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 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?
I’M CAESARS DIAMOND!! Just got it today. I tried doing it via the website…waited 2 weeks, nothing. So next I emailed wyndham and they told me i needed to stay 40 nights, that my Wyndham Diamond status thru the biz earner card wasn’t enough. I then called wyndham yesterday, they emailed Caesars for me and now I’m Diamond!
Please be advised that in order to qualify for a status match with Caesars, a member must stay the required 40 qualifying nights or be a Wyndham Rewards Earner Business Credit Card holder.
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.
see my post above. u need to call wyndham and have them email caesars for u.
Email didn’t work. Wyndham said because i earned status w/ credit card that I couldn’t match. So I called Wyndham today and they emailed Caesars for me. Said it would take 7-14 biz days
After doing the status match on the website I don’t seem to get the same message that you get, mine says “Thank you. Please allow up to 2 weeks for your Caesars Rewards status to be updated. Return to My Rewards dashboard” It clearly says 2 weeks, how did you get yours to display 7 days?
Just heard back from Wyndham, unfortunately didn’t work for me:
Thank you so much for your interest in our Status Match program with Caesars. I see that you achieved your Wyndham Rewards Diamond Level by Caesars Total Rewards Status Match which does not qualify for a Status Match with Caesars.
Please let me know if there is anything else I can assist with.
Thank you for your continued loyalty.
same here
Ditto
From my notes. My wife and I both have the Wyndham Business Earners card:
Me – Requested match to Caesar’s Diamond 02/01/23 and 02/21/23. Received 03/03/23.
She – Requested match to Caesar’s Diamond 01/17/23 and 02/01/23. Received 02/16/23.
The links on the Cesars page are no good. it only only you to request status from Cesars to Wyndham and not Wyndham to Cesars
Aww I wish I saw your article earlier. In the past years my Wyndham diamond always matched over to Cesears with no hiccup. But this year it didn’t work. I thought they stopped doing that and now both statuses have lapsed 🙁
I did this the day before you posted this info. I got an email back from Wyndham about an hour ago stating that they won’t match me, again, due to having matched to Wyndham from Hilton. That was about 3 years ago. Ever since then, I’ve been doing the Wyndham/Caesars handshake.
Hello guys. First off, the best points podcast in the biz. Second, my wife and especially me had trouble with the match. I finally emailed Caesars for us both and was matched within the week.
Tweeted with Caesars and they told me it was a Wyndham problem.
Emailed Wyndham as above and the process for matching was explained to me and reminded me that I must be a Wyndham Diamond member. Part of the form requires your Wyndham number so the fact they told me I must be diamond to match, tells me they didnt really look into my request at all. Sadly not impressed with Wyndham customer service
Just submitted. It will be interesting to see what happens, as I know there is an issue between the two accounts. We moved this year, and while I could update Wyndham online, Caesars can only be updated in person, so the addresses won’t match.
Same as others: “you achieved your Wyndham Rewards Diamond by match your CET with Wyndham Rewards on January 24, 2023, which is the Competitor Status Match program, and it does not qualify for a Status Match with Caesars.”
P2 filled out that same form, no luck. Been weeks 🙁
We’ve been waiting too, but tried to use Globalist to MGM Gold to Carnival, and nothing happened. Still a Carnival Blue 🙁
Thank you for this post.
We’ve been waiting a few weeks with no updates from Caesar’s.