Changes to IHG and Wyndham Rewards

IHG Rewards Changes

If you are an IHG rewards member then you probably received an email with this heading

Clicking on the email you find out that the new membership level is higher than the previous highest level which was Platinum. It was easy to obtain platinum status since it is a benefit of the IHG credit card (currently with a 70k bonus as of this post). Now this new higher level can only be obtained through hotel stays which pretty much devalues Platinum status. Here are the benefits of the new status:

You will earn 100% bonus points on top of your base points and you will receive 25k annual bonus points or you can gift Platinum status. In order to obtain this new status, you will have to stay with IHG at least 75 nights or earn 75k points.

Also another change effective immediately is that your points will expire once every 12 months unless you either earn or redeem points (which I don’t think is that hard to do especially if you have the IHG credit card).

Wyndham Reward Changes

Starting May 11, 2105, Wyndham will drop its 9 tier award chart and all hotels will be 15,000 points a night. So no need to determine what a hotel will cost because it will be a flat rate which will make it easier to determine how many points you will need for any upcoming vacations.

Some hotels will also allow you to book with 3,000 points plus cash.  Plus you will get the greater of 10x points per dollar on your hotel stay or 1,000 points.

This change could be good or bad, depending on which hotels you generally tend to stay at. As an overview, here are the brands of Wyndham:

Wyndham also has 2 credit card options issued by Barclays if you were interested in racking up some points.

Note: Credit card links in this post are non affiliate links. These are directly to the card issuer website. I thought I would include them for anyone that is interested in these hotel cards.