Wyndham By Request Changes for the Better
 

I think Wyndham's By Request Program is great but look at what they are offering now.

http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/tic...&Symbol=US:WYN

Free long distance??? Wow. I've always gotten my ByRequest perks on Pricline stays too, but I've got to think that this is going to change now.

The rest of the industry should step up to Wyndham's offer. I mean, with the amount of business that a large corporation does with a telephone company, how expensive can domestic ld really be. Its probably less than $.04 a minute or so. I'm sure we have some telco people on the board who could say exactly how much a big corp like Hilton, Starwood, etc. approximately would be paying for ld, etc. My company isn't that big, about 500 people, and we still get a pretty substantial discount, etc. Someone once told me the rates, but the exact details escape me now.

I brought this up in the Starwood forum, and the resident Starwood Lurker responded as if this was a pie in the sky idea.

Don't think so.

I don't even need to be a loyal guest of Whydham to get the same perqs, more or less, that I got as a Hyatt Diamond.

Not a bad deal at all.

Considering how I can buy remote LD time from AT&T via Sam's Club for under $0.04/min, I can't imagine that a hotel chain would be paying significantly more, even adjusting for the theory that business rates are higher than residential rates.

Of course, since it only costs me $0.04/minute, it's not that big of a deal. But it would be nice not to have to dial all those extra numbers - heck, I'd probably pay $0.25/min for hotel LD when I'm on business since they'd put it on my bill and I could get reimbursed.

Intense discussion on this topic in *wood forum:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum74/HTML/004058.html

I read in InsideFlyer this month that Wyndham's plan does not allow free nights accrued.

What use is to have a a frequent guest program if you can't get free nights?? I'd rather stick with Starwood or Hilton. Thanks, but no thanks.

You do get airline miles, 500 per stay. Not as good as the Hilton double dip, but for short stays, certainly competitive with Starpoints. Wyndham's marketers had the thought (like Delta Hotels) that as hard as it can be to use points, some people might prefer little perks plus airline miles.

I think you've hit the nail on the head as to why business hotels charge so much for LD.

Yeah, but they go and charge $3/minute instead and that I just refuse to make work pay for... so work reimburses me for Sam's Club 1000 minute cards instead.

I just use my cell and then I don't have to worry about it. Sorry, this "perk" is cute, but I'm not going to use it.

Now, as for charging $2.00 a minute, if that's what it cost, to my company, hey, you sent me there, you can pay for it.