Wyndham Rewards has launched a debit card with Sunrise Banks N.A. Card offers the following:
- Sign up bonus of 2,500 points
- Card earns at the following rate:
- 1x points per $1 spent On eligible purchases made at participating Hotels by Wyndham and qualifying gas and grocery purchases.
- 1x points per $2 spent on all other purchases
- $6 Monthly Fee, waived if you have a $2,500 balance
- Complimentary Wyndham Rewards Gold status
- Anniversary bonus:
- Annual Net purchases of $5,000 to $9,999.99: 2,500 bonus points
- Annual Net purchases of $10,000 to $14,999.99: 5,000 bonus points
- Annual Net purchases of $15,000.00 or more: 7,500 bonus points
Our Verdict
I suspect the people that would benefit most from this card would eventually get shut down, but might be useful in some other limited opportunities. Monthly fee is definitely annoying though.
What bank can it link to? SoFi/Fidelity failed. Also want to know spending limit and if have incoming wire fee?
This app is atrocious. You don’t see points earned on transactions (fine some do, some don’t) but this targeted at younger audiences that would want to see that for instant gratification. It doesn’t show pending transactions at all or the amount pending. “Pending Transactions” and amount is an option in the app but doesn’t work. All transactions just simply show nothing until posted and your current balance drops.
I would rather work at the CFPB so I could get fired at the CFPB when they shut it down than get this card.
Like who wants to leave $2500 cash in an account to get gold perks at a Travelodge?
So confused… Open the account and don’t see the routing and account number to set up a direct deposit.
Finally found it under Account Details, three dots, Account Information. Was NOT easy to find on mobile!
Keep us updated on your progress
Progress on what?
Statements, bill pay, stuff like this
Gotcha, will do.
Is buying MOs with a debit card still a thing? I have not done it in a while, but if you can get $1k MO for ~$1 fee then you’re buying 500 Wyndham points for a dollar, which is a pretty good deal. Don’t know how scalable that would be, before Sunrise shuts this down.
That is exactly why Will’s verdict is “I suspect the people that would benefit most from this card would eventually get shut down.” … made me laugh :))
I suppose that for most people reading this website, the only value in this card would be in paying bills with the debit card and earning points on those payments. I believe these opportunities still exist, but I also believe that the people doing this don’t like to talk about it.
It says that there is no ATM fee at any Cirrus ATM. Am I missing something, or is that an excellent benefit for a no-fee account that has rewards?
Why not just go with something like Alliant CU which gives an ATM rebate for any ATM worldwide?
Or Schwab… the same.
Here’s a technical question:
Most debit cards require a pin.
But do all Wyndham family hotels have a way to enter a pin when using a card that requires one?
And, btw, the earning rates on this card are pretty terrible, compared to the no-fee Wyndham Rewards credit card. The no-fee credit card earns 5x on hotels by Wyndham and gas, 2x of grocery and dining, and 1x on everything else, while this card earns just 1x on most of those specific categories (except dining) and 0.5x on everything else.
And the 2500 points for signup bonus are pathetic. There are Wyndham promos which I’ve seen that don’t require much effort to earn that give 3000 bonus points or more. And Wyndham credit cards gives 60000 points or more signup bonuses typically.
Most debit cards do not require a PIN. It depends on how the POS terminal is set up and whether the merchant wants the lower interchange rates of a PIN transaction. Hotels are usually fine running debit cards as credit, so you should be fine.
As for the rest, I mean, it’s a debit card so of course the earning rates are terrible compared to a credit card. You need to make an apples to apples comparison, i.e. this debit card to other debit cards.
Are there any other debit cards for Hotel or Airline programs? That’s the only thing you could really compare this debit card with, since it makes no sense to compare it to a debit card for something where the corresponding credit card would not earn hotel points or airline miles.
It’s because this card costs so much yet earns way way less hotel points than the corresponding no-annual-fee Wyndham credit card, both in signup bonus and in earnings on purchases, that i don’t understand what the point of this card is.
And what I mean is that I don’t understand what the point of this card is for ordinary people and for Wyndham Hotels and for Barclays.
If some people want to use a debit card for Manufactured Spending, that’s not in the design of the card, that’s just a trick that some people figured out. A bank never intends for that to done, that’s why the sometimes shut down accounts where they’ve detected that’s the main use.
Most debit cards do not REQUIRE a PIN to be used. This card runs on the Mastercard network so it will work just fine for PIN-less signature transactions. The bank earns much better interchange income on signature transactions – that’s why stores like Walmart try to default debit card transactions to PIN based versus signature. I suspect only signature based transactions on this card will earn points.
Debit rewards mostly died with Dodd-Frank, so of course it’s not going to be huge. They could arguably offer more than a 2500 point sign up though.
I see no value beyond the SUB and even that is probably not worth the effort. The opportunity cost of the $2,500 average balance requirement to avoid the $6 monthly fee is too high. I typically don’t open bank accounts for less than a $100 SUB and 2,500 Wyndham points are worth way less than that.
The fee section of the account agreement is silent as to an early account closure fee within a certain timeframe. It does say there is a $20 closure fee if they issue you a check for the balance in the account at closure.
Wish the fee were waived with DD instead of a $2500 balance.