I'm effectively going to Vegas for the first time in September (last went in 2005) in terms of players clubs and i'm there for 12 days in total, 4 in Cosmo, 4 in MSS and 4 at Monte Carlo. My plan of action is to sign up to players clubs wherever i go and focus play in that one casino/group of casinos on that day to increase my average per day amount. My objective is to get here and now rewards (like buffets, meals, retail stuff or goodies) but also get on the radar for free night offers in the future as i'll be returning in April. I'm asking this after seeing some information about the Diamond in a Day type offer with CET (which i would probably get with Founders Card instead), it made me think that these kind of challenges would suit how i'm going to approach this trip so i wondered if you guys and gals could recommend individual casino players cards or the chain ones based upon quickly obtaining benefits and any short cut routes to achieving status? NB - I have also seen the $200 Trop offer which i will complete (and hopefully not redeem), and i'm also an IHG Platinum and HH Diamond member if that makes any difference at all
One thing with this strategy is: if you go around and get a dozen or so players cards from a bunch of different casinos... when you come back in April you aren't going to stay at a dozen different places. What you should do is an assessment: -> When you come back, where do you want to stay? -> How much do you have to gamble with? -> If you want free rooms, where can you expect to get them? And you have to be realistic: if you have $100-150 a day to gamble with thats not going to get you future offers for free rooms at Bellagio, Cosmopolitan, Wynn, etc. But it will at some of the lesser properties. Or if you are Downtown you should pick one place that you would like to stay and give a lot of your play there. That doesn't mean don't play anywhere else, but just if you are going to play heavy then it should be where you would want to stay (and if you can't play a lot at the place you would like to stay then maybe you need to pick a different place to stay). IE: Binion's has no hotel open right now, the rooms at Fremont at small, The Four Queens is a bit dingy... if you are never going to stay at one of those places then don't worry too much about giving them and their cards a bunch of play. With Total Rewards they look at everything as a whole in Las Vegas. Your play at any of their properties is effectively combined and they assess your play on that. However with MLife they don't do that anymore so if you are looking to build up some MLife goodwill you need to concentrate your play at one property to get good future offers (casino hopping with MLife will still garner some rewards if you have a decent amount of play, but it takes a lot less play to get good offers if you concentrate your play). And then that Tropicana offer: saying you are hopefully not going to redeem? No, if you are there and can redeem then you should. The why is because there is no guarantee that you will be back in April next year or that the offer doesn't end or they change their player club and any unused points are gone or they get sold/bought out and their program is cancelled for whatever program the new owners use.
I think he meant he hopes that he doesn't have to utilize the promotion because he will have won money instead of lost money. I planned to do the promotion, but ended up winning a few hundred dollars and so I stopped while I was ahead instead of sinking those winnings right back into the machine plus $200 of my own money.
Yep. What Auggie said. And, play at one of the MGM resorts will definitely get you in the system for discounts to all of their resorts, but offers will come from the resort you played at. I believe with CET play at one will get you in their system and free rooms at all of their resorts. You'll have to check with Boyd and Stations casinos how they work. Most places work off of what you gambled on average per day. MGM works on gamble per trip. CET casinos are very loose with their comps... but they have a higher house advantage there and the rooms aren't that nice. MGM is tighter with their comps... but the players have better odds and they have much nicer rooms. Cosmo's players club just flat out sucks (and it's new and improved) and their games have a very high house advantage. The resort is beautiful though and they have great rooms. Wynn is good middle ground. The players club isn't bad but it isn't great either, comps aren't plentiful, but the resort is beautiful and the games are pretty good. Obviously you'll get more bang for your buck downtown no matter what. The odds downtown will be better and the player's clubs will be more generous. My advice... take a day or two to check out the casinos on the strip and downtown. Decide which one you'd like to concentrate your play at and spend the majority of your money at that one place... thinking like 80-90%.
Thanks for the feedback and thoughts... Downtown i've read lots of good things at MSS and i guess thats the B-Connected programme so i was definitely going to focus on that one during my stay there, potentially my level of play might get the room comped but i'm not counting on it. I can't see anything about earning rates, short-cuts or real benefits in that programme though and i'm sure i've read that they rate your play there over 2-3 trips. So in short my view of downtown would be worth focusing on Boyd, try and get a room comp, set myself up for future offers and enjoy the Boars Head! I'm staying at the Cosmo on a really good priceline deal and gambling there isn't the main reason behind the selection, i've heard they are generous with their offers from not a lot of play so i'll probably look to put a reasonable amount of money through them and see what happens. The last 4 days are probably the most open at the moment. I got a good deal from bookit for the Monte Carlo but reading threads here today it seems like their blackjack is poor value and they've got crap VP paytables so i can't see myself gambling there much at all. I'm not a High Roller by any means so i'd doubt my bankroll would get me much reward in Bellagio and more upscale properties, generally i've budgeted about $250 per day at cosmo, $500 per day at MSS and $500 per day while staying at the MC with anything won/not lost being rolled over. So from what you've said i think i might try and focus on Caesers/Paris or Aria/Mandalay Bay. I guess what i most liked was the shortcut type challenge to get to Diamond, really appealed to me... is there anywhere else that offers something like that? I mean where i list $500 per day, if i can do a fast track promotion in one day which uses the whole $2k and it means that i just ultra low roll somewhere else the other days of my stay then thats fine. I'm using this as a trip to see what i like and set the stage for April where i'll be back with about 10-15k to spend on the whole holiday...
From what I've experienced, you'll love the Cosmo resort rooms. They are hit or miss on comps. My friend seems to get comped one night all the time but we always refuse to gamble there. The games have bad odds, they track your play horribly, and their player's club sucks. Your bankroll won't last very long there. The free rooms are great though. If you can help yourself, I would avoid playing there. Just not worth it. If you like CET properties, walk over to Caesars while you're on the strip and gamble there. I wouldn't waste your time with Paris. I think that place is a dump. Very worn. Caesars is pretty much the only CET property worth staying at on the strip. (Well, Cromwell might be the exception... but I've never been!). Diamond should be easy to obtain if you find the right VP machine (which is hard at CET casinos). 5k TC in one day gets you a 10k TC bonus which will make you Diamond in one day. If you like the MGM properties, gamble at the MGM property you like the most as you'll only get offers from that property (Aria is super close to the Cosmo). You'll love MSS. They cater mostly to locals and therefore their player's club and their comps are very good. I don't think you'll have any problems racking up the comps with them. Just depends if you want to stay downtown on future trips or not. If you do, gamble it up there. Slots get the most recognition everywhere. Monte Carlo has decent blackjack. Bad VP. I always walk over there from the Aria and play. They have a shoe game for $25/hand and I'm 99% sure it's S17 (the reason for me walking over there). I think they reduce it to $15 during the day. It's just outside the HL room. They have a great $50/hand game in the HL room during the day. Mirage used to have the best blackjack out of all of the MGM casinos. I used to concentrate all of my blackjack play to the Mirage in the area between the HL slot room and the HL room. Not sure if that's still true or not. It was always 6 deck shoe with S17, surrender, etc for $25/hand. Been a few years since I've played there though.
Yeah, I took it as sounding like they were going to play at Tropicana, build up the "come back" money and then save that for the return trip in April. As for the "similar to diamond in a day" program I don't think anybody else out there does anything like that. But you also have to remember that while having the diamond card is nice looking, it doesn't necessarily mean you will get better offers. When my wife and I were gold with Total Rewards and only earned around 800-1200 tier credits in total per trip we were getting better offers than some of the people who were diamond in a day. For the OP I would still look at The Strip part of your stay and instead of breaking up your play amongst Cosmo, MC/Aria (MLife) and Caesars (Total Rewards) still try to concentrate your play with one of the three. If you can get some good offers from MSS that would give you a cheap place to stay downtown (one of the Boyd properties) and then a nice place to stay (Cosmo, MC, Aria and Caesars) on The Strip, because it sounds like you are going to have a pretty decent amount of play overall for this trip (you probably don't even need to go that heavy at MSS to get some decent offers: we gamble like $75-100 each at Fremont, also a Boyd property, and they have no problem rolling out the free rooms to us). Personally I am pretty partial to MLife as a rewards program so if it were me I'd take the room I paid for at Cosmo, give them a nominal amount of play and then do most of my gambling at Monte Carlo and Aria and then while at Monte Carlo continue to do the same. One other thing I would throw out there is: this is a 12 night trip for you. If most of your trips are going to be this long then maybe you should look towards giving CET properties a bit of play, especially on the slots (even if you are not a slot player, just find a theme that piques your interest and play 40-50 cents a spin for a while), and not just Caesars Palace: most places only give out comp nights for 2-3 nights at a time. Sometimes you can get more, but that can be pretty rare and for that you have to phone in and get them to give it to you, like MLife just won't send you an offer for a lot of nights up front (in the past 10 years I only one time got an actual offer for 5 nights comped up front at Monte Carlo). But with Total Rewards it will be much easier to get 5-7 nights comped out of them up front, which when planning a trip it can be nice to shave that many nights worth of hotel costs for sure out of your budget.
Since you're staying at MSS for 4 nights, my advice would be to shoot for Sapphire in one trip - 25,000 tier points. Boyd has a Sapphire reward that pops up about a month after achieving it which will allow you to stay at your choice of their Vegas properties for 3 nights. This is in addition to the offers you would receive from MSS for that kind of play. My other piece of advice is to pick up a copy of the American Casino Guide for 15 bucks. Tons of great coupons for downtown especially, including a free buffet with 250 points earned. You can do this at each of the downtown Boyd properties. (MSS, California and Fremont)
Does Boyd tier match to other clubs? If so, it might be better to concentrate play at another resort and then tier match at the MSS. Regardless, with very little play, the OP will still get on the radar at MSS.
They don't tier match. 25,000 is not that difficult though - I made 28,000 there in 3 days playing quarter VP.
As far as Mlife goes, there's no tricks to getting tier level as far as bonuses like CET has. However, your tier level is mostly irrelevant with Mlife, as the best offers are from individual properties send out offers based upon your play at their casino. For example, Mandalay Bay (where I've gambled more this year) sends me great offers, and Luxor, where I just put a couple hundred through a VP machine, sends me less offers. So, if there is a resort you want to try, focus your play there.
