Wyndham have announced three changes to their credit cards:
- Annual fee has been increased to $75 from $69 on the annual fee card
- Instant elite status:
- The no annual card will now come with Gold membership status
- The annual fee card will now come with Platinum membership status
- Both cards will now no longer charge any foreign transaction fees
Contents
Elite Status
Let’s take a look at what both of these status levels actually get you. Keep in ind that late check out and early check in need to be requested and the request will only be granted if they have availability.
Gold Status
This normally requires five nights and gives you the following benefits over Blue status (basic level everybody gets)
- Dedicated member services
- Preferred room
- Late check out
Platinum Status
This normally requires 15 nights and gives you the following benefits over Gold status:
- Early check in
- Annual point bonus of 3,000 points
- Avis & Budget car rental upgrade
Diamond Status
This requires 40 nights and neither of the cards offer this status level. It gives you the same benefits as Platinum but with 6,000 annual point bonus, suite upgrades (including award nights), welcome amenity and the ability to give gold.
Match Status
There are no reports of people using their Wyndham status to match to other programs, so not sure if that is possible and as far as I know Wyndham don’t offer any sort of status match themselves.
Our Verdict
Overall two positive changes from Wyndham. The good thing about the annual fee card is the extra 3,000 annual points (the card already comes with an anniversary bonus of 6,000 points so this brings your total up to 9,000 – keep in mind that all properties cost a flat 15,000 points per night), although that does come with an annual fee increase of $6, most people would be happy to pay 0.2¢ per point. Wyndham only introduced these loyalty tiers in May. You can read our full reviews of these cards here and some ideas on the best properties to redeem points for here.
If Wyndham offered a total of 15,000 annual points on the annual fee card ($75) then it would definitely be a must hold card as that means you’d be getting a free night at any property for $69. As it stands you need to earn another 6,000 points annually (either $3,000 in non bonused spend or $1,200 in Wyndham spend). Still pretty good offers, but less enticing.
There is a 45,000 point offer on the annual fee card, but that offer doesn’t show the new changes. You should still be able to get 15,000 + $50 on the no annual fee card as well.
