Good morning everyone, I hope your week is going well.  I’ve been a huge fan of Vacasa Vacation Rentals using Wyndham Rewards Points and have booked 6 Vacasa properties in California and Hawaii over the last few years.  Back in October, Frequent Miler discovered that Vacasa now has a lower cap on reservations booked with WR Points.  You can now only redeem WR Points if the price per bedroom per night is $350 or less, down from the previous $500 per bedroom per night.  That is a major blow to the value you could get booking Vacasa Vacation Rentals.

Here is the current chart that shows the price in dollars and WR Points needed, based on the number of bedrooms and the average nightly price (including taxes and fees).  If you have a Barclays Wyndham Rewards Earner Plus or Earner Business credit card, you get a 10% discount on the number of WR Points needed.  Based on those numbers, the maximum cents per point (CPP) is 2.33 CPP for all members and 2.59 CPP for Earner Plus and Earner Business CC members.

The problem with the above chart is that if you book properties that cost much lower than the average nightly price cap, like a 1 bedroom Vacasa for $150 per bedroom, per night, your CPP drops down to 1.00 CPP for all members and 1.11 CPP for Earner Plus and Earner Business CC members – which are both terrible deals.  On the flip side, if there was an amazing 1 bedroom Vacasa for $500 per bedroom, per night, that would be impossible to book, you couldn’t even pay the higher 2 bedroom price that has a $700 average nightly price cap.

With that information in mind, let’s temporarily imagine a different chart that did not care how many bedrooms were in each Vacasa and only looked at the average nightly price.  I kept the 4 current price bands in green and added 24 new price brands at every $50 increment.  Unfortunately, the numbers below look really ugly when I did the math, but the previous 2.33 CPP for all members and 2.59 CPP for Earner Plus and Earner Business CC members still apply.  Remember, the CPP prices assume you hit the average nightly price exactly, without a penny to spare.  Therefore, a Vacasa that has a $301 average nightly price, would still cost 15,000 WR Points (2.01 CPP) for all members and 13,500 WR Points (2.23 CPP) for Earner Plus and Earner Business CC members.  Depending where your average nightly price falls in the chart, all members would get between 2.01 – 2.33 CPP and Earner Plus and Earner Business CC members would get between 2.23 – 2.59 CPP.

To simplify everyone’s life, I would make WR Points worth 2.00 CPP for all members and 2.50 CPP for Earner Plus and Earner Business CC members toward Vacasa reservations, but you would have total flexibility to book any available Vacasa property, no matter the number of bedrooms or average nightly price.

If the total for your 1 bedroom Vacasa for 4 nights came out to $1,897.82 (average nightly price of $474.45), you would pay 94,891 WR Points or 75,913 WR Points for Earner Plus and Earner Business CC members.  As it stands currently, you would not be able to book this property using WR Points because the average nightly rate is above $350.  But after the changes go live, this property becomes bookable with WR Points.  You’re welcome.  I will also work with the engineering team and ask them to display the number of WR Points next to the cash price, so you won’t need to use a calculator.

If the total for your 3 bedroom Vacasa for 4 nights came out to $2,995.88 (average nightly price of $748.97), you would pay 149,794 WR Points or 119,835 WR Points for Earner Plus and Earner Business CC members.  As it stands currently, a 3 bedroom Vacasa would be 45,000 WR Points x 4 nights = 180,000 WR Points for all members or 162,000 WR Points for Earner Plus and Earner Business CC members.  This would represents a savings of 30K – 42K WR Points with the new changes.  You’re welcome.

As you can see, these new changes allow you to book Vacasa properties that are currently unavailable with points and allow you to save a ton of WR Points for future Vacasa reservations.  If you have any questions about my proposed changes, I would love to hear them in the comments section below.  Have a great day everyone!