Wyndham refreshed its existing card lineup today, plus they launched a new premium card.
The existing cards had increases in their annual fees (although not the no annual fee Earner card), had their earning categories changed, new benefits were added, and some existing benefits enhanced.
We mentioned it in the post about the card changes, but we also wanted to highlight in this separate post an important key detail. These changes are in force for new card applicants as of today, but existing cardholders will retain their existing annual fee, earning rates, and card benefits.
For many existing cardholders that’ll be welcome news. Your annual fee won’t be increasing and earning rates for gas stations won’t be dropping (new Business cardholders will only earn 5X on gas rather than 8X, new Earner Plus cardholders will only earn 1X on gas rather than 6X, while new Earner cardholders will only earn 1X on gas rather than 5X.)
The thing is, the refreshed cards—primarily the Earner Plus and Earner Business—are arguably better in a number of other ways thanks to new and enhanced benefits. That might leave some existing cardholders ruing the fact that they’re grandfathered in on the old card structure.
Well, there’s good news for those cardholders too. We reached out to Barclays and they advised that they’re working on the ability for existing cardholders to convert to the new card structure if they want to. That would be an optional change chosen by the cardholder; it wouldn’t be a forced conversion.
That’s the best of both worlds. If you like your card as it is, no problem—you can keep that. Jealous of the new card benefits? No problem with that either—you’ll (eventually) be able to product change.
It should be noted that the functionality to allow a product change isn’t there right now. We also don’t have a timeline for when this will be enabled, but it’s good to know that Barclays is actively working on providing existing cardholders with this opportunity.
When logging in to my Wyndham Rewards Earner Business account on the Barclays website earlier today, I noticed that they listed a 20% award night discount. That was surprising seeing as I’m an existing cardholder who shouldn’t have any of the new benefits. I checked the Wyndham website to see what actual discount I was being given and it was still 10% like always. We reached out to both Wyndham and Barclays to check if the 20% rate being displayed by Barclays was correct or an error. They both confirmed that it’s a known error that’ll be getting corrected; the 10% award night discount is the correct rate for existing Business cardholders.
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
Stephen:
Thanks for your quick reply. Last question if I upgrade to the new $149 Business Earner Card do I receive a 20% discount on award redemptions or does it stay at 10%?.
Bottom line for me, the $65 Costco credit offsets the added fee, reducing the gas earnings isn’t a big deal if I can get a 20% discount on award redemptions.
At the moment it’s not possible to product your card. If/when that does become possible, you’d get all the benefits of the new version of the card, so you would get the Costco membership credit, the 20% award discount, etc. You wouldn’t earn 8X on gas.
Stephen, I am confused on a few details. Can you please clarify.
Thanks for your help. I await your reply.
Stephen T.
If you keep the card and don’t product change, everything will remain the same. You don’t get any of the new benefits, but you also don’t get a higher annual fee, you maintain the 8X on gas, etc.
If you do product change if/when that becomes available, you’ll have all the benefits, annual fee, earning rates, etc. of the new version of the card.
The 15K bonus points when staying 5 nights is only a benefit on some of the personal cards, not the business card, so you wouldn’t get that even if you did product change.
Although the new Wyndham business earner card is nicely designed, the old version’s 8x gas and 5x utilities is clutch and not worth giving up at this time. Maybe next year…
Not mentioned(?), new business card allows you to save 15% When You Buy Points.
Perhaps one or more of the other cards have this benefit as well?
That’s a benefit on all existing cards too. Unfortunately the 15% discount is only applied when there’s not any other kind of points sale, so you can’t stack the two.
Wyndham includes gas and EV charging in the 4x travel category, so gas isn’t going to 1x
keeping existing benefits expected to be indefinite? or would it change at renewal. seems like other Barclays have implemented a grandfather style which could extend to years?
The impression I get is that it’s the latter; it doesn’t sound like they intend to migrate people over to the new card setup at renewal – for now at least.
thank you, long live 8x
IMO a grandfathered business card would pair incredibly well with the new premier card.
8x gas and 5x util will go 15% further with the redemption rebate – and the credits tremendously offset the annual fee.
I wonder if it would be possible to get a 2nd, refreshed business earner for those who want to keep the old version for 8x gas, etc… to take advantage of the 20% discount and the $65 warehouse club but without the 5/24 hit?
fresh! Yeah, I think it’s a no brainer for most to change the business to new version, if you have Costco for example that negates the annual fee bump. and +10% more off award stays vs 3x less in gas, I’ll take that. You’d otherwise have to buying a lot of gas, or when gas prices go stratospheric! In that case there are bigger issues at play.
I was thinking the same thing. Also if you have a wells fargo autograph, you can transfer to wyndham at 2 to 1 ratio. This coupled with the 20% discounted point stays plus the several times a year you can buy points for $0.0065 cents a point gives massive value for wyndham point stays.
Yes, I’ve got an Autograph. You got the right frame of mind. Thanks for the reminders!
Of course, a bigger question is — do I want to stay at a Wyndham? hahaha.
My last stay was at a Travelodge. Adequate, but not my first choice!
3N @ 15k / night = 4500 pts MORE saved with this xtra 10% discount
That’s equivalent to a loss of $1500 3x gas points. In my head I’ve always budgeted $100/mo for gas. So say $1200/year. Maybe its actually more I don’t actually track that closely. And for awhile I stopped using the Wyndham Business – because I didn’t see a real need for Wyndham points post-Vacasa besides what I already earn from 2 cards / yr (30k).
I’ve used pts before for Cottages, but no plans to ever return to UK like that.
Let’s say it’s $1,500 in gas / year.
So break even point on whether to upgrade is if I expect to use up ~3N of 15k pts / year worth of points.
If someone drives a gas guzzling RV or constantly on the road a lot – I can see the incentive to keep the 8x gas…but I think for me the 20% is potentially more valuable over time….as I’ve realized some new uses for Wyndham pts vs my future travel plans.
I still don’t understand the appeal of transferring from wells to wyndham points. If you have old Wells visa signature card, you get 50% boost on redeeming your wells points for airfare. So i’m getting 1.5 cent value for each wells point. Converting the point to 2 wyndham points gives me 2x.067 = 1.34 cent. I suppose 10% discount on redeeming wyndham points boosts the value to almost 1.5 but i can’t redeem it for airfare. Am I getting something wrong here?
You’re not necessarily doing anything wrong for your situation. I imagine a lot of people don’t have a Wells Fargo card that gets them 1.5 cents per point on airfare though.
The 0.67 cents per point value for Wyndham points is our Reasonable Redemption Value, so it’s definitely possible to get more than that. If you get 0.75 cents per point, that matches the 1.5 airfare rate with the other Wells Fargo card. A 10% discount on award nights on the old version of the cards, or a 20% discount (refreshed business card) or 25% discount (the new Wyndham Premier card) boost that value even further.
That means that if someone has the new Wyndham Premier card and can get 0.75 cents per point of value from Wyndham points ordinarily (which isn’t too difficult with a modicum of cherry picking awards), transferring from Wells Fargo would get them 2 cents per point of value from their Wells Fargo points.
Similarly, if someone gets the refreshed Wyndham business card and cherry picks Wyndham award nights so that they get 0.8 cents per point of value, that too would get them 2 cents per point of value from their Wells Fargo points when transferring them to Wyndham at 1:2.
Again, what you’re doing to get 1.5 cents per point of value for airfare isn’t necessarily wrong for you; I’m just explaining why some people are more excited about the prospect of the getting even higher value for Wyndham stays.
Not all of us need to transfer to airlines. I work for an airline and my company gives me 30% off full fare or fly standby for free. These WF and Wyndham points are valuable for me, since we are annual Disney pass holder and stay at many Wyndham and Choice hotels.
it is a brainer. don’t have costco, rarely stay at wyndham, like transfer points such as the united deal. do use the card for gas, and prices are stratopheric. haven’t you noticed?
😎
When I mean stratospheric, I mean $10-$15/gallon!
although some places pay $10+ / gallon due to taxes,so maybe I mean $15-$20/gallon!