Wyndham Rewards

If you’re located in Canada, particularly in some of the more back-road locations of our fine land, you’ll quickly realize that not every town has a Marriott Bonvoy or Hilton Honors property. In fact, the definition of family-friendly luxury in some places comes in the form of water slides and golf simulators, not executive lounges.

Water slides are actually pretty sweet, so it’s important to think of a chain that often provides excellent value in secondary markets: Wyndham Rewards.

Brands you may not think about a lot, but have definitely stayed at, such as Ramada, Days Inn, and the eponymous Wyndham all fall under the umbrella of this corporation. In North America, these are often value-oriented brands. 

Abroad, however, Wyndham Rewards can often provide a luxury experience at a brand name that might not immediately scream “champagne.” For example, the Ramada in Bursa, Turkey features a hot spring and Turkish bath, a full bar and restaurant as well as very large rooms.

Let’s take a look at our Wyndham Rewards guide and how you can best maximize this loyalty program for your next vacation.

Acquiring Wyndham Rewards Points

The biggest barrier for Canadians to stay at Wyndham properties can be acquiring Wyndham points. Without booking rooms at Wyndham regularly, or taking advantage of the company’s loyalty program promotions, it can be a bit of a challenge to get enough points to redeem rowards free night awards.

However, both Elite status and some of the methods below can help in improving your Wyndham Rewards game to the point of being able to take advantage of this underutilized program.

Stay at Wyndham Properties

The easiest way to earn Wyndham Rewards points is by staying at Wyndham properties. The base earn rate on all such stays is 10 points per $1 USD spent (less taxes and fees) or 1,000 points, whichever is more. This is a nice change because most loyalty programs won’t try to give you more points in a situation like this.

In addition, there are a variety of promotions to incentivize you to stay at Wyndham hotels. These promotions generously hand out bonuses the more nights you stay, such as the one featured below in Fall 2024:

This is not a bad promotion at all given the low price of many Wyndham hotels, and can be a great option to build up your Wyndham Rewards points balance.

Credit Card Bonuses

The best way for Canadians to get Wyndham Reward points through credit card bonuses is via their Barclays co-branded credit cards which are issued in the United States.

	Credit Card	Welcome Bonus	Net Value
	Barclays Wyndham Rewards Earner Business Card	80,000 Wyndham Rewards	$705	Apply
	Barclays Wyndham Rewards Earner Plus Card	75,000 Wyndham Rewards	$675	Apply
	Barclays Wyndham Rewards Earner Card	45,000 Wyndham Rewards	$450	Apply

For help getting US credit cards, please follow our guide to US credit cards for Canadians because Barclays accepts ITINs in lieu of SSNs for Canadians as of 2024.

Credit Card Spending

Since there are three Wyndham co-branded credit cards offered by Barclays in the United States, earning Wyndham Rewards points through spending is a valid option as they have decent earning rates on desirable bonus categories:

Credit Card	Earn Rate Per USD Spent at Wyndham Hotels	Earn Rate Per USD Spent on Other Categories
Barclays Wyndham Rewards Earner card	5x Wyndham Rewards Points	5x on gas, 2x on dining and groceries (excluding Wal-Mart and Target); 1x on all other purchases
Barclays Wyndham Rewards Earner Plus card	6x Wyndham Rewards Points	6x on gas, 4x on dining and groceries (excluding Wal-Mart and Target); 1x on all other purchases
Barclays Wyndham Rewards Earner Business card	8x Wyndham Rewards Points	8x on gas, 5x on marketing, advertising and eligible utilities; 1x on all other purchases

Crucially, these cards’ terms and conditions specify bonuses are tied to merchant codes, rather than merchant countries, so these multipliers should work in Canada.

Transferring Points From Other Loyalty Programs

Another option for accruing Wyndham Rewards points is to transfer points from another loyalty program. Recently, Wyndham Rewards became a Capital One Miles transfer partner. This means you can transfer Capital One Miles from products such as the Capital One Venture X Rewards card at a 1:1 ratio to Wyndham Rewards points.

While Capital One Cards can take some time for Canadians to acquire, they do offer a great way to improve your presence in this program if you don’t want to hold a co-branded Barclays credit card.

Purchase Wyndham Rewards Points

You can purchase Wyndham Rewards points for a base price of 1.3 cents (USD) per point, up to a maximum of 100,000 points per calendar year. Wyndham Rewards points can be purchased here.

This option does not offer ideal value, especially because the points acquired through purchasing, like all Wyndham Rewards points, expire 4 years after acquisition without exception.

Other Ways to Earn Wyndham Rewards Points

Like many rewards programs, Wyndham Rewards offers an e-store where you can earn additional reward points when purchasing goods and services. 

As a primarily US-based company, the Wyndham Rewards e-store is almost entirely US-based and has earn multipliers denominated entirely in USD, so this earning option is not particularly useful to Canadians.

Points can also earned by booking Wyndham Experiences, which include experiences such as tours or paid excursions, and earn a flat 10 Wyndham Rewards points per $1 USD spent.

Redeeming Wyndham Rewards Points

Stay at Wyndham Properties

The Wyndham Rewards program is one of the last truly old-school hotel redemption programs on the planet. It offers a mere three tiers for redeeming points for free nights, with commensurate offers for booking nights on points + cash:

At a flat rate of between 7,500 and 30,000 points, you can either punch very high or potentially very low on the value per point spent you get.

For example, here is a room at the Azteca All-Inclusive in Playa del Carmen, Mexico:

In this case, we must compare the cash price to see if the Points + Cash award price is worth it.

As we can see, the Points + Cash option actually costs more. Instead, redeeming 30,000 Wyndham Rewards points for a free night award nets a value of 1.44 cents (USD) per point which is a great redemption.

Other Ways to Redeem Wyndham Rewards Points

Interestingly, the Wyndham Rewards program will let you redeem points in their entirety for tours and excursions, although the value isn’t very enticing. 

For example, here is a tour in Nashville set for May 2025:

As we can see, the tickets could be purchased for $203 USD (thus earning 10 points for every dollar spent, albeit without Elite modifiers), or be free for 57,994 Wyndham rewards points. This nets a value of only .35 cents (USD) per point, which is unappealing at a minimum and shouldn’t even be considered a valid redemption option as opposed to redeeming for a hotel stay.

Wyndham Rewards Status

Like most hotel chains, Wyndham wishes to reward its most loyal customers and incentivize frequent travelers to stay at their properties.

Wyndham Rewards members earn status based on the number of qualifying nights that they stay at Wyndham properties each year.

• Wyndham Rewards Gold Elite: Earned after staying for 5 elite qualifying nights
• Wyndham Rewards Platinum Elite: Earned after staying for 15 elite qualifying nights
• Wyndham Rewards Diamond Elite: Earned after staying for 40 elite qualifying nights

As can be seen, in theory, the Wyndham Rewards program wishes to give its top-level status only to its most loyal customers based on the number of nights spent at their properties.

In reality, the program easily gives out its highest levels of elite status to consumers simply for holding their Barclays-issued co-branded credit cards:

• The Barclays Wyndham Rewards Earner card grants complimentary Gold Elite status
• The Barclays Wyndham Rewards Earner Plus card grants complimentary Platinum Elite status
• The Barclays Wyndham Rewards Earner Business card grants complimentary Diamond Elite status

This means that the easiest way to supercharge your status is to get approved for a Barclays co-branded credit card. In the past, this has been difficult for Canadians, but as of 2024 appears to be possible with an ITIN.

Benefits of Wyndham Rewards Status

As a budget-friendly hotel brand, the Wyndham Rewards program makes it very easy for most consumers to earn the basic Gold-level status. Most people taking road trips shouldn’t find it too hard to at least hit Gold status any year.

The chart of benefits is thus, and it should be noted that Gold elites earn 10% more points on their stays, Platinums 15% more, and Diamonds 20% more. Interestingly, this only applies to hotel stays and not to bookings made via Wyndham Experiences:

As can be seen, the best benefits are back-loaded into the program, with suite upgrades and welcome amenities only being offered to Diamond members. Suite upgrades are clearly more valuable, as Wyndham’s welcome amenities do not appear to be very exciting:

Late check-out times are also only 2 hours past normal check-outs for all tiers of status.

Therefore, Platinum status is the likeliest sweet spot. This is because it benefits from early check-in and potentially car rental upgrades. 

Even more importantly, like Diamond status, Wyndham Rewards Platinum Elite status can be used to match with the Caesar’s Rewards loyalty program. As Caesars’ website is careful to express, this match only applies to earned status. However, earned status is defined as acquiring Wyndham Platinum or Diamond Elite status by any mechanism (including credit card cardholder perks) other than another status match.

So if you get Wyndham Diamond by a promotion to match with another hotel program’s loyalty status, this won’t work. However, it does work for holders of the Barclays Wyndham Rewards Earner Business card.

While this only applies to travelers with a taste for Sin City, the perks are undeniable for anyone visiting Las Vegas. As our article on Las Vegas Status Matching describes, Caesars Rewards Diamond Status benefits can add up fast and include: 

• 15% off publicly available hotel rates when logged into your account
• No resort fees on hotel bookings made through caesars.com (average savings of $45 USD/night)
• Free valet or self-parking at select Las Vegas properties
• $100 USD celebration dinner which must be consumed in one sitting at select restaurants on Caesars’ properties

Overall, while Wyndham Elite status won’t outdo other hotel loyalty programs any time soon, it does have specific and unique value to any traveler who will wind up in Las Vegas at least once in their lives.

Frequently Asked Questions