The Product
Wyndham Hotels & Resorts (NYSE: WH) is deploying a food-and-loyalty bundle to mark the 100th anniversary of Route 66, releasing a limited-edition candy collection that pairs novelty confections with redeemable hotel points. The "Flavors of the Open Road" set goes on sale August 20 at 10 a.m. ET exclusively at WyndhamRewards.com/Route66, priced at $19.26 plus tax with shipping included — a price point chosen to echo the highway's 1926 founding year.
The Numbers
Only 100 boxes will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis, capping total retail revenue for the drop at roughly $1,926 — a figure that makes clear the commercial logic sits in loyalty economics, not candy sales. Each box contains six 2.5-ounce jars of destination-flavored candy and 30,000 Wyndham Rewards points. The company values that point bundle as sufficient for up to two free nights or more at participating brands including Days Inn, Super 8, Ramada, and La Quinta. With a free-night floor of 7,500 points under the program, the bundled points alone carry meaningful redemption value relative to the $19.26 purchase price — a deliberate device to drive loyalty enrollment and engagement rather than product margin.
Why It Matters for Foodservice and Hospitality
The six flavors map directly to food-and-beverage landmarks along the corridor: deep-dish pizza (Chicago), pecan pie (Tulsa), smoked brisket (Amarillo), roasted green chile (Albuquerque), prickly pear soft serve (Flagstaff), and root beer float (Kingman, Arizona). Each candy jar ships alongside a guide to the restaurants and roadside attractions behind the flavor — including a paired Wyndham property at every stop. That structure mirrors a broader trend in hospitality marketing: anchoring loyalty programs to culinary identity rather than purely transactional point accumulation. For regional foodservice operators named in the campaign — among them Lou Malnati's and Giordano's in Chicago, Tyler's Barbeque in Amarillo, and Frontier in Albuquerque — the association represents earned media exposure with an audience already primed to spend on travel and dining.
Michael Shiwdin, Group Vice President of Integrated Marketing, Loyalty & Digital at Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, framed the release as an access play: "With over 400 hotels near Route 66, Wyndham and its brands have been helping travelers experience adventure at every turn for decades. Flavors of the Open Road isn't just a fun way to give travelers a taste of Route 66, it's about helping them hit the road to make memories of their own."
What's Next
Wyndham's loyalty program currently counts more than 126 million enrolled members worldwide, according to the company. The Route 66 drop is a micro-inventory activation — 100 units will not move the needle on program KPIs by volume — but it functions as a content and press moment timed to the centennial travel season. Operators and retailers in food and beverage along the Route 66 corridor should note that Wyndham's campaign explicitly directs hotel guests to named local establishments, positioning regional F&B brands as experiential anchors rather than commodities. That kind of loyalty-program integration with local foodservice is an area of growing strategic interest across the hospitality and travel sector.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
