Back in March, Wyndham Rewards ran their annual Member Month promos. The first one of those had two parts to it:
- Stay 3 consecutive nights & earn 15,000 bonus points, or stay 2 consecutive nights & earn 7,500 bonus points
- Earn 5,000 bonus points on your first eligible stay if you’re a Wyndham cardholder
That promo was valid on stays from March 1-May 19. As luck would have it, we needed to book a four night stay in early May where there were very few accommodation options and a Baymont by Wyndham was our best option.
I have a Wyndham Rewards Earner Business credit card, so I expected to earn 20,000 bonus points for the stay – 15,000 for staying 3+ consecutive nights and the additional 5,000 bonus points for being a Wyndham cardholder.
The 15,000 points posted along with the base points for the stay, but the 5,000 points for being a cardholder didn’t show up. I figured that they’d post separately – perhaps after my next credit card statement posted – but they still didn’t show up on my account.
Wyndham offers a couple of contact options on their website (in addition to calling) – live chat or email via a contact form. I noticed this late at night when Live Chat wasn’t an option; I knew a virtual assistant wouldn’t just award 5,000 bonus points and so I sent a message via their contact form.
I don’t have a record of what I specifically wrote in that initial message, but it basically summarized what I’ve described above. This was the reply I received:
Wyndham: You can earn Wyndham Rewards points when you use your Wyndham Rewards® Visa® credit card to pay for your stays at participating hotels as well as other eligible purchases. The number of points earned for your purchase varies by merchant.
The “spend” portion noted in your account refers to any payments made for stays at participating hotels. The “earning” portion noted in your account refers to all other eligible purchases made with your credit card.
Please call Barclay’s Credit Card regarding your bonus points at 866-428-2424.
This began a lengthy back-and-forth process with Wyndham Rewards Member Services who don’t seem to pay much attention to the “services” part of the department name.
Me: The bonus points are from a promotion that’s run by Wyndham Rewards though – they’re not specifically bonus points earned by the credit card. As a result, the bonus points would be awarded by Wyndham Rewards, not by Barclays.
Wyndham: I have reviewed your account and I am showing that you have not registered for the Member Month 2023 Barclays Bonus.
Members will have from March 1, 2023 through May 14, 2023 to book their stay, and must complete their stay by May 19, 2023. Cardmembers must book, and stay in that order, and must stay a minimum of 2 consecutive nights. The bonus is 5,000 points. There is an award cap of 1 award per cardmember on this promotion. Go Free and Go Fast stays/nights are not eligible towards the bonus. This offer is combinable with all other offers but is non-transferable.
Me: I did register for the promotion giving the bonus points because I earned the separate 15k bonus points from that promotion already – it’s just the bonus points for being a cardholder that’s missing. I’ve attached a screenshot of the email you sent confirming that I was registered.
Also, pasted below are the pertinent parts of the terms and conditions of the offer:
Each of the bonus point awards described above will hereinafter occassionally be referred to as a “Promotion Bonus”. Registered Members who are also Primary Cardmembers will earn an additional 5,000 Wyndham Rewards bonus points after completion of their first stay to earn a Promotion Bonus (an “Additional Bonus”). There is a limit of one (1) Additional Bonus per Primary Cardmember regardless of how many nights they consume in accordance with the Booking & Stay requirements.
Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in these Offer Terms, each Registered Member who is not a Primary Cardmember may earn a total of 30,000 Wyndham Rewards bonus points, and each Registered Member who is a Primary Cardmember, may earn a total of 35,000 Wyndham Rewards bonus points, pursuant to this Offer, regardless of how many stays or nights such Member consumes in accordance with the Booking & Stay Requirements.
I’ve also attached a screenshot of the registration page of the offer where the terms mention those bonus points.
Please could you therefore add the bonus points to my account.
I’d hoped that this would be sufficient to get the bonus points awarded. Alas not.
Wyndham: After reviewing your account, I am sorry however it does not show that you registered for this particular promotion. Therefore, your stay is not eligible for the extra bonus points.
If you have any further questions about this issue, please contact Member Services at 1-866-443-6181.
Me: As per my previous email, one of the screenshots clearly confirms that I was registered for the promotion which is further confirmed by the fact that I earned the 15,000 points as part of the promotion. It’s only the second part of the promotion – the 5,000 points for being a cardholder – that you’ve neglected to add to my account. Please could you therefore add those points.
Wyndham: The attachment you provided shows your registration to a to the “Earn up to 15k points on your next stay” promotion.
In order to earn the 5,000 bonus points, you would have needed to register to the promotion “Member Month 2023 Barclays Bonus” as it is a separate promotion and registration.
Me: Please find attached the full confirmation email I received for this promotion. As you can see in the promotion terms and conditions at the bottom of the email, it clearly states the following:
Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in these Offer Terms, each Registered Member who is not a Primary Cardmember may earn a total of 30,000 Wyndham Rewards bonus points, and each Registered Member who is a Primary Cardmember, may earn a total of 35,000 Wyndham Rewards bonus points, pursuant to this Offer, regardless of how many stays or nights such Member consumes in accordance with the Booking & Stay Requirements.
There was no separate registration required. I was a registered member for the promotion and so I could earn the 15,000 bonus points up to two times and the 5,000 bonus for being a cardholder once. I earned 15,000 bonus points – it’s the 5,000 points that haven’t been awarded which I was registered for as part of this promotion.
Please could you therefore add the bonus points to my account.
Wyndham: Please be advised that there were 2 seperate offers one for the Earn up to 15k points on your next stay and you registered on 03/01/2023 and one for Summer 2023 – 5,000 Bonus Pts and you have not registered for the promotion.
Please see the terms and conditions for both offers below.
Summer 2023 – 5,000 Bonus Pts – Members will have from May 24, 2023 through August 31, 2023 to register for the promo and book their stay, and must complete their stay by September 5, 2023. Members must register, book, and stay in that order, and must stay a minimum of 2 consecutive nights to be eligible to receive the bonus. The bonus construct is 5,000 bonus points. There is a points cap of one (1) bonus on this promotion. Go Free and Go Fast stays/nights are not eligible towards the bonus. This offer is combinable with all other offers but is non-transferable.
Earn up to 15k points on your next stay – Members must register, book, and stay in that order, and must stay a minimum of 2 consecutive nights to be eligible to receive the bonus. The bonus construct is based off the number of nights for the stay (2 nights = 7,500 points, 3 or more nights = 15,000 points). There is a points cap of 30,000 total points per member on this promotion. WYND and CET properties can participate in this offer. Go Free and Go Fast stays/nights are not eligible towards the bonus. This offer is combinable with all other offers but is non-transferable.
I’ll admit, I was getting more frustrated by this point, so my next reply started off a little less than warm and fuzzy.
Me: Let’s try this again for the 6th time. There was no separate registration. I’ve attached proof of this via the Wayback Machine which shows that Week 1 of Member Month only had registration required for the one promotion. Keep scrolling down that page and it clearly states the following:
Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in these Offer Terms, each Registered Member who is not a Primary Cardmember may earn a total of 30,000 Wyndham Rewards bonus points, and each Registered Member who is a Primary Cardmember, may earn a total of 35,000 Wyndham Rewards bonus points, pursuant to this Offer, regardless of how many stays or nights such Member consumes in accordance with the Booking & Stay Requirements.
That’s listed as part of the terms and conditions of this promotion:
Member Month: Earn up to 30,000/35,000 Wyndham Rewards Bonus Points Terms & Conditions
That’s the promotion that I was registered for, that I previously provided proof that I was registered for and for which you’ve already awarded me 15,000 bonus points.
The PDF that’s attached is what was on your website when registering for the promotion. You can view it for yourselves at this link. https://web.archive.org/web/20230305232752/https://www.wyndhamhotels.com/wyndham-rewards/hotel-deals/member-month This is an archived copy of your website.
Please could you add the 5,000 bonus points to my account.
I think they’d given up on trying to help at that point as I didn’t hear back from them at all after that. That was on May 24, so I followed up with them on June 4:
Me: I’ve still not received the 5k bonus points from this promotion.
Once again, I received no reply.
I’m nothing if not stubborn though. While 5,000 Wyndham Rewards points probably wasn’t worth the effort, at this point it was a matter of principle and so I decided to try a different route by submitting a complaint to the Better Business Bureau (BBB). I was far from convinced that it would work (I’d read in the past that some companies just ignore BBB complaints seeing as they’re non-enforceable), but figured it was worth a try.
It turns out that did the trick.
I filed the following complaint from this page for Wyndham on BBB’s website on June 17:
We stayed at the Baymont by Wyndham Pierre, SD from xx/xx/xx-xx/xx/xx. At the time they were running this promotion: https://frequentmiler.com/wyndham-promo-stay-3-consecutive-nights-earn-15k-points-2-nights-for-7500-points/
This gave 15,000 bonus points when staying 3+ consecutive nights, as well as 5,000 bonus points if you have a Wyndham credit card. I have the Wyndham Rewards Earner Business credit card, so I expected to earn both the 15,000 bonus points and the 5,000 bonus points. However, they only awarded the 15,000 points.
I’ve contacted Wyndham multiple times regarding this and they’ve refused to award the bonus points. They’ve tried claiming the 5,000 bonus points was for a separate promo that required a separate registration, but I’ve provided them with screenshots and links (also attached) to prove that wasn’t the case. This includes the confirmation email they sent when I registered for the promo that clearly states that there was the additional 5,000 points available if I was a cardholder.
The Internet Archive of the promotion landing page can also be found here which, once again, shows the 5,000 bonus points as being on offer when registering for the 15,000 points offer. https://web.archive.org/web/20230305232752/https://www.wyndhamhotels.com/wyndham-rewards/hotel-deals/member-month
I’ve also attached a PDF of the email conversations going back and forth with Wyndham where I’ve clearly explained how I’m eligible for these bonus points.
The form asks how you’d like for the complaint to be resolved, so I stated that all I wanted was the 5,000 bonus points.
The Better Business Bureau sent an email confirming they’d received the complaint and had forwarded it to Wyndham. Wyndham in turn sent me an email a couple of days later confirming that they’d received the complaint and would contact me within a week to address my concern.
It didn’t take that long though. Later that same day I received an email from the BBB that I’d received a new message. When logging in to the complaint, it said that they’d received a reply from Wyndham stating the following:
Thank you for notifying our office of the concern filed by Stephen Pepper at the Baymont by Wyndham property in Pierre, SD. To assist in reaching a resolution, I’ve informed our Wyndham Rewards Team of the situation. The 5,000 Wyndham Reward Points have now been added to your account. As a company, we’re committed to delivering a great experience with every stay with us.
Our sincere apologies for this experience.
Sure enough, when logging in to my account those 5,000 bonus points had been credited:
So the moral of the story? If Wyndham refuses to award you bonus points from a past promotion, file a complaint with the BBB and that’ll hopefully light a fire under them. I’m not the only person affected by this as a member of the Frequent Miler Insiders Facebook group encountered the exact same problem, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some kind of registration issue with that promotion resulting in no one earning the 5,000 bonus points for being a cardholder.
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As a Data point, I had missing points from the Blue Apron promo that was purchased at the beginning of April. It showed as pending for over 60 days and then I created a ticket that went unanswered for over a month. I created a BBB complaint about 3 days ago and they finally responded to my ticket yesterday and I received my missing points today on 7/10/2023. Thanks for the tip!
There is also the 5000 points for the current Wyndham promo (same terms). Were you able to get 5000 + 5000 points?
I had the exact same thing.
I had an experience with Wyndham not issuing the bonus points that I earned through a promo in 2018. I had to call multiple times, email w/attached receipts, etc. It was pretty frustrating, but they did eventually award the bonus points due as part of the promotion. Fortunately, I didn’t have to go the BBB route.
However, I’ve had similar issues with other loyalty programs with bonus points from promotions not awarding correctly. My guess is that most of the time, the bonus points are probably awarded correctly for most promotions. It would be nice if the associate communicating with you truly understood the nature of the error and had a tight grasp on the terms & conditions of their company’s promotion.
It seems like you may have simply been communicating with someone who either didn’t know how to do their job correctly or simply didn’t care enough to be bothered by it – which is both disappointing and unfortunate. I’m happy that they eventually fulfilled their end of the agreement and you were able to get the point due. Personally, I think if they valued your business at all, they should throw in an extra 5k or something for your trouble
I had the same problem! I’ll be doing this now.
Fighting for points from Wyndham Rewards promotions is why I quit paid stays with their program in 2018. Burned off the last of my Wyndham points for a New Year’s Eve stay in Amsterdam 2018-19.
There are plenty of other hotel loyalty programs that work. And when they don’t, at least they have decent customer service.
Stephen, I commend you on your persistance. I am the same way and will pursue it based on principle alone to get what Iam duly entitled to. Is it an efficient use of time? probably not, but once you’re invested, it’s hard to let go and “give up” (which is exactly what most companies bank on 99% of people will do).
Don’t you tire of fighting for points and benefits…I mean the 99.9%of you that don’t own or work for a blog?
I know I do.
If there’s not outsize value with something, I won’t play. Still, I sometimes get screwed, such as Dell /Rakuten claiming I did not click through for 15x MR’s.
I wish I worked for DOJ, then I could investigate Rakuten and Jan 6 with just a change in keystrokes.
Now I’m going back to my cave to hide…..oh, no! Cave Dweller is in there!
Maybe I’ll just walk to Sao Paulo.
I’ve used BBB a few times years ago not points/miles related, but basically the same. Always got what I was seeking. The BBB carries some weight with legit enterprises. Good story.
If you wanta good laugh take a look at Mypillow.com on BBB site.
F rating but the responses from the business are priceless if still there.
I’ve used BBB several times for instances of a failure to track AA eshopping trips. Frankly I have extremely low patience for the very scummy customer service techniques practiced by many companies of delay, deny, delay, and deny some more for people to just give up, so my threshold to escalate is far lower than Steven’s.
I totally agree on one’s threshold getting lower, much lower. Right now P2 is having this with Chase Ultimate Rewards as primary, Viator as the “subcontractor” and who knows in Germany as the one that was to PU at Frankfort Airport. So far nothing. I’m thinking if this was Amex, or has been my experience, customer service (satisfaction) would come first. Does not seem to be the way with Chase UR.
Love this Good Job