TR 12/4-12/6 - GGWU and mLife HGS

OK, got here and did my first tour of GGWU, It was in the Palace Ballroom, since I don't have many points to spend there, I'm waiting for my lady friend to come spend her points. Took a couple of pictures with Santa.

Right now, I'm going over to mLife HGS to spend 500K points. myVegas is having a booth over there tonight.

Hopefully, some slot porn to post later in the trip.

 

500k mlife points? do they carry over one year to the next? that's a huge amount

 

Most I ever earned was 200 points. Haha

 

What's your impression of GGWU? Do you think there are more items than listed on the website?

I'm hoping that the 7 Star lines are short when I go tomorrow.

 

It all depends on whether you want to do your homework first or spend hours wandering around the HUGE ballrooms "shopping".

The mLife HGS was less attended. It might be due to the fact that they always use the LAST TWO (furthest back) ballrooms for HGS.

The GGWU lines were long, but moved quickly. If you are or have a Seven Star member accompanying you, you can use the Seven Star line.

myVegas was at the mLife event again this year and I stopped by to chit-chat with them.

I was very fortunate that mLife comped my resort fee even though I did not maintain Platinum, and was reduced to "gold", this may be the norm, but I didn't know (or really care).

I couldn't sleep, so I went downstairs to make my 1000 TC day, and it cost me less than usual.

More on what I had to do for the 500K HGS points tomorrow.

 

OK, more details on HGS and GGWU.

I got 500K HGS points through myVegas. Last year myVegas had a promotion that was offered to VIP members (VIP members are those who buy a substantial amount of chips).

Last year, we were offered 500K HGS points for 1.5M Loyalty points (LPs).

This year, myVegas opened it up to the general membership, but the exchange rates doubled (500K HGS points for 3M LP) AND required a 2 night stay at an MGM property. Also, you couldn't exchange for more than one HGS package. (I have 2.2M LP remaining)

I was fortunate enough that even though my mLife Platinum was not renewed, I was still offered comp days at MGM Grand and was able to secure a weekend stay.

I was given a King room the the West Grand. A pretty nice room.



So, I double booked again (I had double booked for GGE Thanksgiving week) I was determined not to let what happened Thanksgiving week happen to me this weekend. Double booking means double play and possibly double losses.

I went to mLife HGS on Friday night. As I may have state earlier, the ballrooms that they use for HGS are the last ballrooms in the back. For those familiar with the Bellagio layout, they are far past the Bellagio Fine Art Gallery.

I specifically went on Friday night because myVegas was having a booth. Below are the myVegas hosts for VIP members.



From left to right

Rustin, Andrew, Justine, and Jessica

I met them all and discussed my disappointment with the way that the HGS points had been handled this year. I will be preparing a letter detailing things, like why did they only announce this 2 weeks before the December event (this may be because they were dealing with Bellagio and not mLife. I would also be discussing the direction of the rewards and their ongoing relationship with partners with my host the next time I'm in LV (we're going to lunch)

So, I got my shopping done and had an interesting conversation with a Noir member who used to be a CET 7*. The only reason that she switched over was for the quality hotels like Aria and Bellagio. She told me that it is a MINIMUM of 2M mLife Tier Credits (up from 1M) to be invited to Noir. I also told her the other thing that I didn't like about mLife was that you only get "good" comp offers from the casinos that you play at.

The mLife HGS event was very sparsely attended. There was a live band playing and food was being served. A no host bar was in session. Checkout was quick and easy. Once I was finished, I said goodbye to the myVegas hosts, and started off to check into MGM Grand.

Checkin at MGM Grand was pretty easy, since Gold and Platinum had their own checkin line. I also found out that Gold members have the resort fees comped, so the part about the mandatory 2 night stay became moot. I even got $100 FBC (Food and Beverage Credit)

I decided to give MGM Grand some play, and I put in about 20K Tier credits (remember that Gold level that a built in 20% bonus) over two days. My luck was OK, and 20K TC didn't cost too much. I ate dinner at the buffet at MGM.

After that, went back to Caesars Palace, intending to turn in early and if I work up before the gambling day ended, fine, if not, one non-gaming day wasn't going to hurt me. I couldn't sleep. As usual, LV effs up my metabolism, so I went downstairs. I made 1000TC day (1002 to be exact) and it only cost me $3-400. No handpays, but a $1150 payout on a Stinkin Rich bonus round.



Returned upstairs to get some sleep.

More about today a little later.

 

Good stuff so far! Hope to see more big hits!

 

Second Day

I got up very early and went downtown to take care of some business.

There were red and blue caps in the Four Queens Silver Strike machines. I sat down to play, and got about 11 clears and one red and one blue. I found that the red cap was a 2014 halloween and the blue cap was the Mad Hatter from the 2014 Alice and the Red Queen series.





I now have 194 clear caps so I'm pretty much set for 2016 $300 strikes. I may not even play in January, just buy "extras" that other people have.

So, after that, I went back to MGM and played a little there. I guess it was more than a little, since I now am over halfway to mLife Gold. Hmmmmmmm. Spreading myself thin again . . . . .

Didn't eat breakfast. Not eating lunch because "N", a female friend of mine, was coming in. "N" is a 7* craps player and was staying at NOBU and invited me for lunch off of the room service menu.

Went back to Caesars and knocked out 700+ TC of my 1000TC day and waited for "N" to arrive.

Still no handpays . . . boo hoo. I'm not really playing for handpays, but they're nice to have.

Anyway, "N" arrived and I went to her room at Nobu. The rooms at Nobu are hella small. My room at Augustus Tower is about twice as big. The rooms are "Japanese inspired", I guess. We traded things that we had brought for each other, and then looked at the menu. I chose the spicy seafood soup and Yellowtail Jalapeno, she took the ramen.

I was so hungry that I forgot to take pictures. . . .

Anyway, the spicy seafood soup came in a "miso soup sized" bowl. $18.00 for that!!! The Yellowtail Jalapeno was 6 pieces of yellowtail sashimi with a slice of jalapeno on top. $30!!!!! The ramen was by far the "bargain" dish of lunch, $18 for a standard sized ramen bowl.

No tub, only a shower with no door.

So, if you're wondering why I'm grousing about the prices, it's because I like to be (relatively) thrifty. But, in this case, it was going on "N's" bill anyway.

Mandatory 18% gratuity and $5.00 service charge. On the phone they quoted 40 min. and true to form, in 40 min. (or so) room service delivered.

The food was quite good. IMHO the yellowtail was a sliced little thin for $5.00 apiece, the spicy seafood soup was OK+, the ramen was the best dish. We were eating at Emeril's at MGM Grand later that night, so we ate lightly.

After lunch, we went to GGWU. It was very crowded. "N" had only one item to get, then transferred her remaining GGWU points to me, and I had a list. We took a picture with Santa Claus. The line for 7* was very long, but CET made arrangements and we quickly got through the line.

Before dinner, we had some time to kill, so we went downtown to look at a Tumi bag, and to visit Jinju Chocolates at Container park.

We went to the D and I met my "new" host (my old host had moved to Downtown Grand). We looked at the Tumi bag. They are priced "down" to $250.00!!! They started out at $650.00, but, since people at the D aren't the type of clientele that buy $650.00 luggage, they have been going down in price. When I bought mine two years ago, they were down to $375.00, and when I bought one for a buddy one year later, they were $325.00. If you know Tumi, you know that this would be the last bag you would ever buy. It is a large carryon bag, black with the D Logo stiched on the outside pocket.



The bag is approx 20" tall, 14" across and 12" deep

If you are at all shopping for a carry-on, IMHO, this is a good investment. There are only a few left. Call first to make sure that they're still available.

Then we walked over to the Four Queens and I showed "N" the Silver Strike slot machines. It was better than explaining how they worked since she could see what they were and what I had been trying to describe.

Went back to the D, picked up the Tumi bag (I had $200 in comp money over there, so I wiped that out and the bag only cost $50.00. What a deal!!)

Went over to Container Park and visit Jinju Chocolates. It's ironic that I am a friend of Jin Caldwell (chocolatiere and owner of Jinju Chocolates) and I'm not really a "chocolate person", but "N" likes chocolate and she enjoyed the shop.

We then went back to drop off stuff and I was going to take a nap while "N" went downstairs to play some. However, this being LV, I couldn't sleep, and woke up to work on my trip report.

We went to Eneril's New Orleans Seafood House at MGM Grand. Andrea Bocelli was playing at the Garden Arena and traffic was a mess. I missed the entrance to hotel valet twice and ended up going the back way to the east Valet. I guess I should be thankful that I had a room because they were only taking hotel guests. I called Emeril's and told them we'd be a little late.

Got to the restaurant about 7:35 and were promptly seated. We had already decided to share the cold Seafood platter $95 and ordered two entrees. After the seafood platter was delivered and we saw how much food there was, I asked the waitress if they had started cooking our entrees yet and could be cancel them.

Apparently, between the time that I last ate there and now, they had modified the menu. There used to be two sizes of the seafood platter, but they consolidated the menu and now only have one size, but if you look at the pictures below, it was enough to comfortable split between 4 people as an appetizer.





The waitress was able to cancel our entree order and we ordered a slice of Banana cream pie to split.



After that, we went up to the room a MGM and found that they had taken the chocolates that I had left there. Because I hadn't left any luggage, they apparently thought I had checked out.

My legs were really hurting and it was 9:30. I had been awake since 6AM and didn't have a nap, so we agreed to go back to Caesars and call it a night.

More on the last day and pictures later.

 

Enjoying the trip report. The pictures are under exposed.