The Ultimate Guide to Credit Cards
Friday, October 4, 2024

WOW Club Offers Curated Travel Adventures for Women Looking to Redeem Credit Card Rewards

Wow Club Offers Curated Travel Adventures For Women
Adam West

Writer: Adam West

Adam West

Adam West, Managing Editor

Adam has interviewed over 1,000 finance experts since joining the CardRates team in 2016. He spearheads industry news coverage related to helping consumers achieve greater financial literacy and improved credit. He has more than 12 years of storytelling, editing, and design experience in print and online journalism and is most knowledgeable in the areas of credit scores, financial products and services, and the banking industry.

See Full Bio »
Close
Lillian Guevara-Castro

Editor: Lillian Guevara-Castro

Lillian Guevara-Castro

Lillian Guevara-Castro, Senior Editor

Lillian Guevara-Castro brings more than 30 years of editing and journalism experience to the CardRates team. She has worked at The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Gwinnett Daily News, Gainesville Sun, and The New York Times, where she covered demographics, consumer issues, and the business and financial sectors. Lillian has a degree in journalism and communications from Georgia State University and brings her fact-checking expertise to ensure Digital Brands content is accurate and engaging.

See Full Bio »
Close
Ashley Fricker

Reviewer: Ashley Fricker

Ashley Fricker

Ashley Fricker, Senior Editor

Ashley Fricker has more than a decade of experience as a finance contributor and editor, and has specialized in the credit card industry since 2015. Her credit card commentary is featured on national media outlets that include CNBC, MarketWatch, Investopedia, and Reader's Digest, among many others. She has worked closely with the world’s largest banks and financial institutions, up-and-coming fintech companies, and press and news outlets to curate comprehensive content and media. Ashley holds a bachelor's degree in multimedia journalism from Florida Atlantic University.

See Full Bio »
Close
Advertiser Disclosure

In a Nutshell: Sumitra Senapaty saw many fellow women deferring their travel plans in favor of family and career responsibilities. So she started WOW Club in 2005 to encourage them to indulge their sense of adventure. Each year, WOW (Women on Wanderlust) plans dozens of global experiences that women can enjoy safely in small groups. The service is also popular with credit card rewards enthusiasts looking for a worthwhile use for their points.

Sumitra Senapaty discovered a love for adventure as a young woman and went on to have a successful career as a travel writer. But said she soon realized that many of her Indian peers lacked the confidence and the knowledge to travel independently.

For many women in India, the idea of embarking on a solo holiday to relax and recharge may get pushed down the priority list in favor of devoting time to families or careers.

Senapaty created WOW Club in 2005 to provide those women with an easy way to explore their adventurous sides. WOW (Women on Wanderlust) is a trip-planning community that draws on Senapaty’s personal travel experience and global contacts.

WOW Club logo

The club organizes dozens of journeys each year for small groups of Indian women, who can travel with confidence — and safely enjoy trips together.

“I was a little bit before my time. In 2005, the idea was very new,” Senapaty said. “We’ve come a long way since then.”

As Indian women find themselves with more credit card travel rewards to spend, WOW has become popular for expeditions ranging from a Bordeaux wine quest to a challenging trek to the Tiger’s Nest monastery in Bhutan.

“We’re not, strictly speaking, a travel agency because we give women much more than that,” Senapaty said. “We’re an alternate social community empowering Indian women to be bolder and more confident. And travel makes them that way.”

Empowering a Community of Women Through Travel

WOW acts as an all-in-one travel provider, and its experienced team of travel-loving women offers insights and guidance on everything from packing and flights to visa requirements.

The WOW platform includes about 40,000 active Indian women, who receive the club’s newsletter, and many social media followers. WOW’s audience hails not only from India but from the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

It has come a long way since the early days of the service when many potential customers felt constrained by family and career obligations as they contemplated signing on for a trip.

“Women loved it, but they always came up with this barrier that they would need to discuss it with their family,” Senapaty said.

When those family discussions occurred, perhaps over the weekend, husbands often asked their wives to plan a different kind of trip.

Photo of WOW Club trip

WOW Club plans trips for travel-loving women who want to get away for an adventure.

“The husbands would say, ’We’ll go together.’ Sometimes it happened, and sometimes it didn’t,” Senapaty said.

But as India continued to modernize and integrate with the West — economically and culturally — Senapaty said she saw a change in how women approached the service. Indian women are often the chief shoppers in a family, and solo travel can make a lot of sense as an outlet for credit card rewards.

“Today, 15 summers later, women don’t raise those same issues anymore,” Senapaty said. “Discussions are no longer about checking with family but about seeing how they can coordinate their personal lives and maybe take their professional leave before they get back with us. And then they do it.”

Find Your Travel Tribe and Discover Lasting Friendships

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted 2020 trip planning at WOW, just as it has in other businesses. But as different parts of the world start to open back up, WOW has followed.

The schedule for the remainder of 2020 primarily includes travel within India, WOW designed upcoming trips to appeal to a wide range of adventurers.

Whether women are looking for a trek in Bhutan, a connection with culture and heritage on a Silk Road exploration in Uzbekistan, or the ultimate in pampering in a Balinese seaside resort, WOW has them covered.

Photo of WOW Club Founder Sumitra Senapaty

WOW Club Founder Sumitra Senapaty

WOW builds each trip around the concept of solo travel within groups. That means women sign up individually and embark on trips in small groups.

Before COVID-19, between six and 10 women would embark on a strenuous trip, and between 10 and 16 would go on leisure-oriented journeys. Each trip also includes a designated WOW buddy from the service’s team — sometimes, even Senapaty herself.

WOW travel affords Indian women from all over the world the opportunity to come together, discover new places, cash in credit card rewards together, and build lasting friendships.

“Sometimes in life, you’re busy with your family and career, and you rarely meet people outside those circles,” Senapaty said. “We’ve given many women of diverse age groups, careers, and professions a chance to meet and enjoy each other.”

WOW: Bringing the World’s Wonders to Indian Women

WOW trips are so successful that the social interactions frequently extend well beyond the excursions.

“They’ll meet each other, become friends, and then they carry that relationship forward online and at get-togethers from time to time,” Senapaty said. “So we look after the social needs of women when they get home as well.”

All because travel is a mind-blowing experience, according to Senapaty.

“It opens your eyes and your senses. It teaches you how to be alert and how to take care of yourself, and above all, you get to meet people from over the world,” she said.

Senapaty herself has remained a self-described travel addict who has visited a total of 62 countries while personally vetting most destinations offered on the site. She draws on her experience and on customer feedback from post-trip online surveys to refine WOW’s travel menu with client preferences in mind.

Photo of women on a WOW Club trip

Women can make lasting friendships with other travelers they meet on excursions.

“For example, we like a bit of pampering, and we like centrally located hotels,” Senapaty said.

WOW also goes out of its way to cater to individual customer needs, targeting trips to specific demographic and age groups, and ensuring the right mix of travelers for each journey.

“When someone tells us they’re sensitive to ocean travel, that goes in our records, and we’re not going to recommend a cruise to that person,” Senapaty said.

Many WOW customers have returned to the service dozens of times. So whether an Indian woman is new to solo travel in groups or wants to redeem another batch of credit card rewards, WOW takes the guesswork out of adventuring.

“We’re a very close-knit community, and I’m happy more than anything that we’ve made life more meaningful for so many women,” Senapaty said.

Advertiser Disclosure

CardRates.com is a free online resource that offers valuable content and comparison services to users. To keep this resource 100% free, we receive compensation for referrals for many of the offers listed on the site. Along with key review factors, this compensation may impact how and where products appear across CardRates.com (including, for example, the order in which they appear). CardRates.com does not include the entire universe of available offers. Editorial opinions expressed on the site are strictly our own and are not provided, endorsed, or approved by advertisers.