The Complete Guide to Using the Wells Fargo Rewards Portal [2024]

You can redeem Wells Fargo Rewards points in a variety of ways — and now you can transfer points to select airline and hotel partners.

If you’re interested in booking travel, take a closer look at the Wells Fargo Rewards portal. With your points, you can book flights, hotels, rental cars, and more for your next vacation.

Here’s our in-depth guide on the Wells Fargo Rewards portal and what you should know before redeeming your points.

Why Book Travel Through the Wells Fargo Rewards Portal?

One of the best parts of opening a bank credit card is that cardholders can redeem rewards at their leisure. Some are interested in earning cash rewards, viewing their rewards as a rebate on their purchases, while others choose to redeem points for unforgettable travel experiences.

If you’re in the latter group, you need to know the 2 ways to redeem points for travel. First, you can transfer Wells Fargo Rewards points to a few programs, such as British Airways Avios, Avianca LifeMiles, and Choice Privileges. (This is how people book business class flights for a fraction of the real cash cost or hotel rooms worldwide!).

However, to book your desired award flight or hotel, you need to find the right award availability for your travel dates. You might not always find award flights for the days you want to fly, which isn’t the best method of booking travel if you don’t have a ton of flexibility.

You may also want to book other types of travel that can’t easily be booked with points or miles. Cruises, tours, and vacation packages are examples of travel that aren’t easy to book with rewards.

That’s why, as a Wells Fargo cardholder, you may want to turn to the Wells Fargo Rewards portal to redeem points for travel, where every point is worth 1 cent. The math is simple: A $300 flight would require 30,000 points, a $1,000 cruise would require 100,000 points, and so forth.

The Wells Fargo Rewards portal is similar to your average online travel agency — think Expedia or Kayak. You can search for any flight, hotel, or activity without worrying about blackout dates. Then you can make your booking with cash, points, or a combination — the choice is yours.

Hot Tip:

There’s an understated benefit to booking with the Wells Fargo Rewards portal, specifically when redeeming points for flights. You still earn airline miles and elite qualifying points if you attach your frequent flyer number to the reservation since these reservations are considered revenue tickets. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for hotel and rental cars, which limits the ability to earn rewards points on third-party bookings.

Cards That Earn Wells Fargo Rewards Points

Earlier in 2024, Wells Fargo launched its best travel rewards card, the Wells Fargo Autograph Journey℠ Card. This card builds off its existing Wells Fargo Autograph℠ Card, which has a $0 annual fee.

With the announcement of the new card, the issuer drastically improved its travel portal and finally added the flexibility to transfer points to participating airline and hotel programs.

Wells Fargo also has a solid cash rewards card, if that’s more your style. With the Wells Fargo Active Cash^® Card, you can instantly transfer your rewards to the Wells Fargo Autograph Journey card or the Wells Fargo Autograph card. You can do this by visiting the Wells Fargo Rewards portal, clicking My Rewards, and then clicking Transfer to consolidate rewards earned on multiple Wells Fargo cards.

This way, you can leverage the excellent 2% cash rewards rate on all purchases with the Wells Fargo Active Cash card, then pool your rewards earned from the Wells Fargo Autograph card or the Wells Fargo Autograph Journey card.

How To Access the Wells Fargo Rewards Portal

There are 2 ways you can easily navigate to the Wells Fargo Rewards portal. You can go directly to the Wells Fargo Rewards portal website or log in to your Wells Fargo account.

In your Wells Fargo Rewards account, you should be able to preview credit cards, any checking or savings accounts you may have with the bank, and your rewards account, all on the same homepage.

Simply click on the Wells Fargo Rewards tab to see an overview of the points you’ve accumulated and the various redemption options. To launch the Wells Fargo Rewards travel portal, go to Use Rewards and Travel.

This opens a new window of the travel portal where you can search for flights, hotels, car rentals, activities, cruises, and vacations.

How To Book a Flight Through the Wells Fargo Rewards Portal

When you open up the Wells Fargo Rewards portal, it will show flights as the default search. You can enter your origin and destination, travel dates, fare class, and preferred airline, and can also toggle for nonstop or refundable flights.

Once you’ve entered the required fields, you’ll see a list of flights, with the cheapest fares shown first. From these results, you can tweak your search. For instance, you can sort the flights by price, departure times, and duration. The site will show the cash fare (including taxes and fees) and the points rate.

Hit Select once you find the right flight for you. It’s important to know you won’t be able to select the exact fare class until the next screen pops up — that’s when you can review the options presented to you.

With a lot of airlines offering their own version of basic economy, it’s important to look carefully at the options. Many (but not all) airlines limit basic economy passengers to a personal item — no carry-on bag — and will not allow you to modify your flight.

Fortunately, Wells Fargo provides a clear chart detailing what is — and isn’t included — with your flight. Make your selection and hit Add to Cart to begin the checkout process.

Enter all traveler details to confirm your booking. Don’t forget to add your frequent flyer number under the Member Number section to earn points and miles on your booking. You can also add a Known Traveler Number or a Redress Control Number, if you have them.

If seat assignments are included in your booking, you can also reserve your spot on this next screen. Then, under Payment Options, enter the number of points you’d like to redeem for the flight. In the example below, the total cash fare is $397.32.

What’s great about the Wells Fargo Rewards portal is that you can redeem any amount of points toward reducing that out-of-pocket cost — whether it’s 500 points ($5) or 15,000 points ($150) — there are no required increments, meaning you could apply only 1 point to a redemption if you wanted.

Lastly, enter the billing information for the flight, even if you redeem points for the entire fare. You need to enter a valid credit card number — and it doesn’t have to be your Wells Fargo card.

How To Book a Hotel Through the Wells Fargo Rewards Portal

Log in to the Wells Fargo Rewards portal and toggle the Hotels tab. Here, enter your destination, check-in and checkout dates, and the number of rooms and travelers. (Pro tip: If you begin your search but don’t finalize the booking, Wells Fargo will populate your previous searches on the home screen for easy reference).

The results populate in a list format, each hotel with a short description of the location and amenities. You’ll see the nightly rates in cash and points, including taxes and fees. If you put in a broad destination (like a city name), it may be easier to view the results in the Map format, where you can look at the results based on location.

Each hotel will present a variety of room types, whether you’re a solo traveler who needs a king bed or a family that needs 2 queen beds. Review each option carefully to learn about the cancellation and hotel policies, as some may be fully refundable and include perks like free breakfast.

Once you’ve made your selection, press Add to Cart to begin the payment process.

The rest of the process is pretty seamless. Enter traveler information for each guest, pay with cash or points, and pay for the booking with a valid card number.

How To Book a Rental Car Through the Wells Fargo Rewards Portal

To rent a car through the Wells Fargo Rewards portal, click the Rental Cars tab on the homepage. The portal makes it easy to look for car rentals at airports, and you can select a specific rental car company. Mandatory fields include pickup date and return date.

You will be able to see the make and model of each car (though you may get a similar class and type), the rental company, and the price in dollars and Wells Fargo Rewards points. Once you have selected the car, click on Add to Cart.

To complete the booking process, enter your full name, gender, and age, given that there’s a surcharge for young drivers and that some younger people won’t be able to rent a car at all.

You can pay the full rate on your card or redeem some or all of your points for the balance. You need to put a valid credit card on file for incidentals, but it’s likely you’ll be asked for the card again when picking up your rental car at the counter.

Some Wells Fargo cards, including the Wells Fargo Autograph Journey card, offer a complimentary auto rental collision damage waiver, but the coverage is secondary in the U.S.

Hot Tip:

If you’ve added flights, hotels, or other items to your cart, you’ll be able to checkout for all reservations at once.

How To Book Activities Through the Wells Fargo Rewards Portal

If you’re looking for tours and activities, look no further than the Wells Fargo Rewards portal. Head over to the Activities tab to enter your destination and travel dates to find experiences on your next vacation.

The options are based on where you’re going, but you can narrow the results to include art and culture, classes and workshops, food and drink, outdoor activities, seasonal and special occasions, tickets and passes, tours, sightseeing and cruises, and travel and transportation services.

By hitting Select, you’ll get an overview of the activity and relevant information. Here, you can also select how many travelers will be attending and adjust the travel date. To continue booking, press Check Availability.

At checkout, you’ll be asked for your full name and age. You can complete payment by paying with cash or points. Enter a valid card number to complete the booking.

How To Book a Cruise Through Wells Fargo Rewards Portal

Want to book a cruise with your Wells Fargo Rewards points? The issuer partners with more than 40 ocean and river cruise lines.

Though it shows up as an option on the portal, you can’t currently book online. Instead, you need to call 877-517-1358 between 8 a.m. to 12 a.m. Eastern time. The call center is open 7 days a week. You can let the agent know that you’d like to book with Wells Fargo Rewards points.

How To Book Vacation Packages Through the Wells Fargo Rewards Portal

Sometimes it’s easier to let the experts do the travel planning. That’s why Wells Fargo offers complimentary vacation planning services to help book an entire package for you, combining flights, hotels, rental cars, and activities.

To book a vacation package with Wells Fargo Rewards, call 877-517-1358 between 8 a.m. to 12 a.m. Eastern time. The line’s open 7 days a week.

How Do the Prices Compare to Other Sites?

Now that we’ve gone through all of the options, let’s do an in-depth comparison of the prices. Below, you’ll find a few examples of the prices when you book directly and with popular travel booking portals, such as Hotwire, Kayak, and Expedia.

Flights

Example No. 1: Round-trip flight between Phoenix (PHX) and Nashville (BNA) for 1 person in economy.

The cheapest option on the Wells Fargo Rewards portal was offered by JetBlue — with 1 layover. However, after we did a quick search on Google Flights, it appeared that American and Southwest not only offered cheaper fares but nonstop options. Interestingly, only 1 American Airlines flight (and no Southwest flights) populated in the Wells Fargo Rewards portal search results.

For a long time, Southwest has only been bookable directly through its own website. We have started to see that change, and Google Flights has finally added Southwest search results. But Wells Fargo Rewards still do not show Southwest fares at all and showed limited nonstop flights with American Airlines.

We always recommend shopping on Google Flights first as a preview. As you can see in the example above, booking through Wells Fargo Rewards was not the cheapest (or best!) option.

Example No. 2: Round-trip flight between Boston (BOS) and London (LHR) for 1 person in economy.

Virgin Atlantic was the cheapest flight Wells Fargo Rewards offered: We could book a nonstop, round-trip flight for $588.20 or 58,820 points. But after a quick Google Flights search, we found that American Airlines and British Airways were both offering the same round-trip price as Virgin Atlantic — but those fares didn’t pop up on the Wells Fargo Rewards portal.

It was interesting that Priceline, an online travel agency, presented a 1-stop flight that was barely cheaper than the nonstop flights.

Hot Tip:

Any flights booked via the Wells Fargo Rewards portal earn frequent flyer miles, whereas direct redemptions with the airline do not earn any rewards. This is an important consideration when deciding whether to pay cash or points for your airline ticket.

Hotels

Example No. 1: We compared prices for a weeklong stay at the Hilton Cancun, an All-Inclusive Resort, for 2 people, including all taxes and fees.

Hotels.com was the clear winner here, but if you wanted to book with points, redeeming around 267,000 points is a much better value than the other sites!

It’s also worth noting that Hilton Honors has a variable award chart, meaning prices are dynamic depending on the travel dates, allowing you to find cheaper point rates if you’re flexible.

Example No. 2: We also wanted to take a look at an example of an independent hotel that’s not part of a major hotel chain. After all, you don’t earn any redeemable or elite-qualifying points by booking hotels via the Wells Fargo Rewards portal. Therefore, we compared prices for a 3-night stay at the Editory Riverside Hotel in Lisbon.

As you can see, booking directly with this hotel is by far the cheapest option, saving nearly 40% of the rates we found via Wells Fargo Rewards.

Car Rentals

There are plenty of good car rental deals on the Wells Fargo Rewards portal, including “Wild Card” and “Manager’s Special” offerings for those who aren’t picky about the rental car. For this example, we compared the rates for the cheapest sedan and standard SUV.

As you can see, the price differences are negligible. The benefit of booking with Wells Fargo Rewards is that you can use points to offset the cost, but do know that you need to pay the full rate up front. Compare that to booking directly with the rental car agency, whether that’s Alamo or Thrifty, where you can save the payment for when you pick up the keys.

It’s always a good idea to compare rates for car rentals on a few different websites.

Activities

We sampled a couple of activities in Maui for comparison. It’s usually cheaper to book activities with the tour company itself, as there will likely be a discount for direct reservations.

Other Ways To Use the Wells Fargo Rewards Portal

There are other ways to redeem your points via the Wells Fargo Rewards portal than travel:

• Cash-back at Wells Fargo ATM if you have a Wells Fargo debit card
• Online merchandise at select retailers (Best Buy, Bass Pro Shops, etc.)
• Apple (MacBook, iPhone, etc.)
• Gift cards (Lowe’s, DoorDash, etc.)
• Redeem to your Wells Fargo account
• Redeem for purchases on your credit card account
• Pay with rewards at PayPal

All of these redemptions are worth 1 cent apiece, which makes it easy for cardholders to understand the value of their Wells Fargo Rewards. Therefore, cash-back may be appealing to those who want flexibility, but they need an existing Wells Fargo checking account to qualify.

Alternatively, redeeming points for purchases on your Wells Fargo credit card statement is a solid backup. You can book travel (or buy virtually anything) with your Wells Fargo credit card, then redeem your points for an easy 1 cent apiece.

Transfer to Travel Partners

Looking to get more value from your points? The only way to achieve this is by transferring points to Wells Fargo Rewards travel partners. This definitely takes more legwork than any of the options above, but it could be well worth it to get 2 or 3 cents or more per point in value.

To transfer your Wells Fargo Rewards points to any of the above airline and hotel partners, log in to your account and click on Use Rewards, then Rewards Points Transfer. You must first link your accounts with frequent flyer information to begin the transfer process.

Final Thoughts

Wells Fargo gives its cardholders plenty of opportunities to redeem points for travel — including via its very own portal. While we did find some flaws, you should always price-check to make sure you’re really getting the best deal.

On the Wells Fargo Rewards portal, cardholders can also redeem points for cash-back, shopping, and gift cards for 1 cent apiece.

To get outsized value (i.e., more than 1 cent per point in value), you could also transfer your points to a few partner programs. Though the partners are limited for now, they definitely encompass some of our favorites here at Upgraded Points, including Avianca LifeMiles and British Airways Avios.