Go Fast awards no longer a set cash amount????
 

Go Fast awards have always been 3,000 points + a set amount of cash usually ranging from $25 - $150. However when I went to book a room today the cash amount was based off the rack rate of the room for that particular night. For instance the Wyndham garden Baronne Plaza in New Orleans is usually 3K points + $90 cash. Today it was 3K points + 109.24 cash. I checked several other hotels in several other cities and all were coming up like this. Anyone know what's going on????

Yup, another devaluation w/ no notice. Very disappointed with the program.
The cash portion seems to be around 35% percent off the paid rate.

Major upheaval to Wyndham Rewards GoFast rates. Copay is no longer a fixed amount. GoFast copay rate is 65% of average daily rate at several hotels I checked.

I am writing an analysis today of these changes.

Oof. Considering that there's a lot of promo codes out there that usually offer 15%-20% off BAR already, a 23-28% discount for 3,000 points isn't often worth redeeming for. I wish it was a bit more aggressive discounting - a 30-35% discount would likely make me consider the redemption even if it was tied to that day's BAR.

Way too generous. I bet during eclipse / super bowl people were getting 10 CPM+

During the eclipse the hotels that were available where I was going never had Go Fast rates, only Go Free at 15k. $400 per night (before taxes) for 15k is 2.67CNm $1016 per night (before taxes) is 6.77 CPM, and $1400 per night (before taxes), the highest I saw for that hotel ($1016 was the paid rate when I booked and $400 was the paid rate less than one day out) for 15k is 9.33 CPM (and with tax might have gotten pretty close to 10 CPM).

So depending on what rate you're comparing against, it's not necessarily necessary to use Go Fast to get 10 CPM.

Very bad changes... makes points useless for me

This is a major devaluation. Most Wyndham brands have an ADR of below $100, so at a 65% cash co-pay, the value of a point is less than 1cent for the vast majority of hotels on GoFast. And there are very few hotels worth 15,000 p/n ...
this takes most of the value out of the program...

But was it ever worthwhile using GoFast for an under $100 property? You earn 1000 points minimum on a paid stay, so it seems a waste to use 3000 points and some cash (even if way less than 65% cash).for an under $100 property and then earn nothing on that.

It seems to me that under $100 properties is where you want to earn, and significantly more expensive properties is where you want to redeem, to get the most value out of the program.

But most redemptions already were highly unlikely to be anything close to getting “the most value out of the program”. I wouldn’t be surprised if most GoFast redemptions were for properties in the $100 or under rate range (or at least the $150 or under range).

We've been using GoFast with great success in the past year, up to less than a month ago. Heat wave in Seattle, weekends in Miami this winter, President's day weekend / Daytona 500 and Bike week in Daytona, an upcoming trip to Munich for Oktoberfest... All were at least 1.5c a point worth of value when compared to the cheapest non-hostel rooms available anywhere in the area, and significantly higher value compared to the actual place we stayed - much better locations than the cheapest hotels available.

We paid as little as $45 a night and as much as $90 a night for these rooms, with most of them being $65 a night. A quick check of the website shows that some hotels have switched to cash prices without whole number copays, but many haven't. It's not expensive enough in upcoming weekends to see how different those prices are from what we owere getting - cash prices are too low to bother redeeming. I'll keep my eyes out in the future, in case this change continues to spread.

The 15k awards have set a nice bottom to the value of the points, so I'll be pretty disappointed if that part changes. Wyndham has never been a great primary hotel chain for us, but with Choice not offering anything at all over the winter, Wyndham took virtually all of the stays that would have gone to them.

Yes, it was. Some properties have low Average Daily Rate (over the year) and had low cash pay, but very high seasonal prices.
There are Super 8 hotels in California with summer weekend rates around $200! The same hotels are $50 on winter weekdays. Hence the low ADR and cash co-pay at the beginning...you could get point values of 2-5cents on GoFast awards...
Now, the cash co-pay at that hotel will be $130 instead of $55. It was a pocket of great value and they eliminated it...
not unexpected, but still sad...
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