Category: Wyndham

Best signup bonus ever for: Citi Premier (80K points), Chase IHG Premier WEMC (150K points, 1st year free), and Barclays Wyndham Visa (three cards, 60-90K points each)

7/17/2021

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Citi Premier has seen the best signup bonus ever - 80,000 ThankYou points with a $95 annual fee (our value $1,105).
Citi Prestige has been pulled from Citi website and is discontinued to new applications until further notice. There are two possibilities: one is that it will be gone for ever as Citi might exit the fierce high-end card market, and the other is that Citi might be working on a major revamp and will bring it back at some point in the future. We might have to pull it from our Top 10 list pending further confirmation.
Chase IHG Premier WEMC also offers the best ever - 150,000 IHG Rewards points with the 1st annual fee waiver (our value $600).
Barclays Wyndham Visa cards also hit historical high: 60,000 Wyndham Rewards points on earner Visa, 90,000 points on either earner+ Visa or earner Business Visa. Our valuation for these three offers are $470~$625.

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Check your email for the huge Barclays promotions for existing cardmembers - up to 60,000 miles/points or $600 cash!

11/14/2020

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Throughout this pandemic when many card issuers have been bringing temporary benefits or bonuses to keep their existing cardmembers, Barclays has been quiet, until now.

In the last couple of days, many Barclays cardmembers received a promotional email titled "Double Bonus Opportunity – Earn up to 60,000 miles!" or "...60,000 points!" or "...$600 Uber Cash!" This appears to be a widely targeted offer to all Barclays cards such as Arrivals cards, AAdvantage Aviator cards, JetBlue cards, Hawaiian Airlines cards, Wyndham cards, Uber card: between 11/10/2020 and 1/31/2021, you will earn up to 60,000 miles/points or $600 cash, depending on which card you have (e.g. 10x additional points on everything, up to 10,000 points earned, and additional 50,000 points when you spend a total of $3,000 within this period). This must be the best bonus ever for existing cardmembers since I started writing about credit cards in 2011; usually you need to open a new account and meet the minimum spending requirement to receive a bonus like this; mostly likely the existing cardmembers did receive a similar bonus when they opened the card, and now it is like receiving a second bonus to keep the card.

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October 21, 2016 Updates - Wyndham Visa devaluated & 2x points at small businesses on Amex cards through 2016

10/21/2016

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We have been continuing to make updates throughout the site. Here we would like to highlight a few important ones:

Wyndham Rewards Visa has been revamped. The no-fee version offers 3x points on Wyndham, 2x on gas, utility, grocery stores, 1x everywhere else, and automatic Gold status. The $75 version offers 5x points on Wyndham, 2x on gas, utility, grocery stores, 1x everywhere else, 6,000 annual bonus points, and automatic Platinum status. Compared to the old Wyndham Visa, the new cards reduce points earning on general spending from 2x to 1x, but add automatic elite status as well as waived foreign transaction fees. As we value Wyndham points at around 1 cent per point, the old cards offer great rewards for general spending and thus rated #6 Best Card for Rewards. We had concern about uncertainty in the rewards program before and it is very sad to see Wyndham/Barclays simply decides to slash the rewards for general spending in half. Now the new cards won't make it to Top 10. Even though the new perks such elite status may attractive some customers, we won't recommend the new cards for general spending at all. It is interesting that you may still sign up the old cards through the old landing page. We think the existing cardholders have to be grandfathered in for 2x points on general spending, but we have no info at this point and probably won't know how long it will last even if it is indeed the case.
JetBlue's frequent flyer program TrueBlue has been added as a transfer partner of Citi ThankYou. You can now transfer ThankYou points to TrueBlue points at a 1.25:1 rate, if you have either ThankYou Premier or Citi Prestige. TrueBlue points are mostly fixed at value of 1.4 cents per point, so if you use this option, the value of ThankYou points will be 1.12 cents per point - not a very good way of using ThankYou points. A better way would be using ThankYou to book a revenue JetBlue flight through Citi at fixed value of 1.33 cents per point, instead of transferring the points to JetBlue and then booking an award ticket. Our value for ThankYou points is 1.4 for ThankYou Premier considering other valuable transfer partners, and 1.6 for Citi Prestige considering the fixed value for booking an American Airlines flight through Citi.
JP Morgan Ritz-Carlton Visa Infinite offers $100 companion discount per trip for 2-5 domestic round-trip coach class tickets on your reservation. Even though the terms say that primary cardholder must be one of the ticketed passengers, there are reports confirming that authorized users also enjoy this benefit for free. This may potentially increase the value of this card quite a bit.
Marriott and Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) offer reciprocal earnings on their credit cards. Chase Marriott Visa and JPM Ritz-Carlton Visa will start earning 5x points on SPG hotels; while Amex SPG will start earning 2x points on Marriott/Ritz-Carlton hotels. The two loyalty programs will eventually merge in 2018, but before that customers can take advantage of the best of both programs. Details about the future of these credit cards still remain uncertain. We suspect that Marriott or Ritz-Carlton cards probably won't change much, while Amex SPG will probably convert to a Chase product at some point in 2018.

In addition, you may find the following news interesting.

Amex offers 2x points for select small business purchases through 12/31/16. That is an additional 1x points you can earn through this "Shop Small" promotion. You have to enroll your Amex at https://www.americanexpress.com/us/content/shop-small-offer/ to take advantage of this promotion. They also have a useful search tool for you to find the participating small businesses in your area. The following cards are eligible: Membership Rewards cards (such as Amex Platinum, Amex Premier Rewards Gold, Amex EveryDay Preferred), Delta SkyMiles cards, SPG cards, Blue Sky cards, Blue Cash cards, Hilton HHonors cards, Plenti Card, and Schwab Investor Card.
Per Bloomberg, Chase will introduce a new business card product called "Ink Preferred", which features a 80K points signup bonus, a $95 annual fee (waived for the first year), 3x points for the first $150K spent on travel, telecommunications, shipping and advertising on social-media and search engines, and 1x points on other purchases. Chase already has a $95 business card Ink Plus, which offers 5x points on office supplies, wireless services, landline communications and cable services (up to $50K spent annually), 2x on gas and lodging (up to $50K spent), and 1x on other purchases. At this point, we don't know whether Ink Plus will continue to be offered alongside with Ink Preferred or be converted to the new card in the future.

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Wyndham Rewards' big revamp in May 2015 and increased signup bonus for its Visa Signature cards (three free nights at signup + one free night at each anniversary)

5/21/2015

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Wyndham Rewards just a revolutionary revamp of its program earlier this month - it used to require 5,500 to 50,000 points per night across its 9 tiers of hotels, but effective May 11, 2015, each hotel will require the same 15,000 points per night. This is the most interesting change among hotel royalty programs in the recent years, because it is against the normal "add a new category/tier and require more points" type of devaluation we have witnessed. Obviously it will be a bad deal if you want to redeem points for lower end hotels, but it dramatically increases the value for high end hotel redemptions. In our book, the value of Wyndham Rewards points actually double, increasing from 0.4 to 0.8 cent per point! Barclays Wyndham Rewards Visa Signature that returns 2x points for general spending will be equivalent to 1.6% cashback.

What is more exciting is that Barclays and Wyndham have increased signup bonus for both versions of the Visa Signature cards.

$69 annual fee version: earn 30,000 points after 1st purchase and an additional 15,000 points after you spend $1,000 within 3 months. That is an 15K increase in signup bonus (the regular offer has been 30K after 1st purchase). What is more interesting is that the annual bonus will also be increased from 5,500 points to 15,000 points if you sign up through this offer!
Non-fee version: earn 15,000 points after 1st purchase and an additional 15,000 points after spending $1,000 within 3 months. That is a 18K increase in signup bonus (the regular offer has been 12K after 1st purchase).

We will recommend signing up the $69 version, because you will receive 3 free nights instead of 2 free nights upon signup, and the annual free night (15,000 points) is totally worth the $69 annual fee.

Landing page for both offers
(May 21, 2015)

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Best signup bonus ever for: Citi Premier (80K points), Chase IHG Premier WEMC (150K points, 1st year free), and Barclays Wyndham Visa (three cards, 60-90K points each)

Check your email for the huge Barclays promotions for existing cardmembers - up to 60,000 miles/points or $600 cash!

October 21, 2016 Updates - Wyndham Visa devaluated & 2x points at small businesses on Amex cards through 2016

Wyndham Rewards' big revamp in May 2015 and increased signup bonus for its Visa Signature cards (three free nights at signup + one free night at each anniversary)

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