Frequent Miler on the Air - Wyndhams End Of Year Triple Dip Coffee Break Ep78 11 18 25

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

There are some great opportunities to earn a lot of Wyndham points, and today we'll do the math on whether or not this could mean a great mattress-running opportunity.(00:38) - Wyndham promo: Earn 7.5k bonus points when staying 2 nights (up to 4 times)(Learn more about the promo here)(01:44) - Is this double-dip, mattress-run worthy?(02:31) - How much would the 2 nights have to cost to get 0.65 cpp?(03:41) - It gets better if you stack it with a second promo.(Read more about the second promo here)(05:46) - We'll run the numbers on an example...(07:39) - Stack both promos (with Wyndham Rewards Earner Business Card)(Learn more about the Wyndham Rewards Earner Business Card here.)Visit https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe to get updated on in-depth points and miles content like this, and don’t forget to like and follow us on social media.Music Credit – Beach Walk by Unicorn Heads

This is a Voyescape podcast. You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world at voyescape.com. Welcome to Freakimilers Coffee Break, where we focus on a single topic related to miles and points. And each coffee break is limited to 20 minutes or less or your money back. On today's coffee break, we're going to be discussing Windham's end of year, triple dip. There are some great opportunities to earn a lot of Windham points. with a couple of nights at Wyndham, and we're going to discuss how we can roll it all together

to a potentially compelling mattress run where it might be worth checking into a hotel just for the points. Yeah, we've got some stackable promotions. So let's talk about what those different promotions are. First up, there's a general promo out to earn 7,500 bonus points when you stay two nights. And you can do that one up to four times, but the core of today's episode is going to be about

doing that one time. So 7,500 points if you stay two nights or more. And then it gets a little bit better if you have a Wyndham credit or debit card. It does. If you have one of those, then you get another 7,500 bonus points after staying two nights. By the way, the two nights don't have to be consecutive. They could be any timed within the promo period, which is until January 20th of 2026, but you're going to see why we're only going to be talking about doing this stuff in 2025 in order to stack both promos. So we'll get to that in a second. But anyway, if you have any kind of Wyndham debit or credit card, you should get another 7,500 bonus points. That only works once. So the first part that Nick mentioned, you could do a few times.

Getting the extra 7,500 bonus points only works once. Okay. So if, is that alone? Is that alone? Is that double dip, mattress run worthy. Like, suppose you book a hotel for two nights and you get your 15,000 points. What do you think? I mean, you'd have to be really cheap. So our reasonable redemption value for Wyndham points is, what, seven-tenths of a cent per point? And they sell them for even less sometimes. So I think right now they're on sale for 0.65 cents per point.

So close, about the same 0.7. And so I guess doing the math on that, you need to be spending a low enough amount that you couldn't have just bought the points. I mean, consider how much would it cost to buy 15,000 points at 7 cents of the cent per point? Yeah. So, you know, we worked out the math. And if you booked two nights at about $50 per night, it would work out to buying the points at around that 0.65, 0.7 cents per night. Now, I don't know how often you're going to find a hotel that's, you know, bookable for $50 per night without going way out of your way.

So that that's a like really on the fence mattress run, I'd say. Like, you know, it's not one I'd be excited about telling people you should run out and book that. Well, right. And you initially, if you, if just wanted the 15,000 points, you could buy them for that price, right? So you'd have to be getting this for significantly less to make it worth leaving the house. or you'll have to have already capped out how many wind and points you could buy for the year and you just need 15,000 more. Yeah, yeah. It gets more interesting if you think of it as like, I want to find, you know, maybe you've got a couple of airport hotel stays that you want to book that, you know, they're probably going to be more than $50 per night.

And so, you know, could you make that not just a mattress run, but also useful? And so that's where stacking the next promo makes things more interesting. Yeah, so the next promotion out is going to require having Wyndham Diamond status. There are a couple different levels of promotion, but it's interesting if you have Wyndham Diamond status. So if you have Diamond, well, if you don't have diamond, then you're going to get upgraded one elite level. So if you got like Wyndham Gold, they're going to upgrade you to a diamond. But if you're a diamond member, then you're going to earn 5x Windham rewards points if you register and book directly through Wyndham by December 30th of 2025. So what does that mean?

I know that Wyndham is not good at math. So when we say 5x Windham points, what does that even mean, Greg? Yeah, yeah, this is a great question. And so that's why Stephen Pepper reached out to Wyndham directly when this promo came out. He's like, what does that mean? Because we need to really understand this. And it really means five times the base earning rate. So normally you earn 10 points per dollar as the base earning rate when you stay at Windham, most Windham hotels.

So during this promotion, once you've registered, then again, you have to have Windham diamond status before you register to get this 5X. But if you have all that, you'll be earning 50 points per dollar. And that's, in addition to, you normally get this like 20% bump in your earning because of diamond status, which will be 20% based on the 10 points per dollar. So it's really just another two points per dollar. So you'll be earning 52 points per dollar during this promo period, which is really a staggeringly large number. That's what made us like, hey, it's time to run the numbers on these two promos together, isn't it? It sure is. Yeah.

Now, keep in mind that that promotion isn't available at Super 8 hotels in mainland China. So, you know, there are some restrictions that are worth being aware of. And you can only earn up to 60,000 points per member through that 5X promo. So you're going to cap that out at 60,000 points. But give us an example. At what level might this be worth considering? Yeah. All right.

Let's take an example where you have a $200 stay. And I mentioned before that you'll be earning 52 points per dollar. So right there, that is 10,400 points, 52 times the $200. dollars. If you happen to be paying with your Wyndham earner business card, if you have one of those, that earns 8x at Wyndham. So that would be another 1,600 points for a total of 12,000 points from a single $200 stay. So it all adds up to the 60 points per dollar that we mentioned before. By itself, 60 points per dollar is staggering, but that's not mattress runworthy. You have to get over 100 points per dollar for a promo to get you under one buying points for under one cent each

we're not there we're only yeah and we're not even at that target which is much less than that so it's not matchless run worthy by itself if you if you booked a hotel just for the points you'd be buying points for almost 1.7 cents each which is a really bad price for window points I mean even when wind up's not having a sale I think they sell them for something like 1.2 or 1.25 somewhere in that range. Yeah, it's certainly not worth buying at that level because there just aren't very many opportunities where you're going to get that much in value, even at the top end of Wyndham. It's pretty rare. So there might be some situations, but it wouldn't be worth it for that. Of course, like Greg said, if you had like an airport say that you need anyway, that's potentially a good

rebate on your airport stay, you know, so or whatever the case may be. So there's reasons why you might consider doing it, but it wouldn't be mattress runworthy. It wouldn't be worth. It wouldn't be worth booking a hotel just for that. But if we start to combine promotions here, then it might actually get a little interesting. Yeah, exactly. First up, if you're interested in doing this, make sure to register for both of these promos. Neither one will work if you don't register.

Also, make sure you stay your two nights before the end of this year because the 50x promo only counts through the end of this year. All right. So suppose you've got both of those promos going and you find a nice hotel you want to stay at where each night is $100. So again, it's that $200 total. The first promo, you're going to earn 15,000 points because you have a credit or debit card and you've done two nights. And so that's a total of 15,000 wind of points. The second promo, again, we're going to assume you're paying with your Wyndham earner business card. So that's $200 times 60 points per dollar. So that's 12,000 points like we talked about before. So a total of 27,000 points from two nights, $200 nights, that's cents per point, buying points of 0.7 cents per point.

Again, I wouldn't go out of my way to buy points at that rate because you could do it just by buying when points are on sale. but it's not bad. But you can make it better if your stay is a bit cheaper. What if you found two $80 nights? Then it improves the deal a little bit to 0.65 cents per point. So not a huge savings. I mean, at that point, it's still like an okay deal where I feel like both of us would say, well, you're essentially getting your money back.

So if you value those stays at all, then great. great. You know, if you value them even a little bit, then, then again, you're essentially getting them entirely rebadded, so that makes it a pretty good deal. But I don't know that we would run out and book Windham property. Are you going to go book something to trigger all this to triple dip? Not, not unless a fourth promo, you know, if there was an exciting fourth thing. You know, like, for example, a big MX offer or, you know, some kind of card-linked offer where you could get a big rebate or a big portal offer. Maybe Capital One starts sending us those 40% back in Windows type of deals.

You know, who knows what will happen. But without that, no, I'm not a buyer. But if you're interested in a Wyndham stay by the end of the year, as long as you can do, you know, two nights, these add up to a really great rebate. Don't forget. If you've enjoyed this and you'd like to get on our email list, you want to go to Frequentmyler.com slash subscribe to join our email list. follow us on all the various social media and check out our frequent mile-around-the-air episodes dropping every Friday. Travel Tales with me, Mike Siegel, is full of funny, inspiring, and wild adventures. Listen now at voyescape.com.

Travel has changed a lot since my father wrote Europe on $5 a day, but our mission hasn't. I'm Pauline Fromer of the Fromer Travel Guides, and on the Frommers Travel Show, I share practical advice, meaningful stories, and conversations with some of the most trusted names in the industry. If you're looking for ways to travel smarter and bring the world closer, I've got you covered. New episodes weekly at voyescape.com.