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Bad news is supposed to come in 3s, right?  So after we had IHG gutting their anniversary free night (or…. are they?), and Southwest devaluing the ratio of its Wanna Get Away faresI started wondering what would be the 3rd shoe to drop.  Then I remembered reading about Wyndham Rewards devaluing their copays on GoFast awards.  Technically this happened a week or so ago (first reported by Loyalty Traveler), so perhaps it was the precursor to all this bad news 🙂

Background on Wyndham award nights

A few years ago, Wyndham changed their award chart by basically removing the “chart” part of it.  Instead, all hotels cost a flat 15,000 points / night from the nicest hotels in their collection to the seediest hotel around)

(SEE ALSO: A tale of two Super 8s: true budget traveling)

So when the Wyndham credit card was offering 45,000 bonus points a few months ago, I signed up my wife and I – this would get us 6 nights at any Wyndham hotel, including resorts, all-inclusives and hotels in high priced locations.  My son and I ended up using one of our free nights at the Wingate by Wyndham Manhattan Midtown – 15,000 points for a $289 hotel right in Midtown Manhattan (35th street)?  Not bad!

a screenshot of a hotel

Wyndham Go Fast

When Wyndham removed their award chart, in addition to the 15,000 point “Go Free” awards, they also introduced “Go Fast” awards, where you could spend 3000 Wyndham points in addition to a cash copay.  My travel patterns were such that it was much better to use my Wyndham points on the 15,000 point “Go Free” stays, but if you travel more frequently, you could get a lot of value from using the “Go Fast” awards.

When they were first introduced, the cash copays were a flat amount (a few price points that varied by hotel).  You could get a significant savings in many cases from the daily cash rate by paying 3000 Wyndham points.

Now, no more – the cash copay is tied to 65% of the daily room rate, so your 3000 Wyndham points only save you 35% of the rate – and there’s no way to get any type of outsized value.  Here’s an example from The New Yorker

a screenshot of a hotel price list

Cash rate is $299 (for the best available rate).  65% of that is $194.35, which conveniently is now the copay on the Go Fast award.  This is pretty consistent across hotels now. Loyalty Traveler has more info

a white background with a line

I think the 15,000 point Go Free award is the way to go now 🙂

I think this makes Go Fast awards essentially worthless at this point except in very limited circumstances.  Still, the Wyndham card can be a good one to get for the signup bonus as 3 free nights is not bad at all

Had you used many Go Fast awards? What do you think of the new changes?


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