Deep-dish pizza. Smoked brisket. Roasted green chile. Not exactly the flavor lineup you'd expect from a candy jar — and that's precisely the point.
To mark 100 years of Route 66, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts and its loyalty program, Wyndham Rewards, are launching Flavors of the Open Road, a limited-edition candy collection that translates six iconic stops along the Mother Road into six signature confections. The kicker for the hospitality set: every box also comes loaded with 30,000 Wyndham Rewards points — enough for up to two nights or more at brands like Days Inn, Super 8, Ramada and La Quinta.
Only 100 boxes go on sale, exclusively at WyndhamRewards.com/Route66, starting August 20 at 10 a.m. ET. The price? A deliberate $19.26 (plus tax, shipping included) — a nod to the year Route 66 was established.
Six Stops, Six Flavors, One Legendary Road Trip
Each collection arrives in a premium Route 66 keepsake box holding six 2.5-ounce jars of uniquely flavored candy, plus a guide to the restaurants, attractions and roadside stops behind every bite — including a nearby Hotel by Wyndham. The featured flavors and their destinations:
- Deep-Dish Pizza (Chicago, Illinois) — a sweet-and-savory take on tomato and herbs, paired with stops at Lou Malnati's or Giordano's and a stay at La Quinta Inn & Suites by Wyndham Chicago Downtown.
- Pecan Pie (Tulsa, Oklahoma) — toasted pecans and caramelized sugar, with a nod to Merritt's Bakery and Days Inn by Wyndham Tulsa Central.
- Smoked Brisket (Amarillo, Texas) — a bold, smoky candy honoring Amarillo's pitmasters, Tyler's Barbeque and The Big Texan Steak Ranch, with Microtel by Wyndham Amarillo West as home base.
- Roasted Green Chile (Albuquerque, New Mexico) — sweet-meets-heat with earthy notes, tied to Monroe's, Frontier and Baymont by Wyndham Albuquerque.
- Prickly Pear Soft Serve (Flagstaff, Arizona) — bright berry and creamy vanilla, echoing Timberline Ice Cream, with Super 8 by Wyndham Flagstaff nearby.
- Root Beer Float (Kingman, Arizona) — nostalgic vanilla and root beer inspired by Mr. D'z Route 66 Diner and Rutherford's 66 Family Diner, with Ramada by Wyndham Kingman for the night.
"The best road trips are defined by the stops you never forget—the barbecue joint you still talk about years later, the diner with the best pie you've ever had or the unexpected local specialty you just can't find anywhere else. That's the magic of the Mother Road. 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." — Michael Shiwdin, GVP, Integrated Marketing, Loyalty & Digital, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts
Why It Matters
On its surface this is a fun, scarce merch drop. Look closer and it's a tight case study in loyalty-driven brand marketing that hospitality operators and marketers can learn from.
First, note what the box actually sells: a $19.26 candy set that includes 30,000 points redeemable for up to two hotel nights. That's not a candy sale — it's a low-friction on-ramp into the Wyndham Rewards ecosystem, wrapped in a story about food, nostalgia and travel. The points do the heavy lifting; the candy is the hook.
Second, the details signal intent. Pricing at $19.26, capping the run at 100 boxes, and mapping each flavor to a specific local restaurant and a specific Wyndham property turns a marketing stunt into a scarcity-plus-storytelling engine — the kind of thing that earns organic shares and press without a discount that erodes margin.
The practical takeaways for F&B and hospitality teams:
- Tie limited drops to loyalty, not just novelty. A collectible is more valuable when it deepens the customer relationship — here, funneling buyers toward rooms and repeat stays.
- Let food carry the destination story. Flavor is one of the most portable, emotional ways to sell a place. Restaurants and CVBs alike can borrow this "taste the destination" framing.
- Anchor promotions to a real moment. A centennial gives the campaign a reason to exist now — a timeliness lever any operator can find on their own calendar.
For the roadside restaurants and diners named in the collection, it's also free national exposure — a reminder that partnering with a major hotel loyalty program can put an independent operator in front of an audience it could never buy on its own.
Claim Your Piece of Route 66
Flavors of the Open Road goes on sale August 20 at 10 a.m. ET at WyndhamRewards.com/Route66, with just 100 boxes available at $19.26 each.
Is bundling loyalty points into a limited-edition food drop the future of hospitality marketing? Explore more of our hospitality and loyalty coverage and our look at how brands are reinventing loyalty — then tell us in the comments whether you'd trade $19.26 for the road trip.
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 founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
