Wyndham Hotels and Resorts have a 72-hour sale for a few select properties across the U.S. and even Panama with some hotels up to 50% off.

I found great rates for the Wyndham Orange County Costa Mesa at $69 per night next week using this 72-hour sale. The rate for a suite is $119 per night using this 72-hour rate sale, but drops to only $83 per night for a 3-night stay in a suite.

Eligible travel dates using these rates vary by property. Wyndham Orange County allows Nov 17 – January 9. Milwaukee Wisconsin is valid for travel dates through June 1, 2011.

Save 50% in Glen Allen, Virginia

Wyndham Virginia Crossings Hotel & Conference Center  From $49 / night

Save 50% in Costa Mesa, California

Wyndham Orange County  From $69 / night

Save 45% in Indianapolis, Indiana

Wyndham Indianapolis West  From $59 / night

Save 40% in Irving, Texas

Wyndham Las Colinas From $62 / night 

Save 40% in Reunion, Florida 

Reunion Resort and Club Wyndham Grand Resort From $179 / night

Save 40% in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Wyndham Milwaukee Airport and Convention Center
From $78 / night

Save 35% in Panama City, Panama

Veneto – A Wyndham Grand Hotel From $98 / night

Save 30% in Lake Buena Vista, Florida 

Wyndham Lake Buena Vista Resort From $62 / night

Save 25% in Nashville, Tennessee 

Union Station – A Wyndham Grand Hotel From $156 / night

Save 25% in St. Louis, Missouri 

The Roberts Mayfair – A Wyndham Historic Hotel
From $75 / night

Save 25% in San Francisco, California

Parc 55 Wyndham San Francisco – Union Square

From $179 / night

The $179 San Francisco rate does not impress me for the Parc 55 unless you get that rate during a regular business weekday. Weekend rates will typically be lower than that in San Francisco.

Related Link: http://boardingarea.com/blogs/loyaltytraveler/2010/11/07/wyndham-rewards-and-wyndham-byrequest-overview/

Wyndham Worldwide Corporation and Wyndham Rewards for hotels have so many facets that it is difficult to get a handle on the hotel chain as a whole entity.

Wyndham is the largest hotel chain in the world by number of hotels with over 7,200 franchised properties. There are 11 hotel brands currently participating in Wyndham Rewards. Spanish hotel chain Sol Melia Hotels Group has over 300 hotels and Wyndham Rewards points may be used for many of these beach resorts and city center hotels in Spain, France, UK, Mexico, Caribbean, Panama, Peru and Argentina. 

Planet Hollywood is another Wyndham franchise new development deal inked recently.

• Baymont Inn & Suites
• Days Inn
• Hawthorn Suites
• Howard Johnson
• Knights Inn
• Microtel Inn & Suites
• Ramada
• Super 8
• Travelodge
• Wingate by Wyndham
• Wyndham Hotels & Resorts
• Planet Hollywood
• Tryp-Sol Melia (Spain hotel partner)

Wyndham Worldwide Corporation is also the world’s largest timeshare operator. This segment of the company earns about half the revenue. Vacation exchange and rentals make up about 30% of the company revenue. The 7,200 hotels comprise just 20% of company revenue in 2010-Q3.

Earning Wyndham Rewards

Wyndham Rewards offers 10 points per $1 for all hotel brands. Travelodge properties in Canada do not participate in Wyndham Rewards.

Most hotel brands offer fewer points for their budget hotels. Wyndham has a competitive advantage over Choice Privileges which offers just 5 points per dollar for its four economy and extended stay brands, while other brands earn 10 points per dollar. IHG Priority Club and Marriott Rewards also offer only 5 points per dollar for their extended stay brands. All Hilton HHonors brands earn 10 base points per dollar and Points & Points earners receive 15 points per $1.

Wyndham Rewards has the highest hotel points-to-miles exchange rate among the major programs at 4 points = 1 mile for most airline partners. Essentially you are getting 2.5 miles per $1 when exchanging hotel points-to-miles which tends to be more miles than choosing miles for hotel stays. Loyalty Traveler blog post comparing hotel points-to-miles exchange rates for US airlines.

Wyndham Rewards lucrative promotions for bonus miles can make earning miles for hotel stays instead of hotel points the better value at times.

Redeeming Wyndham Rewards points for Hotels

Wyndham Rewards has a more favorable reward structure for free hotel night rewards than Choice Privileges or Best Western.

U.S. and Canada Wyndham Rewards Hotel Tiers for all brands except Wyndham Hotels and Resorts.

International Properties for all brands except Wyndham are mostly 10,000, 15,000, 20,000, 25,000 or 30,000 points with some resorts and major city hotels costing up to 45,000 points per night.

Ramada Inn hotel reward cost for sample UK hotels

Wyndham Hotels has its own separate reward tables from the other Wyndham brands. Most hotels are in the 15,000 to 30,000 points per night level. Some major resorts and city center hotels are 45,000 points.

Sol Melia Resorts in the Caribbean, Mexico, Argentina, Panama and Peru, Spain, France, and UK provide nearly 300 hotels available with Wyndham Rewards points starting as low as 8,500 points. Numerous hotels are available for 10,000 points and most beach resorts and locations like Paris are 30,000 points per night.

Sol Melia sample hotel rewards using Wyndham points

Wyndham Rewards is not the hotel loyalty program where Elites Meet

Wyndham Rewards is the only major hotel loyalty program that does not offer elite tiers and elite bonus points for members based on hotel stay frequency.

Wyndham ByRequest

Wyndham ByRequest is a loyalty recognition program applicable only for stays at the flagship hotel brand Wyndham Hotels and Resorts.

Wyndham ByRequest is a free membership program you need to join if planning Wyndham Hotel stays.

Membership entitles you to member exclusive rate discounts, free internet, late check-out from 2pm to 4pm upon request.

Wyndham Chicago Downtown (North St. Clair St.)

ByRequest Level 1 is a member with 4 to 9 nights in a calendar year. Additional benefits include a welcome drink and snack, best available rate and room extras upon request like blankets, coffee, pillows.

Wyndham Chicago Suite sitting room

ByRequest Level 2 is a member with 10 to 18 nights stayed in a calendar year.

*Additional benefits include:

• welcome snack replenished upon request,
• upgrade to best room available;
• at least one magazine;
• turndown service;
• 72 hour guaranteed availability.

* These are not published benefits on the website, but are internal guidelines for hotel offerings to Wyndham ByRequest members at Wyndham Hotels and Resorts.

Wyndham Chicago suite decor

* On the 19^th Night – One time personalized gift (i.e. golf shirt, bestseller book).

* These are not published benefits on the website, but are internal guidelines for hotel offerings to Wyndham ByRequest members at Wyndham Hotels and Resorts.

Wyndham Chicago room desk

All Wyndham ByRequest benefits are in addition to the regular Wyndham Rewards benefits and 10 points per US$1 or airline miles.

Wyndham Chicago Downtown (North St. Clair) Reward Nights = 25,000 points

Wyndham Rewards Double Airline Miles or Rail Points for Summer 2008 Stays

With over 6,000 properties in Wyndham Rewards this is an inexpensive way to earn some airline miles with your hotel stays.

Terms and conditions:

-         No registration is required. 

-         Set your earning preference to airline miles in your guest profile. 

-         Participating countries are USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Germany or China. 

-         Hotel stays must be booked by September 4 and stays completed by October 4, 2008.

-         Limit of 4 Stays will earn Double Miles or Points per member

Wyndham Rewards has benefits like free internet just for joining.  Hotel points or airline miles can be earned for stays at 10 hotel brands, including Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, Ramada, Days Inn, Super 8, Wingate, Baymont Inns and Suites, Howard Johnson, Travelodge, Knights Inn, and AmeriHost Inn.  And just 3 stays in a calendar year brings some additional Wyndham ByRequest elite benefits such as preferred location in a hotel.

Regular Earning System for Wyndham Rewards                                                                                      (Double Miles or Rail Points promotion will double the earning shown below for miles).

Wyndham Rewards allows members the choice of hotel stay earning preference:

10 Wyndham Rewards points per $1 hotel rate paid

or

2 airline miles per $1, except Wyndham Hotels earn a set 500 miles per stay.

            Earning rules vary among airline partners:

            2 airline miles per $1

                        American Airlines AAdvantage,

                        Continental Airlines OnePass

                        Delta Skymiles

                        Midwest Airlines Midwest Miles

                        Northwest Airlines WorldPerks

                        Spirit Airlines

                        United Mileage Plus

                        US Airways Dividend Miles

            Air Canada Aeroplan

                    Greater of 2 airline miles per $1  or  250 miles per stay

            SunCountry Airline UFly points

                        2 UFly points per Wyndham Hotel stay or

                        1 UFly point per stay at other Wyndham brands

            Air Berlin

                        500 miles per stay

            Air China Phoenix Miles

                        800 kilometers per stay at Ramada, Howard Johnson, or Days Hotels in China         

                        400 kilometers per stay at Days Inn or Super 8 in China

                        3 kilometers per $1 for stays at Wyndham Rewards hotel brands outside China

            Lufthansa Miles & More

                    500 miles per stay at participating Wyndham Hotels and Ramada Inn

            Amtrak Points (available for stays at USA and Canada hotels only)

                        2 points per $1 at all Wyndham brands, except 500 points per stay at Wyndham                                          Hotels

That $50 Travelodge hotel night can be worth 200 American Airlines miles with the Double Miles promotion.

Elite status qualification in a hotel loyalty program is the avenue to getting consistent higher-value out of your hotel expenditures.  My rule of thumb with the major frequent guest programs like Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott, and Starwood is high elite status will typically add $100 of value for each hotel night.  Bonus points, complimentary upgrades, special redemption offers, and complimentary hotel amenities all contribute to the value-added benefits of being a top elite member with your hotel program.  Complimentary upgrades to hotel rooms priced $200+ more per night than the rate you book at an upscale category hotel is a common benefit of top-elite membership in a frequent guest hotel loyalty program.

The benefits are doled out to lower level elite members on a sporadic basis.  I have had some fantastic upgrades as a Hilton HHonors Gold member and Marriott Silver member, but these are not the norm.  Regular room upgrades are the primary benefit of being a top-tier elite member and in my opinion the primary value for maintaining loyalty with a hotel chain year-to-year. 

Your personal travel pattern will determine your elite membership target.  If you travel just 20 nights per year, then Marriott is probably not a great program for your hotel lifestyle.  If your travel is not concentrated in major cities, then you will probably not benefit greatly from Hyatt or Fairmont as your primary hotel loyalty program.  If your budget is not elastic, then Loews may not be the program for you.

Not surprisingly, the hotel loyalty programs with the fewest hotel members such as Loews Hotels, Fairmont, and Kimpton tend to be the programs with the easiest high-elite qualification standards.  Hyatt and Starwood both have run promotions in the past year for counting stays double towards elite qualification, thereby making top elite status possible with as few as 13 nights.  Wyndham ByRequest does not provide a room upgrade as a defined benefit.

Here is the run-down of qualifying stays and nights for top elite status with major hotel loyalty programs.  All programs are based on the number of hotel stays or nights earned in a calendar year, except Hilton HHonors which uses any 12 month period of activity. 

Qualification Standard for Frequent Guest Top-Tier Elite Membership

Wyndham Rewards = ByRequest elite = 3 nights (room upgrades are not a defined benefit)

Fairmont President’s Club = Platinum elite = 10 stays or 30 nights in calendar year

Loew’s You First = Platinum elite = 10 stays

Kimpton InTouch = Inner Circle elite = 15 stays or 45 nights

Radisson Gold Points Plus = Gold Elite = 20 stays or 35 nights

Hyatt Gold Passport = Diamond elite = 25 stays or 50 nights

Starwood Preferred Guest = Platinum elite = 25 stays or 50 nights

Hilton HHonors = Diamond elite = 28 stays or 60 nights

Best Western Gold Crown Club = Diamond elite = 30 nights

Choice Privileges = Diamond elite = 40 nights

InterContinental Hotels Group Priority Club = Platinum elite = 50 nights or earn 60,000 points (potential to earn platinum status based on points earned throughout year can make attaining platinum status qualification much easier than staying 50 nights in a calendar year.

Marriott Rewards =Platinum Elite = 75 nights

A hotel stay is defined as consecutive nights in one hotel property.  One-night stays allow a member to qualify for elite membership with a number of nights below the  qualification standard for nights.  For example, guest member #1 of Hilton HHonors could have 20 one-night stays and 8 two-night stays and qualify for HHonors diamond status with 28 stays and 36 nights.  Another HHonors member could have 15 three-night stays and would not qualify for HHonors diamond status with 45 nights and 15 stays.  Even though member # 2 has stayed more nights than guest # 1 at Hilton Hotel properties, the diamond qualification level has not been met.

Ramada Amsterdam and watching Tour de France 2006

It was a bed-in experience

Amsterdam Centraal view from Ramada

Amsterdam city center view from Ramada Hotel


The plaza across from Ramada, Amsterdam


Sink, Ramada Amsterdam

I thought I could dash off a quick review of Wyndham Rewards.

The hotel brand members of Wyndham Rewards followed by 2008 average room rate:
1. Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, $116.61
2. Wingate by Wyndham, $91.84
3. Ramada Worldwide, $79.69
4. Travelodge, $67.68
5. Baymont Inns and Suites, $65.66
6. Amerihost, $63.38
7. Howard Johnson, $63.11
8. Days Inn, $61.99
9. Super 8, $56.78
10. Knights Inn $40.88
(Hotel brands are ordered by average daily room rate for first quarter 2008 which correlates with relative market segment for hotel brand).

The problem I found with making a quick assessment of the Wyndham Rewards hotel loyalty program is that upon a closer look there are a large number of facets to the benefits available to members. This is just an introduction to Wyndham Rewards because I have been seeing loads of press releases the past couple weeks in their marketing campaign to promote brand recognition, but nobody lays out the details of the loyalty program for the traveler.

And getting the details involved more work than I anticipated. Wyndham Rewards needs a website makeover to be traveler friendly.

Case in point: There are 10 hotels in Monterey participating in Wyndham Rewards. Even after joining Wyndham Rewards as a new member, I had to call the member services telephone line to find out how much a free night would be at each of the 10 Wyndham Rewards member hotels within a 4-mile radius of me. That is a ridiculous hotel loyalty program website omission to not provide the redemption rates for a free night at any particular hotel and make it easily available to a website visitor.

The point of a hotel loyalty program promoting free nights is to allow the frequent guest to acquire the information necessary to plan and prepare for a vacation. The hotel guest planning to use hotel points needs to know how many hotel points are needed for a free night. That information should be available on the hotel loyalty program website.

Let’s Spend the Night Together

Wyndham Rewards has launched the Play Together, Stay Together contest to promote hotel brand recognition and the new hotel loyalty program name change from TripRewards.
The main boast of Wyndham Rewards hotel loyalty program is its size with over 6,000 hotels and with 50% more hotels worldwide than InterContinental Hotels Group, twice as many hotels as Hilton or Marriott, and many times more hotels than Starwood or Hyatt, each of those programs with under 1,000 hotels.

Another program main attribute, and also the program’s detractor, are the large number of budget-priced hotel brands in the program.

Wyndham Rewards brings together ten hotel brands under one loyalty program umbrella:

AmeriHost are located in 22 US states and each hotel features an indoor pool.

Baymont Inns and Suites have about 125 hotels in the USA, primarily in Southeast and Central USA. These are a midscale hotel property with free internet and complimentary continental breakfast.

Days Inn – about 2,000 hotels

Howard Johnson – more than 450 hotels in 16 countries. Four tiers of properties from budget motels to full service Howard Johnson Plaza hotels.

Knights Inn – more than 250 hotels in North America.

Ramada Worldwide 850 hotels in 25 countries

Super 8 – More than 2,000 hotels. This brand announced a logo and image makeover this month. Race car theme seems to be prominent.

Travelodge - info on the number of Travelodge hotels is something I have not yet found, however, Travelodge properties in Canada do not participate in Wyndham Rewards.

Wingate by Wyndham -business style hotel

Wyndham Hotels and Resorts - full scale hotels with many resort locations in USA and internationally.

Earning Points: Simple 10 points/$1 of hotel rate.

Redeeming Points: Wyndham Hotels maintains its own hotel points redemption program.

Elite Program: Wyndham ByRequest – details are vague, but supposedly member preferences will be noted and some additional amenities might be provided to frequent guests.

The Wyndham Hotel properties can be looked up online for the points redemption rate. Rates vary from:
Wyndham Nassau Resort & Crystal Palace Casino, Bahamas 15,000 points
Wyndham London Chelsea Harbour, UK, 45,000 points
Wyndham Sugar Bay Resort & Spa, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands 25,000 points
Wyndham Sapphire Beach Club & Resort, St. Maarten, Netherland Antilles 20,000 points

The redemption rate for international properties can also be looked up online. There are other hotel chains eligible for free nights using Wyndham Rewards points besides the member brands listed above.

Sample redemption rates:
Ramada Amsterdam Hotel & Suites 15,000 points
Ramada Prague City Centre 30,000 points
Melia Cariari, Costa Rica 10,000 points
Tryp Corobici, Costa Rica 8,500 points

Ramada Resort, Karon Beach, Phuket, Thailand 10,000 points
Cozumel – Days Inn 10,000 points
Melia Cabo Real, Mexico 30,000 points
Gran Melia Cancun, Mexico 30,000 points

Melia Caribe Tropical, Dominican Republic 30,000 points

I was “Born in the USA”

The large majority of Wyndham Rewards hotel members are located in the USA and three brands represent 70% of the USA Wyndham Rewards hotel member properties: Ramada, Super 8, and Days Inn.

There are four tiers of hotel redemption levels for US domestic hotels.

Tier 1 = 6,000 points for a free hotel night
Tier 2 = 10,000 points for a free hotel night
Tier 3 = 14,000 points for a free hotel night
Tier 4 = 16,000 points for a free hotel night

Unless you already have sufficient Wyndham Rewards points to actually book a hotel stay, the member is unable to find out through the website to which of the four tiers a particular hotel belongs. The website will simply reply with a message to the member of insufficient points for a free night.

To get USA hotels redemption information for the vast majority of Wyndham Rewards hotel members requires a phone call. My phone call for Monterey area hotels revealed that Salinas has some Tier 2 hotels, but all the Wyndham Rewards member hotels for the Monterey Peninsula are Tier 3 and Tier 4. The hotels here are the same price as the Amsterdam Ramada.

Wyndham Hotels and Resorts – The Flagship Brand of Wyndham Rewards
I do agree that Wyndham Rewards is a good name change because they are taking the flagship hotel brand as the loyalty program name.

There are nice Wyndham hotels and resorts. I walked through the Wyndham Palm Springs last month one evening and there were about a 20 people hanging around the lobby socializing. The ambiance was casual and elegant, and the pool area large.

The focus of the Wyndham Rewards loyalty program should be its size and the ability to get points for low cost hotel stays. A rebate of 10% or more for your paid stays when earned hotel points are redeemed for future free nights should be possible. The abundance of Wyndham Rewards hotel members makes it worthwhile to keep an eye on this program when you are traveling where few upscale loyalty hotels are located.