Wyndham Rewards Credit Card Review – No Annual Fee & Annual Fee Cards

Wyndham Rewards has just released a new rewards program where all of their hotels can be booked for 15,000 points per night (tier 9 hotels used to cost as much as 50,000 points per night). There are no black out dates and no inventory held back, meaning if a room is available for a paid booking it is available for an award booking (Dolce properties are currently excluded but will be included sometime this year, Planet Hollywood properties are also excluded and will not be included anytime soon).

Because this change went into effect today, we’re having another look at the Wyndham credit cards in this review series. These cards are issued by Barclaycard and there are two different cards: an annual fee card ($69) and a non annual fee card. The best sign up bonuses for these cards can be viewed by clicking here.

 

As you can see these sign up bonuses are slightly higher than they usually are (normally 30,000 & 12,000 points respectively). Let’s have a look at each card in a bit more depth.

Wyndham Rewards Visa Signature $69 Annual Fee Card

Overview

This is the premium card out of the two, here are the main selling points:

• Sign up bonus of 45,000 points, broken down as follows:
  • 30,000 points after first purchase
  • 15,000 points after you make $1,000 or more in qualifying purchases within 90 days of account opening
• Card earns at the following rates:
  • 5x points per $1 spent on stays within the Wyndham portfolio
  • 2x points per $1 everywhere else
• Anniversary bonus of 15,000 points
• Annual fee of $69 (not waived the first year)
• Standard Visa Signature benefits

This sign up bonus would be enough for three nights at any Wyndham portfolio property. The downside is obviously that the annual fee is not waived in the first year. The upside is that it comes with an anniversary bonus of 15,000 points which is enough for a free night at any Wyndham property. We will discuss a little later if it makes sense to put regular spending on this card or not.

This is the highest the sign up bonus has ever been on this card before (there have been offers of 45k points for same spend requirement, but anniversary bonus was only 5,500 points).

Wyndham Rewards Visa Signature No Annual Fee Card

Overview

• Sign up bonus of 30,000 points broken down as follows:
  • 15,000 points after your first purchase
  • 15,000 points after you spend $1,000 or more within 90 days of account opening
• Card earns at the following rate:
  • 3x points per $1 spent on stays within the Wyndham portfolio
  • 2x points per $1 everywhere else
• No annual fee
• No anniversary bonus
• Standard Visa Signature benefits

Obviously the differences between this card and the annual fee card is the sign up bonus, annual fee, anniversary bonus and it earns at a slightly higher rate at Wyndham properties.

2x Everywhere

Because we know that all properties can be booked for 15,000 points per night, the math is pretty simple. For every $7,500 in spend you’ll receive a free night at a Wyndham property. To see if this makes sense we’d need to have a look at what you’d earn if you put this spend on another card, let’s have a look at how much you’d earn if you put this spend on different cash back cards:

• $7,500 in spend on a 1% cash back card would earn you $75
• $7,500 in spend on a 2% cash back card would earn you $150
• $7,500 in spend on a 3% cash back card would earn you $225

You should be getting a bare minimum of 2% cash back on all your purchases, so you need to get more than $150 in value per booked room for it to make sense to put any everyday spending on these cards. It’s definitely possible to find some Wyndham properties that go for more than $150 or even $225 a night so this could make sense for some of you.

Application Information

Because these cards are quite similar and there aren’t a lot of data points, I’m going to combine this section into one for both cards.

What Credit Score Is Required

	Credit Boards	Credit Karma
Lowest approved score	711	N/A
Average approved score	728	N/A

Common Reasons For Denial:

• Not enough existing spend on current Barclaycard credit cards
• Bankrupcty on file

What Credit Bureau Does Barclaycard Pull For The Wyndham Rewards Cards?

Barclaycard almost always pulls TransUnion exclusively. In some very rare cases they will pull Experian or Equifax instead.

What Credit Limit Will I Receive?

Note this was only based on three data points.

Minimum Reported Credit Limit	Highest Reported Credit Limit	Average Credit Limit
$1,900.00	$4,500.00	$2,800.00

Final Thoughts

This new rewards program has made these new cards a lot more attractive to me. Three nights at any Wyndham property seems like a pretty decent deal for $69 and $1,000 in spending, but I doubt I’d use the card for ongoing spend as I’d rather stay at a non chain hotel for $150 or less.

I wish the annual fee card earned at 3x on all other purchases, as that might make putting on going spend on the card worth it. Given that the anniversary bonus is now 15,000 points, I think keeping this card long term makes sense. You get a free night at any Wyndham property and only have to pay an annual fee of $69.

The only downside to these cards is that they are issued by Barclaycard and they don’t like to approve you for too many cards in a short space of time. They also like to see spend on existing cards before approving you for new cards. One upside is that it’s possible to get the sign up bonus more than once.

You can view more hotel credit cards on our post “best hotel credit cards“.