Rapid Travel Chai

Reviewing the Barclaycard Crap Card Graveyard yesterday I noticed that the Wyndham Rewards® Visa Signature® Card has a slightly improved public offer.

This is one of those confusing cards that has two versions under the same name. There is a $69 annual fee version (not waived first year) and a no annual fee version. There even used to be a $39 annual fee version in the middle The no annual fee version has appeared in affiliate channels so you occasionally see blogs tout it (I have the link as well). The $69 annual fee to my knowledge has no affiliate offers.

The standard offer is 20,000 points for the $69 annual fee version and 12,000 points for the no annual fee version.

Now on the Wyndham Rewards website and in offers to members the offer has improved to 45,000 and 20,000, respectively, see here (non-affiliate link) or the Wyndham Rewards homepage. The $69 card has introduced a modest 5,500 bonus point anniversary benefit.

Details on the $69 card:

• Bonus! Earn 30,000 bonus points with first purchase. ³
• Plus, for a Limited Time earn an additional 15,000 bonus points when you spend $1,000 on qualifying transactions in the first 90 days of account opening ³
• Earn 5 points per $1 spent on every participating hotel stay ³
• Earn 2 points per $1 spent everywhere else ³
• New! Earn 5,500 Bonus Points on your account anniversary every year (enough for up to 1 FREE NIGHT!) ³
• $69 annual fee ¹

You will note that the card provides absolutely no benefits at Wyndham hotels other than spend bonus. No benefits at all. Amazing. It is the only US hotel card I am aware with no hotel benefits such as elite status. Even the other Barclaycard hotel cards, Best Western and Choice, come with elite status.

What can you do with Wyndham points?

Transfers to airline miles were devalued earlier in the year, down to 6,000 points converts to 1,200 miles. Terrible value.

Hotel redemptions have some niche value such as modest properties in high-price cities like New York and London, as Mommy Points has found.

Wyndham has a history of devaluations with no notice so do not keep large points balances.

I can’t see many people finding use for this card, especially when Barclaycard now has more quality cards and has gotten very tough for approvals for many applicants, see my Barclaycard Crap Card Graveyard for my current favorites.

Disclaimer: I do not receive compensation for any of the links in this post. I have an affiliate link for the no annual fee version, which is an inferior offer, so I have not listed it.