How to Acquire Wyndham Rewards
Image above Courtesy Wyndham
In this article I'll be going over how to acquire Wyndham Rewards most effectively.
Best Credit Card: Wyndham Rewards Business Earner credit card
The Wyndham Rewards Business Earner credit card is perhaps the best way to get Wyndham Rewards and is an easy pathway to reducing your redemption costs by 10%. The card pays for the $95 annual fee & more with 15k Wyndham Rewards granted to the cardholder every year just for holding onto the card and paying the annual fee. Additional perks like Wyndham Diamond benefits, great multipliers of 8x on Wyndham & gas, 5x on marketing, advertising, & utilities, are the cherries on top.
Wyndham also has some personal credit cards, like the Earner & Earner+ , each of which provide the 10% discount on go free awards, with the Earner+ being the better of the 2 and the one that holds an annual fee, but neither of those comes close to the value that comes with the Wyndham Business Earner. If you don't have a business currently, you might want to consider starting a little something, even being an Uber driver for once or twice a year, just in order to get access to business credit cards like this one.
Points Purchases
Perhaps the 2nd best way to acquire Wyndham Rewards is during their best promotions for buying points, where points can be purchased for less than 1 cent each on a recurring basis. Keep in mind that the lowest cost points might have a lower purchase threshold than slightly higher cost discounted points. Because Wyndham Rewards can be acquired for less than 1 cent each during promos, unless you are meeting the points cap for purchases, you're generally going to be better off purchasing these than using most other methods of acquiring points with credit cards such as the options below. One of the reasons why is that there are 3 cents per dollar cashback credit cards with no annual fees, so using an annual fee incurring 3 points per dollar credit card (i.e. the Citi Premier) on bonus categories only is a waste if not meeting the points cap for purchases & if transferring at a 1:1 ratio compared to purchases under 1 cents per point purchased following using a 3 cents per point cashback credit card on non-bonus categories to fund those purchases.
Capital One Credit Cards IF you are maxing out points purchases during promos already
Between the 2 options above, your points options may be limited, so if you are already doing both of the above (or just maxing out points purchases if you don't have a business of any kind) you may also want to get points via credit card spending on other cards that earn 2 points or more per dollar. Solid examples include but are not limited to Capital One Cards, with an option to check if you are pre-approved here & an option with some to thank me substantially at no cost but time to you via a referral link if you request one from me.
Capital One has done a 20% transfer promo to Wyndham Rewards once, & I have hopes that it will come back.
Personal Credit Cards:
A. The Venture X credit card to provide 2x points per dollar on general spending with a $300 travel credit for purchase within the Capital One travel portal & Priority Pass lounge access for yourself & up to 4 authorized users (each free), & 10k anniversary miles for a $395 annual fee. With no spending but the $300 travel credit, the math makes sense on that one. It's the best of any of the below cards by a good margin as long as:
Your income/budget mean that $395/yr on travel make sense
You will both use the 10k miles/yr for a value of 1 cent or more per point (which is really easy)
You can consistently use the $300 travel credit.
It's otherwise a good idea for you to be using credit cards in light of the credit card pitfalls.
B. The VentureOne Rewards card for 1.25 miles per dollar for those who have incomes <$15k USD/yr who want to pair no annual fee cards like the Capital One Quicksilver ($.015/$) to convert the cents to cashback
Business Cards:
A. The Venture X for Business credit card similarly provide 2x points per dollar on general spending with similar perks as the Venture X, but without the free authorized user perks of lounge access. Utilization has no impact to your personal credit. It's the best of any of the below cards by a good margin as long as the conditions I mentioned above on the Venture X personal credit card are true.
B. The Capital One Spark Miles for Business credit card provides 2x points per dollar on general spending with a $95 annual fee after the 1st year of $0 & "Unlimited 5X miles on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel." You should likely plan on spending >$7.5k/yr on it to make it worthwhile to hold onto it. Utilization impacts your personal credit.
C. For those who are big spenders who will spend $150k/yr at least once every 2 years, the Spark 2% Cash Plus is a viable option as long as you pair it with a miles earning card (ideally with no annual fee like the VentureOne Rewards or a net positive annual fee). You should convert all your cents to miles like I do with this card. Utilization has no impact to your personal credit. It's a charge card so you'll need to pay it off every month. The $150/yr annual fee gets refunded if you spend at least $150k in a year. It also comes with "Unlimited 5% cash back on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel".
D. For low spenders of business of $7.5k or less annually on general spend that would go on the card, the Spark 1.5x Miles Select is a viable no annual fee option, earning 1.5x miles per dollar.
I don't typically recommend the following cards:
Capital One Venture - because the math doesn't make sense compared to the Venture X in terms of net positive value.
Citi Thank You Rewards Credit Cards IF you are maxing out points purchases during promos already
As I mentioned with Capital One, "Between the 2 (top) options above, your points options may be limited, so if you are already doing both of the (2 top options) (or just maxing out points purchases if you don't have a business of any kind) you may also want to get points via credit card spending on other cards that earn 2 points or more per dollar. Solid examples include but are not limited to" Citi Thank You Rewards Cards. Unlike Capital One, I'm unaware of any referral links I can send you.
Like Capital One, Citi has done a 20% transfer promo to Wyndham Rewards once (which is currently going).
Personal cards:
Citi Premier - "Earn 3X points on restaurants, supermarkets, gas stations, air travel, and hotels" & 1x on everything else. Annual fee: $95 - this one doesn't pay for itself just by holding it, so it's important to do a decent amount of spend in order for it to make sense, whether spending on just the Premier or a combination of cards that can feed points into it, since you can use cashback from other cards like the Citi Double and transfer them to the Citi Premier to strengthen your options with transfer partners substantially vs if you didn't have the Citi Premier. Generally speaking, if you're not getting at least 10k points per year across Citi Thank You Rewards earning cards, this isn't a keeper card long term.
Here's the historic sign up bonus chart from US Credit Card Guide:
2. Citi Double Cash (IF you have the Citi Premier) for 2x points per dollar spent
3. Citi Rewards + (IF you have the Citi Premier) for a minimum of 10 Thank You Points per dollar spent (which is great on purchases under $3.33 especially) & the ability to get an additional 10% of points transferred per year on up to 100k points when converting Citi Thank You Rewards to partners like Wyndham.
Stays
Of course staying at Wyndham properties will get you some points as well, & you'll get more points if you have status such as from the Wyndham Rewards Business Earner card.
Note on Points Expiration
Keep in mind that Wyndham Rewards expire 4 years after acquisition or 18 months after no activity, whichever occurs 1st. That 4 yr after acquisition rule thankfully isn't present with many other points currencies that you can theoretically stack for decades if desired prior to redemption (but don't attempt it!).
Related:
1. Stretching Wyndham Rewards with $+ Points Bookings at US Wyndham Vacation Properties for 50% Off
2. My First Vacasa Booking Using Wyndham Rewards