Wyndham Rewards announced today that they are launching a rewards debit card in order to target the segment of the market that is eschewing credit cards. This card probably won’t be of broad interest to most readers, but it does offer a small welcome bonus and the chance to earn 1 Wyndham Rewards point per dollar spent on gas and grocery purchases.
The Deal
- Wyndham Rewards has today launched a debit card issued by Sunrise Banks N.A. and powered by Galileo Financial Technologies (a SoFi subsidiary) which will earn at the following reates:
- 1 point per $1 spent on on Wyndham, gas, and grocery
- 1 point per $2 spent on all other purchases
- Additionally, the card is offering a bonus of 2,500 Wyndham Rewards points when you make two direct deposits and spend $100 in the first 90 days.
- Direct link to this deal
Quick Thoughts
You can earn much more valuable rewards on all of your purchases with the right credit card or credit card combination. Since our Reasonable Redemption Value for Wyndham Rewards points is just 1.01c per point, you would probably be better off using a credit card that offers 2% back on all purchases with no annual fee and either using your cash back to book hotels (without being limited to Wyndham) or strategically buy points when they are on sale (Wyndham sells theirs for less than 1c per point a few times each year).
There are a few important things to know about this account:
- There is a $6 monthly fee if you don’t maintain an average monthly balance of $2,500. This could easily be a deal-breaker (see more below).
- Cardholders get complimentary Wyndham Rewards Gold status
- You can earn 2,500 bonus points after making at least two direct deposits and spending at least $100 in the first 90 days
- You can earn an anniversary bonus based on cumulative purchases:
- 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
The monthly fee is the most problematic piece given that paying the fee would be like paying an annual fee of $72 for a debit card with lackluster rewards when you could alternatively pay no annual fee for the Wyndham Rewards Earner card (which earns 5x at Wyndham properties and gas, 2x on grocery & restaurants and 1x everywhere else). Keeping the account fee-free requires an average monthly balance of $2,500. However, based on current high-yield savings account interest rates, that’s even worse than paying the monthly fee. At just 4% APY, you’d earn $100 over the course of a year with your $2,500 in a savings account (at the time of writing, Doctor of Credit lists more than 60 different banks offering high-yield savings rates of 4% or better). That makes this card hard to consider apart from transferring money in to make specific types of purchases to earn rewards.
This card therefore won’t make sense for most folks, but perhaps there are some who will find the combination of 1x at grocery and the chance to earn an additional 7,500 points after $15K in purchases somewhat appealing.
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Yeah but can you load it with another debit? 😉
I was also curious so made an account. The answer is no.
This feels like points for the Dave Ramsey crowd.
Honestly, keeping $2500 in a checking account probably isn’t a terrible thing for people using the account for revolving purchases. But yes, the deposit base is funding the rewards.
Brent, note the $2,500 is average daily balance…so there’s no need to park $2,500 minimum there.
Thanks Nick.
As far as I know, this is the best uncapped *personal* (as opposed to business) rewards debit card to drop since the late great Suntrust Delta card (oh how we miss thee!).
Will be interesting to see how much volume they tolerate.
I feel like a $72 AF could have at least given you platinum status.
Wouldn’t this be a great card to pay taxes with? Or other things that have a fixed fee for debit card use?
“Great” might be a bit of a stretch, but it certainly may be appealing depending on your other alternatives.
For example, if you have a $20K tax payment to make, you are correct that you would only pay ~$2.15 to pay via debit card and earn 10,000 Wyndham points (worth about $100).
On the flip side, if you have the Bank of America Unlimited Cash Rewards or Premium Rewards with Platinum Honors, you can earn 2.625% cash back and pay a fee of 1.75% to pay via credit card. So you’d earn $525 cash back for a fee of $350, netting $175. Since Wyndham often sells points for a little less than 1c per point, you could buy 10,000 Wyndham points and have about $75 left over.
Obviously the math changes depending on how much of a payment you need to make, what your best alternative card is, etc. It certainly might be one of the best options for your situation, it’s just going to vary.
(actually, I left out of that math the fact that the $20K tax payment would also get you the 7,500 point anniversary bonus, which makes it a lot closer….until you consider the $6 monthly fee or opportunity cost of leaving money in this account to keep it fee-free).
Wyndham Earner Business card for the win! : )