Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to mourn the loss of a well-loved member of the travel community – the Wyndham Rewards status match.
For the last 18 months or more, Wyndham offered to match your status in another hotel chain to status with Wyndham Rewards. That opportunity is sadly no more, because when checking the status match page last night, this is the message that greeted me.
This is a disappointing turn of events. Wyndham’s status matching feature was so useful because it could be parlayed into other – more valuable – statuses with other hotel chains and casinos. Nick wrote in great detail how you could match Hilton Honors Gold status (which is very easy to get) to Wyndham Rewards Diamond status and subsequently turn that into status with Caesars Total Rewards, Choice Privileges, Best Western Rewards, MGM M life and possibly even to Hilton Diamond status, despite the whole process starting with Hilton Gold status. For more about how that worked, read [Time to hop on board] From zero to hero on the status-match-go-round.
For now, that go-round is no longer an opportunity, unless you’d already hopped on board and obtained Wyndham’s Diamond status. Thankfully my wife and I did that a few months ago so we’re OK for now, for as much good as it’ll do us with travel opportunities greatly limited at the moment.
The one positive thing is that the message on the status match landing page suggests that this feature might simply be hibernating. The fact that they say it’s not being offered at this time and that status matching will become available again gives cause for hope. As for when it becomes available again is anyone’s guess.
It’s not clear if this is a response to their struggles as a result of COVID-19 or if this was pre-planned. Considering they were handing out Diamond status like candy up until now, I’m surprised they’re not continuing to do so seeing as it’ll cost them very little right now, but could potentially encourage people to book with them. If I had to guess, the team processing status matches has been furloughed, so this might purely be a logistical change forced on them, rather than something that they wanted to do. When travel starts to see an uptick, hopefully Wyndham (and all hotel chains and airlines) will be able to bring back all their staff on board. If and when that happens, we’ll hopefully see a return of Wyndham’s status matching.
Until then, farewell friend.
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
