I just booked my first Vacasa Wyndham property for someone going on their honeymoon, Bayside 6870 - Miramar Beach, FL.
The Cost:
Because I have a Wyndham Business Earner card (one of my favorite cards), I get 10% off bookings on points. The rooms are typically 15k points (13.5k after 10% off) per night per bedroom so I focus on 0-1 bedroom properties for 13.5k/night. A $ booking would be $1608.71 total for 4 nights at this property instead of 54k points (no additional fees, but if I was wanting to do late checkout, early check-in, or bring a dog, there would be a fee for those).
The Value/Pt:
That's 3 cents per point, vs a TPG valuation of 1.1 cents per point. I've seen a lot better available on Wyndham Rewards (i.e. using 3k points/night for around $500 in value on Wyndham cash + points bookings possible, getting about 17 cents per point), but I'm still pretty happy with this booking.
How I booked:
I checked various alternative options with other hotels first on the given destination I was given, including lower point requirement properties like these category 1 hotels:
& these category 2 hotels:
Because, as you can see, my category 2 map is limited, I also checked the individual websites.
Finally, I checked category 3 hotels and I put 15k/night in the category 3 range:
The Sign-Up Bonus:
I spent $2k on the card within 6 months of acquiring it (including $1k in the first 90 days), which got me a combined sign-up bonus of 90,000 points. If I were to continue to get 3 cents per point in value, that SUB exceeds the money I needed to spend ($2k) to get it (90k pts), which is always fantastic when that happens.
The Ongoing Spending:
The Wyndham Business Earner is one of my favorite cards in part because it is so easy for me to rack up points on a regular basis from my own spending without any authorized user spending.
Other Ways to Get Wyndham Rewards:
Purchasing points during 40% off promos is a solid option at .93 cents per point to get more Wyndham Rewards, in my opinion superior to the next option, though the next option is also solid. Points purchase promotions are limited in terms of how many points you can purchase and the fact that you need a Wyndham credit card in order to achieve the 10% discount, reducing the potential value if looking to team up with both you and your player 2 if player 2 doesn't have the card. My wife, my player 2, doesn't have a Wyndham credit card. I encounter this same problem when considering purchasing IHG Rewards since my wife has stackable 4th night free and 10% rebate on IHG stays. She has the IHG Rewards Premier Credit Card that carries a $99 annual fee that provides her every 4th night (i.e. 8th, 12th, etc.) free on all bookings as long as she's staying at least 4 nights for any given booking. The 10% rebate is from the discontinued $49/yr IHG credit card with the 40k/night certificates annually. I don't have either at the moment and likely never will have a viable stackable option there due to discontinuance.
In addition to points purchases, Capital One & Citi Thank You are 1:1 transfer partners with Wyndham Rewards, and Capital One recently did a 20% bonus promo to Wyndham. That said, if you max out the points purchase and that is sufficient for your Wyndham needs, there are other solid partners to transfer to with Capital One who don't have as good of options for points purchases as Wyndham does.
How I Booked:
It was a lot of time on hold on the phone after calling 800 441 1034, with a total time on the phone of 1 hr 22 minutes, so I recommend having some work to do or research to do while you're on and off hold.
The Vacasa rental:
Here is a link to it.
It was the best option the person looking in the criteria I gave them could find out of the many Vacasa options in the Destin area. It's well rated, on the water, 1 bedroom, and nice.
