Over the past couple of years, we’ve written about lots of ways to get “free” cruises (in quotation marks because there is usually some relatively minimal cost involved). We even recorded an entire podcast explaining how you can start with a credit card that costs $95 per year and end up with at least 4 free cruises (and I’ve since added to that). If you’ve followed along with the stories about how to cruise for free with Carnival and Royal Caribbean and then you’ve seen the match to get a free cruise with Holland America and the adventures I had in Atlantic City that should lead to a couple more free cruises, you likely know that the story starts with getting Wyndham Diamond status and matching that to Caesars Diamond status. Unfortunately, this is the step where some people get tripped up (through no fault of their own). Here’s what to do if it happens to you.
The short story: email Wyndham Rewards
If you’re a Wyndham Diamond member and your match to Caesars has failed, go here:
Wyndham Rewards Member Support Page
Scroll to where it says “email us” and click to send a message or click to expand phone numbers and call Wyndham Rewards (my wife emailed). My wife did this and got a reply about two days later that said that her Caesars Rewards status would update within 7 to 14 business days, but she logged into Caesars within a couple hours of receiving the email and her status was already showing Caesars Diamond. That’s the outcome she wanted and the short story.
The rest of the details follow.
Caesars Rewards x Wyndham Rewards partnership
Caesars Rewards and Wyndham Rewards have a partnership whereby they offer reciprocal status matching. Unfortunately, that matching does not happen automatically. You need to manually request a match of your status.
That’s not too tough — there is a website dedicated to matching status between the two programs. Assuming you have Wyndham Diamond status (which you get automatically when you have the Wyndham Rewards Business Earner card), you’ll click the button that says “I’m a Wyndham Rewards member – match my status”.
From there, you’ll be prompted to log in to your Wyndham Rewards account and enter your Caesars Rewards account information. After you submit, you’ll likely get to a confirmation page like this one:
As you can see, the confirmation page indicates that your Caesars Rewards tier status will be updated to Diamond within 7 business days.
That’s all well and good if it happens. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t work for everyone. This year, when I matched from Wyndham to Caesars, my Caesars Rewards status updated to Diamond within 5 days.
My wife also has Wyndham Diamond status (she is a Wyndham Rewards Earner Business credit card holder). When she matched this year, I thought I had verified that her account correctly updated to Diamond status. Unfortunately, we got to Atlantic City for the matching there and I discovered that, despite having submitted the match on February 1st of this year, her status was still showing Caesars Gold more than a month later (and I did have screen shots from submitting her Wyndham Diamond status for the match on 2/1/23).
We immediately tried matching again. Her Caesars status still remained at Gold a week after trying to match again. Many people have been in the same situation and tried to resubmit multiple times to no avail.
Then a reader mentioned having reached out to Caesars Rewards via Twitter and saying that their status was updated soon thereafter. Next, a couple of other readers commented saying that Caesars was unhelpful but that getting in touch with the Wyndham Rewards team resolved this quickly. I decided to try that angle and contact Wyndham Rewards for help pushing the match through.
I went to the bottom of the Wyndham Rewards home page and clicked “help” under “Member Support”.
I immediately noticed that the help page has a subsection dedicated to Caesars Rewards.
Funny enough, clicking that brings you to a page of frequently asked questions about the partnership with Caesars Rewards. Would you be surprised to learn that one of them is “What can I do if my Wyndham Rewards Status Match Application did not go through”?
The answer given to that question is that you should call Wyndham Rewards member support and it links you right back to the “help” page (here). Gotta love a good loop.
I scrolled down to the section of the page with Live Chat and Email Us. I My wife tried Live Chat, but despite being within the listed hours for Live Chat, it said that nobody was available. So we opted for “Email Us”.
From there, she sent a message explaining that she had submitted for a match to Caesars Rewards on February 1st and then again in March and her Caesars Rewards status was still showing Gold. She included her Caesars Rewards number again in the email and thanked them for their assistance.
While the message above says that someone will get back to your within 48 hours, the automated email response said that someone would respond within 12 hours. In reality, 48 hours was closer to accurate.
When Wyndham Rewards responded, they said:
Thank you for choosing Wyndham Rewards®.
I reviewed your account and we have sent off request to have your account status matched with Caesars, please allow 7-14 business days.
Your Wyndham Rewards status is active through the end of this year and can be renewed annually.
To learn more about Member Levels or to view the Terms & Conditions, please visit www.wyndhamrewards.com.
Please let me know if there is anything else I can assist with.
Thank you for your continued loyalty.
While the email said to allow 7-14 business days, she logged in to her Caesars Rewards account shortly after receiving that email and her status was updated to Diamond (oddly, as she logged in, the screen said “Gold” and showed a “Gold” card, but it immediately changed to the white-colored Caesars Diamond card and the word “Gold” changed to “Diamond”).
Anyway, it was pretty painless sending in that email — and now my wife is poised to take advantage of the same Atlantic City matching shenanigans so that maybe she will also get 2 free nights at Wynn Las Vegas and a free 7-night MSC cruise this year – and again next year. Wish us luck.
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I tried this method, and it does not appear to be the way to do it anymore:
Upon review of your account, your Wyndham Rewards Account is at the Diamond level. The status match to Caesars process can take from 7-14 business days to process. We appreciate your patience during the processing time. After this timeframe you can reach out to your Caesars Total Rewards on the status.
FWIW, mine updated today, no way to know if sending the messaged had any effect or not.
Interesting. Just earned my Diamond status through the Wyndham card and did the Caesar’s match online. I emailed support to speed up the process and got this reply:
Thank you for choosing Wyndham Rewards®.
I see that your Diamond status was recently achieved through our Barclay Visa Credit Card. Please be advised it will take approximately 31 days, or a full billing cycle for this to be visible for a Caesar Status match.
In order for us to complete another internal request for you, please include your Caesar member number with your correspondence.
Please let me know if there is anything else I can assist with.
Thank you for your continued loyalty.
Some DPs others might find useful:
[…] Miler has a post about this very issue and how you can try to contact Wyndham by email if your status match is […]
what if you get your status match with Hilton Diamond matching to Wyndham diamond. Can you then match to Caesars? I’m sure it can’t be that easy.
Caesars will only match “earned” Wyndham Diamond status. For whatever reason, the Wyndham Earner business card counts as “earned.” Your matched status does not.
Hi Nick, I was able to get diamond status through matching with my MGM gold status for this year. Do you know if we can renew the status next year by rematching through the merry go round or is the only way to keep status by fulfilling the earning requirements for this year? Thanks!
It was 2 weeks since my wife and I requested a status match to Caesars. I emailed Wyndham and they said:
“I am sorry but when it comes to status matches we are unable to expedite the process.
Please let me know if there is anything else I can assist with.
Thank you for your continued loyalty.”
Now, when you request it the site says please allow 7 business days, however somewhere else on Caesar’s they mention please allow 2 weeks.
So I guess I’ll wait another week and then contact Caesars.
Can you do Wyndham to Cesars in person (Vegas) to expedite the process or only online?
I tried that last year and they were useless at Caesar’s. Phone call to Wyndham rewards resolved the issue. Oh, if you happen to have the same name and birth date of someone in the system, they will have difficulty sorting you out when you go to get your card.
I am still trying to match my wyndham to caesars with no luck! They keep saying no because I was match.
I have the Wyndham Earner Business card that gives you Diamond Status. Using the online process of matching to Diamond to Caesars did not work. I followed the instructions of this post from Nick using the email method to plead my case – nothing (could have been operator error, a.k.a., ME, because I never received any feedback. After a couple weeks I called the Wyndham Diamond number described in this post, and they happily submitted the status matching request to Caesars. Three or four days later I’m a Caesars Diamond elite member. Imagine that, me who has the mind set that as long as they are bringing me “free” beers I’ll stay at the Black Jack table. Pretty sure over time those “free” beers add up to $22+ each.
Didn’t work for my wife. Emailed and this was their reply:
Thank you for choosing Wyndham Rewards®.
I have reviewed your Wyndham Rewards account and see you obtained your Diamond Status through your Caesars Status Match on January 5, 2023, therefore, you would not be eligible to match with Caesars Rewards.
Keep in mind, Wyndham Diamond status will only match to Caesars Diamond if you earned your elite status by staying 24 nights at Wyndham hotels. Or if you “earned” Wyndham Diamond via the Wyndham Rewards Earner Business Card in which you get Diamond status automatically when you have this card.
If you have any further questions, please be sure to see more about the terms and conditions by visiting the Caesar’s website.
Same here. I tried twice and got the same messages twice.
Anyone notice the Caesars match page has changed its look? I submitted again and will also email Wyndham.
I matched from Caesars to Wyndham in Jan. Request twice but was not upgraded.
Followed the above instructions, emailed, and got the following response.
Thank you so much for your interest in our Status Match program with Caesars. I see that you achieved your Wyndham Rewards Diamond by CET Status Match program which does not qualify for a Status Match with Caesars.
Thanks Nick. I had tried the online match 2 or 3 time this year since I was downgraded and it wasn’t working. I emailed Wyndham yesterday and they emailed me back today saying they matched it. Checked caesars after receiving email and I am diamond.
How long do you have before the cruise certs expire?