# Wyndham Rewards



## lwcgrad08 (Jun 21, 2012)

Anyone ever use Wyndham Rewards and been able to use it to make you money back?


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## learnalot (Jun 21, 2012)

lwcgrad08 said:


> Anyone ever use Wyndham Rewards and been able to use it to make you money back?



If "make your money back" relates in any way to something a sales person pitched you - balderdash!  Anyone can sign up for a Wyndham Rewards number - essentially a hotel loyalty-type program.  There is also a Wyndham Rewards credit card available.  If you want one (and your credit is good), you can get one by simply applying.  It in no way requires a developer purchase from Wyndham.  As far as the rewards program goes, it is pretty typical - 1% back, a little more for certain categories, but I think you can usually do better with other rewards program or cash back cards.


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## simpsontruckdriver (Jun 21, 2012)

I use Wyndham Rewards for hotel stays, but use it 100% separate from the Wyndham Timeshare. Between now and July 8th, 2 stays ($75 or more per night), booking online gets you 2 free movie tickets. Other deals come and go. Now, giving WR your Wyndham points is a waste of money, better just to spend on rooms and get rewards.

TS


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## Cheryl20772 (Jun 22, 2012)

Sales people like to use WR as a hook to make you think you can get your fees back.  Yes, you can convert Club Wyndham Plus points into Wyndham Rewards points.  Yes, you can convert Club Wyndham Plus points into maintenance dollars.  The devil is in the details and sales associates will never reveal to you what the current rate of conversion is or what the associated fees are.  If they did, you would be able to see that the best use of your Wyndham points is to stay in Wyndham resorts.  If you can't use the points, the next best solution is to personally find someone to rent your vacation time from you for what the points cost you in fees.

We use Wyndham Rewards only to generate points by using their associated credit card and use those WR points to pay for our hotel/motel stays on the way to or from our Wyndham resort stays.  This allows us usually to stay in a nice Wingate rather than a Super8 with no associated fees at all.

In that sense we have taken back some of our vacation expenses using WR for free hotel/motel stays.  I guess that impacts our total budget; which in effect works to recoup some fees.  It's not what the Wyndham sales people mean though when they try to sell you more points using WR.


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## markb53 (Jun 22, 2012)

It is true, the best use of the Wyndham reward points is probably for hotel stays. Since I stay in hotels rarely. I think another good way to use Wyndham Rewards is make a payment on your maintenance fees. For 10,000 Wyndham Reward points you can put $60.00 towards your maintenance fee. I have a Wyndham Rewards credit card and I get 2 Wyndham rewards points for each dollar I spend on the card. So, for every $5000.00 spend I can put $60.00 towards my maintenance fees. That comes to a 1.2 percent return. Which is a little better than the 1 percent I have received from other rewards cards I have had in the past.


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## ronparise (Jun 22, 2012)

markb53 said:


> It is true, the best use of the Wyndham reward points is probably for hotel stays. Since I stay in hotels rarely. I think another good way to use Wyndham Rewards is make a payment on your maintenance fees. For 10,000 Wyndham Reward points you can put $60.00 towards your maintenance fee. I have a Wyndham Rewards credit card and I get 2 Wyndham rewards points for each dollar I spend on the card. So, for every $5000.00 spend I can put $60.00 towards my maintenance fees. That comes to a 1.2 percent return. Which is a little better than the 1 percent I have received from other rewards cards I have had in the past.



I had a salesmant present Wyndham Rewards as part of his sales pitch...He said in as insulting tone as possible..."None of my VIP customers pay maintenance fees any more"  and then went on to explain how I can do what you are doing (ie spend $5000 to earn $60 toward my fees...and The program Cheryl explained in her post above (convert vacation points to reward points to maintenance fee dollars)

I pulled out a pencil and paper and my trusty calculator and  showed him that using the 1.2% return that you calculated, I would need to spend nearly $20,000 a month on my credit card..and using the conversion Vacation points to rewards points I would need to convert 250000 points to earn $600 toward maintenance fees...And the fees on those 250000 are over twice as much

No question every little bit helps and using the rewards credit card can pay a little toward your fees, and if you find yourself one year with more points than you can use, converting them to dollars would be better than losing them, but dont listen to your salesman when he suggests that you can offset all your maintenance fees in this way. And if he says the answer to all the worlds problems is to just buy more points from him...dont listen to that either


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## hjtug (Jun 22, 2012)

markb53 said:


> So, for every $5000.00 spend I can put $60.00 towards my maintenance fees. That comes to a 1.2 percent return. Which is a little better than the 1 percent I have received from other rewards cards I have had in the past.



The CapitalOne Venture card has a 2% return on all charges.  The return can be used to offset any travel expenses charged to the card.  Travel expenses include fares, lodging and Wyndham maintenance fees.


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## markb53 (Jun 22, 2012)

hjtug said:


> The CapitalOne Venture card has a 2% return on all charges.  The return can be used to offset any travel expenses charged to the card.  Travel expenses include fares, lodging and Wyndham maintenance fees.



The Venture card has and annual fee I believe. And I am always looking for one with no fees. My current rewards card is a capital one no fee card and I get 1% back. The real advantage of the Capital One card is that the points never expire. In another year or so I will have enough points for 2 round trips to Europe. I applied for the Wyndham Rewards card mostly because they give 12,000 points on first use. Added to the points I already have, I will have 20,000 point which is worth $120.00. I figured it was worth $120.00 to apply for the card.


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## markb53 (Jun 22, 2012)

ronparise said:


> I had a salesmant present Wyndham Rewards as part of his sales pitch...He said in as insulting tone as possible..."None of my VIP customers pay maintenance fees any more"  and then went on to explain how I can do what you are doing (ie spend $5000 to earn $60 toward my fees...and The program Cheryl explained in her post above (convert vacation points to reward points to maintenance fee dollars)
> 
> I pulled out a pencil and paper and my trusty calculator and  showed him that using the 1.2% return that you calculated, I would need to spend nearly $20,000 a month on my credit card..and using the conversion Vacation points to rewards points I would need to convert 250000 points to earn $600 toward maintenance fees...And the fees on those 250000 are over twice as much
> 
> No question every little bit helps and using the rewards credit card can pay a little toward your fees, and if you find yourself one year with more points than you can use, converting them to dollars would be better than losing them, but dont listen to your salesman when he suggests that you can offset all your maintenance fees in this way. And if he says the answer to all the worlds problems is to just buy more points from him...dont listen to that either



I just went to an owners update in Oceanside CA. It was remarkably easy. Took only 45 min. There pitch was get to VIP before October. My wife said we were not buying any more points because when we bought our points from Wyndham a year ago the sales person lied to us. She acted very surprised and we were off to gifting. No pitch about using Wyndham Rewards to pay our maintenance fees or anything. I was ready to give the sales person a hard time. I have been reading this board now for a while (I wish I had found it before I made my developer purchase, but that is water under the bridge) and I thought I would have an answer to everything. But I didn't have to use any of it.


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## Cheryl20772 (Jun 22, 2012)

markb53 said:


> and I thought I would have an answer to everything. But I didn't have to use any of it.


There will be many more vacations to come and Wyndham sales will still be there to try and squeeze more money from your wallet.  Never fear you will certainly get another chance have some fun  

We are grist for the mill.  Wyndham makes much more money selling more points to those who have already fallen for their hard sell tactics; than to cold contacts pulled off the streets.


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## hjtug (Jun 22, 2012)

markb53 said:


> The Venture card has and annual fee I believe. And I am always looking for one with no fees.



Yes, it does.  I had sworn never to pay a fee to earn credit card points but when I analyzed it, the extra points earned quickly offset the annual fee.  The Capital One Venture card used to waive the fee for the first year and maybe they still do that.


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