Wyndham Hotels buys LaQuinta for $1.95B, adds 900 hotels!

Wyndham announced an acquisition agreement with LaQuinta, purchasing the hotel franchise and management business for $1.95B in cash. That will add 900 mid-scale properties in the US for a total of 9,000 hotels in the largest hotel company in the world! The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2018!

Wyndham Worldwide has been on a tear, making aggressive changes to their Wyndham Rewards program, expanding in vacation rentals and acquiring other hotel companies. This proposed acquisition is the biggest yet. LaQuinta has around 900 properties in the US. Prior to the deal, LaQuinta will spin-off their real estate assets into a new entity, CorePoint Lodging. 

For travelers, this is great news: Wyndham Rewards has been rated the most rewarding hotel loyalty program and I’ve been able to get great deals through it! But because their focus is on budget properties (75% of their hotels), there are not a lot of midscale or upscale hotels to choose from. LaQuinta’s hotels squarely fit into the mid-scale space with an Average Daily Rate around $80, similar to Wyndham’s Ramada brand, Best Western or Choice’ Quality Inn. They also get positive customer feedback and are one of the more popular mid-scale brands.

LaQuinta DelSol Prototype

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the deal closes as planned and look forward to the integration of the two reward programs. Adding LaQuinta’s 13 million members to Wyndham Rewards’ 53 million members will make it one of the biggest loyalty programs in the industry!

If you’d like to get more travel related news like this from around the world, please follow me on Twitter – I’m posting news daily, so you can stay up to date on the world of travel with my Twitter updates! Or, for a weekly update, sign up for my newsletter for a Sunday Summary!


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *