Wyndham Wants Your Points to Work in a Private Villa

Hotel loyalty programs have mostly been about hotels, but Wyndham is stretching the definition. On October 29 the company introduced Homes & Havens, a collection of about 800 professionally managed vacation homes and villas that sit inside its rewards ecosystem.

The properties are in the United States, the Caribbean, Mexico and Europe. Members can earn and redeem points on eligible stays, which lets a family renting a beach house collect credit toward future trips in the same way they would at a hotel. Wyndham says more accommodation types are planned.

The scale of the audience is the draw. Wyndham reports roughly 129 million enrolled loyalty members, which is a large pool of travelers who might otherwise book rentals through marketplace platforms and never touch the company’s program. Professional management also promises more consistent service than a typical individually owned listing.

As always, travelers should check which listings qualify, since eligibility is limited to stays booked through the program. Comparing the total cost of a villa stay against a similar hotel room, including cleaning and service fees, remains the best way to find out whether the points are worth chasing.

Sources: eTurboNews