Wyndham recently announced some enhancements to their co-branded credit card with Barclaycard, as well as an increase in the annual fee and devaluation of the earning rates on the cards. Here is a summary of the changes:
- Annual fee increased from $69 to $75 on the annual fee card
- Both annual fee and non annual fee cards now only earn 2x points on gas, utility and grocery store purchases (excluding Target® and Walmart®) & 1x points on all other purchases. Previously these cards earned 2x points on all other purchases.
- Both cards come with elite status:
- No annual fee comes with Gold Status
- Annual fee card comes with Platinum status
When asked what would happen to existing cardholders, Wyndham had this to say:
Existing cardholders will be unaffected by these changes. Changes implemented are only for people who sign up for the card going forward. In order to get their member level status, people will have to switch to the new products. Existing cardholders will be able to switch to the new products (at their discretion) in about 1 to 2 months.
Personally I think the old card is actually better than the new card, so I wouldn’t be upgrading to the new card (especially if I had signed up when they were offering the 15,000 point anniversary bonus). It’s also still possible to sign up to the old cards and you can actually get a bonus of up to 45,000 points (better than the 30,000 points currently being offered). I’d recommend signing up sooner rather than later, as I doubt that link will stay live for too much longer.
