“Today’s Wyndham Rewards trade up was offered in the spirit of generosity. Before the offer even began, there were obvious and significant examples of fraud. Much to our dismay and disappointment, we have to cancel this promotion. We will, however, make a donation of 5 million Wyndham Rewards points to charity as the work they do on behalf of others is real magic.”

What an Incredibly Bizarre Promotion That Never Was With Wyndham Rewards

That is the message you will see when you click here — where purportedly once was a strange promotion where 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 as follows:

Competitor Program Status Level	Wyndham Rewards Member Level
Preferred	Blue
Gold	Platinum
Platinum	Diamond

Two screen shots were required as proof that you conformed to the rules, terms and conditions of this promotion – one screen shot showing confirmation of the donation of Starpoints; and a second screen shot showing your account activity with a zero balance — or, at least, you were permitted to keep no more than 499 Starpoints in your account.

Also, any activity in your Starwood Preferred Guest frequent guest loyalty program account within 24 hours prior to the launch of this promotion would render you ineligible to participate in this promotion — especially as many people had the idea to transfer their Starpoints to Marriott Rewards prior to participating in this promotion to take maximum advantage of it.

There was purportedly no maximum limit on how many Starpoints you may donate — or how many Wyndham Rewards points you can earn.

The promotion was supposed to have been live for today only — Tuesday, October 11, 2016 from noon until 11:59 in the evening Eastern Daylight Time.

Summary

This supposed promotion — where “it’s time for a loyalty intervention”, whatever that means — made absolutely no sense. Why Starwood Preferred Guest? Why require someone to empty out their frequent guest loyalty program account and donate almost all of the points to charity? Why four times the Wyndham Rewards points as a result? Why have the promotion now?

Many authors of weblogs reported on this promotion, which was canceled before it began. Something just does not “smell right” — like maybe this promotion was poorly planned from the beginning; or perhaps this was a way to get attention at no cost…?!?

Source: Wyndham Rewards.