The La Quinta Returns frequent guest loyalty program officially ends on Tuesday, April 2, 2019 and becomes part of Wyndham Rewards effective as of Wednesday, April 3, 2019, which means that you will be able to earn and redeem points at greater than 9,000 hotel and resort properties worldwide across 20 different brands.
Why You Should Transfer Your La Quinta Returns Points to Wyndham Rewards Now
Waiting can be costly: if you transfer your La Quinta Returns points by Sunday, March 31, 2019, each La Quinta Returns point becomes one Wyndham Rewards point. After this time, members who have earned Silver elite level status will receive only one Wyndham Rewards point for every two La Quinta Returns points, which devalues your La Quinta Returns points by 50 percent.
Until recently, you can only transfer La Quinta Returns points in blocks of 1,000 points — but transfers now appear to be more flexible due to the ability to transfer odd amounts. “My La Quinta account had 410 points left that on principle I was ticked off that they would auto-transfer at a poor rate”, according to this article written by I went into my La Quinta account and found the transfer block restriction is now lifted. I was able to transfer my remaining 410 points to Wyndham.”
Members of La Quinta Returns who have earned either Gold or Elite level status will still receive one Wyndham Rewards point for every one La Quinta Returns point when they are converted on Wednesday, April 3, 2019; and all La Quinta Returns membership accounts will be closed and will cease to exist.
You can continue to earn and redeem La Quinta Returns points at La Quinta hotel properties through Sunday, March 31, 2019.
The elimination of the La Quinta Returns frequent guest loyalty program is a result of Wyndham Worldwide Corporation entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the hotel franchise and hotel management businesses of La Quinta for $1.95 billion in cash back in January of 2018.
Elite Level Status Match
You can match your La Quinta Returns elite level status to a Wyndham Rewards member level through Sunday, March 31, 2019. In order to complete your elite level status match, the last name and e-mail address in your member profile must be the same for both frequent guest loyalty programs.
If you have already earned La Quinta Returns Gold level status, you can match to Wyndham Rewards Gold elite level status.
If you have already earned La Quinta Returns Elite level status, you can match to Wyndham Rewards Platinum elite level status or Diamond elite level status.
La Quinta Returns members who have earned Silver elite level status are not eligible for the status match.
Wyndham Rewards Welcomes LaQuinta — But Reward Chart Changes
Effective as of Wednesday, April 3, 2019, 15,000 Wyndham Rewards points will no longer be the universal redemption rate for one GoFree reward night at greater than 30,000 hotel properties, club resort properties and vacation rental properties worldwide. Although you will still be able to redeem 15,000 Wyndham Rewards points per bedroom per night at many of the properties, the good news is that you will be able to redeem as few as 7,500 Wyndham Rewards points per night at approximately 200 hotel properties — but the bad news is that at almost 3,000 hotel and resort properties, the redemption rate increases to 30,000 Wyndham Rewards points per bedroom per night. The specific list of hotel and resort properties — as well as their redemption rates — has not yet been released.
Additionally, points + cash redemptions — which are also known as GoFast reward nights — are structured as follows:
- 6,000 Wyndham Rewards points plus cash copay
- 3,000 Wyndham Rewards points plus cash copay
- 1,500 Wyndham Rewards points plus cash copay
Summary
This whole procedure is far more complex that necessary. What should happen is that all members of La Quinta Rewards have their points automatically converted to Wyndham Rewards points at a one-to-one ratio effective as of Monday, April 1, 2019, with elite status automatically matched as well.
Whatever you might think about the latest changes which were announced, remember that we are discussing the frequent guest loyalty program in which a number of members have lost trust — such as when the following shenanigans occurred with no notice, announcement or advance warning of any sort whatsoever to members:
- Wyndham Rewards changed the rules on this promotion in February of 2018
- The number of Wyndham Rewards frequent guest loyalty program points needed to convert to airline frequent flier loyalty program miles had doubled
- At least one hotel property was “upgraded” to a new redemption level known as Tier 9
- A redemption increase of almost 282 percent was reported in January of 2013 for the Wingate by Wyndham Manhattan Midtown located on West 35 Street in New York
- A bizarre promotion from Wyndham Rewards was cancelled before it even started, with which if you donate all of your Starpoints to charity, you will earn quadruple the amount of Wyndham Rewards points in return; and you would also receive a match to your current elite level status in the Starwood Preferred Guest program
Photograph ©2017 by Brian Cohen.
