners, I’m happy to see them becoming a bigger player.

And that brings us to the final piece of this whole Wyndham puzzle… 👇

3️⃣ Don’t forget about this transfer sweet spot… to Wyndham

As I mentioned earlier, Wyndham has been partnering with more and more programs as a transfer partner.

That means that on top of the new cards, elite benefits, and award discounts, it’s also easier than ever to get points into your Wyndham account.

For reference, you can transfer points from all of the following programs to Wyndham:

• UR points

• Capital One miles

• Bilt Points 

• ThankYou points

• Wells Fargo points

And don’t gloss over that last one… Because Wells Fargo is what makes this entire newsletter interesting.

Wells Fargo offers a unique 1:2 transfer ratio to Wyndham, meaning you can effectively double your points.

So let’s refresh on the new award pricing

• 5,000 points

• 15,000 points

• 30,000 points

• 45,000 points

Those prices now become:

• 2,500 Wells Fargo points

• 7,500 Wells Fargo points

• 15,000 Wells Fargo points

• 22,500 Wells Fargo points

Now, stay with me for a sec…

If you hold the premium Wyndham card, those initial award rates drop by 25%… THEN those are halved when transferring Wells Fargo points.

So…

Now, we have a “floor” points pricing for Wyndham hotels, as follows:

• 1,875 Wells Fargo points

• 5,625 Wells Fargo points

• 11,250 Wells Fargo points

• 16,875 Wells Fargo points

In other words, even Wyndham’s absolute top-tier premium hotels at the NEW highest award tier will cost you less than 17,000 Wells Fargo points per night (when combined with the Wyndham co-branded card).

Here’s the bottom line:

Wyndham just got good. And this guy is excited about it.

But tell me what you think:

That’s it for today, my friends. We’re off for the 4th of July, so I hope you enjoy your long holiday weekend.

See you next week! ☀️

41.7922° N, 123.4328° E

With contributions by Sam Anthony.