DeltaNeutral28

Online is fine, the app is where the problems are.

jebr

Just emailed Eliot as it appears that some points from a stay in late March at La Quinta never transferred over to Wyndham, and the only points that ever posted to the La Quinta account were ones from mobile-check in. Hopefully I'll get a decent resolution that restores those points and grants the points from that stay.

jebr

I was able to get the 100 points posted in the correct account, but nothing from the La Quinta stay - apparently using the Amtrak promotion made it ineligible despite it being a direct booking through lq.com and nothing noting it was ineligible for standard La Quinta points earning.

While perhaps it's technically correct (and it was only a $60/night stay, so likely would've only resulted in 700-800ish points) it's frustrating to have it be rebuffed for a rather small amount on a direct booking even after noting that I didn't see any notes it was ineligible for standard points earning. Between that, the significant devaluation of points (without any amazing sweet spots for my travels to counteract it,) and gaining access to a Choice SOS rate through Sprint, I don't see any reason to book with Wyndham over other hotel chains unless they happen to be the cheapest by a decent amount. Hopefully they start doing some aggressive points-earning promotions to make it worthwhile to stay there - at this point that's the only reason I'd see me wanting to choose Wyndham over another hotel chain or (depending on the situation) an opaque booking site.

TravelPhotographer

Has anyone seen a "Wyndham 7.5K GoFree property vs. TripAdvisorRating" chart?
Or something similar? The idea being, are there ANY decently rated 7.5K GoFree
properties in the US or world? Thanks in advance.

sdsearch

Yes, there are, but it may tricky to find them. I tried 3 locations in Wyndham, and it was an "out of town" location enough that I had to a 4th search in TripAdvisor, to find this:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Re...i.html#REVIEWS

which is #5 of 14 Hotels in La Plata and #2 Best Value of 63 places to stay in La Plata per TripAdvisor, and is 7500 points at least for Sun 12 May for 1 night.

I suspect any that fall in this category are most likely to be in rather "secondary" places, as La Plata is to Buenos Aires.

But: At cash rates like $38 (what TripAdvisor shows for that night), is it worth using even 7500 points, or would it be better to earn 1000 points? Ie, does this property ever get expensive enough to be worth it to use even just 7500 points, and is this price-vs-points issue the same with all decently-rated 7500 points properties?

I'd much rather use 15000 points on a decently-rated $200 or $300 property (which I'm sure is much easier to find in high-demand times) than use 7500 points at a hotel which goes from $38 to $52 (on the night of an event which would drive up prices in the USA).

craz

I found one when not looking reg rate is >$200 or 7500 pts. I prefer the other Wyn prop which is less $$ but is 15k

synergistic

Yeah, that's still my use case for Wyndham - 15k properties that are >~$200 for my dates. The selection of those is much smaller now, of course, but they're still out there.

With this change, I've started using Hotels.com for multiple night stays (10% rewards from Venture, 10% from Hotels.com rewards) and divying up my single night stays between Wyndham and Choice. I admit that I am actually enjoying doing less hotel hopping. It was easily worth it before but it's harder to legitimize now.

TravelPhotographer

Thanks for anecdotal reports. :-: :-: :-:
Guess no pro blogger has created ranked 7.5K & 15K lists.
Some of us plan itineraries influenced by value + ranking...

sdsearch

I'm not sure how practical it is for any blogger to do this. IME, the WyndhamRewards page gives very inconsistent results based on what area you search around, so it's hard to generate a script which searches for all WyndhamRewards properties. WyndhamRewards itself might have to generate such a list for it to be complete. Is there one?

But in case anyone's going to do it, I'd guess it's way too early yet. It's only a month since they implemented this.

And most people (especially I would guess most travel photographers!) choose where to go first, and then choose the property after that, rather than vice versa.

But again, value and points required are two very different things. Unless you know your travel dates and/or have history somehow of the rates at that hotel over all circumstances, it can difficult to know how cheap/expensive that hotel is with money, and without that knowledge you can't really judge value, as my 7500 points or $38 example chowed.

DeltaNeutral28

If you booked a hotel that is now 30k at 15k before April 1, can you just keep rolling that out into the future and keep the 15k locked in?

sdsearch

I doubt it. Any time you change the dates on a reservation, it tends to recalculate the cost on paid redemptions, so why wouldn't it do the same on points redemptions?

hockeystl

Just cleaned out my account with the new UA transfer bonus promo. So long Wyndham, it's been real!