synergistic

I haven't been gambling much in the past couple years, but I'm planning on making a run at 7* this spring and have been looking at other casinos to build status with. I'm not really an advantage player, but I only play video poker and the lowest EV I'll play is JoB. I'm pretty sure that after I complete my initial run, CET hosts aren't going to be terribly interested in helping me out.

Anyway, I mostly travel with my father, who has a whole slew of medical issues that make planning trips more difficult. We travel primarily by train, though we have successfully taken a reasonably comfortable transcontinental trip by booking him on a lie-flat redeye route.

Are there any programs that are very flexible when offering transportation comps? I'd be fine if they wanted to book Amtrak directly, or offered the transportation costs as points or free play. Folio credits wouldn't be nearly as appreciated unless the balance can be refunded after the trip, we're not big spenders.

I expect most of our trips to be to Tahoe, New Orleans, and Atlantic City, if that matters at all. If anyone has any experience or advice, it'd be much appreciated.

VegasGambler

In my experience (which has all been Vegas strip hotels, so it might differ from what you're talking about) they don't care.

When I have gotten "airfare" it is generally based on losses and amount of play vs comped, an has nothing to do with how much you actually spent on transportation. They don't even ask, nor is the amount necessarily reasonable for the distance travelled.

They don't really care whether you use that money to pay for a plane ticket, a train ticket, or if you walk there and pocket the cash. It's all the same to them.

Also, it's generally easier to get freeplay than cash. Personally, I'm fine with this (the only difference between $1k cash and $1k freeplay is the points on $1k coin-in, which is not much)

I do know someone who has a very generous offer of X% of losses or Y% of theo (whichever ends up being higher) back as cash in an envelope at a certain CET property. But he plays very big and uses almost no comps whatsoever.

nrr

At CET Tier Credits accrue at 1/2 the regular rate for Video Poker; so for each $10 at VP, you get 1 TC (for regular slots $5 = 1 TC).
CET has Junkets (sometimes just free flights) to lots of their casinos [generally by plane]--these do NOT come out of comps.

gengar

Personal transportation is a hard comp incidental, so it doesn't matter if it's air fare or train fare or any other fare - the casino will treat it the exact same way. Free play is by far the easiest way to get this handled if you're fine with that, and as a bonus you can get far more in free play than you would for transportation.

You mention that you're worried hosts won't help you out, but I don't see why not since you don't ask for much comped off the folio. If all you're asking for is free play, that's easy for a host to handle so just tell him that up front. Worst case, if you don't like what he offers, switch to someone else.


Just to note, MGM does the same to their low-end properties.

synergistic

Thanks for the replies - I'm especially glad to know that generally, a request for freeplay in lieu of travel reimbursement is going to be viewed as easier to work around than actual travel reimbursement. I kind of get why, but from where I'm standing, they're both 'hard cash' costs and it doesn't much matter to me how it's handled. Actually, thanks to Amtrak points, it's usually significantly cheaper to use award tickets - I'd rather have freeplay to add to the bankroll.

As for junket flights, they worked well for me back in the day, but my dad is significantly more comfortable on a train than a plane. It might be feasible for the New Orleans trips (that's an asinine trip by train from Florida) but otherwise planes are pretty much out unless he can lay down.

Soccerdad1995

JOB at decent pay tables (9/6) will generate one tier credit for each $25 of coin-in, so this will definitely be a long and costly route to 7* status. EV loss of $6,750 assuming perfect play if my math is correct.

Hopefully you can reap at least $10K in benefits in return to comp you for fading the volatility. That may well be doable.

In 2013, I made a run to Diamond over a weekend, and ended up getting approx. $1,200 in free play along with free rooms for a year. I could have gotten much more in FP if I had been able to get to CET properties more often. So $10K is not unreasonable.

I'm assuming you know that CET is declaring bankruptcy. I'm thinking you should still be safe in getting your 7* benefits out of them, but just know that they are having some major issues right now.

VegasGambler

I believe that the $25 coin-in per TC is only in Vegas CET properties. Others (eg, Tahoe) still have $10 coin-in per TC.

The OP mentioned that he was planning on playing at non-Vegas properties, so this is a significant difference.

Soccerdad1995

It's a huge difference and changes the math dramatically. If the OP knows JOB strategy and can find a 9/6 machine that awards 1 tier credit for $10 coin-in, then the cost would be 40% of my figure, or only $2,700. Not sure if or how this would impact the resulting free play and other comp offers, but it should be easy for him to recoup at least that much value in return, if not several times more.

This assumes that the OP maxes out the daily tier credit bonuses in addition to learning and playing perfect strategy, of course.

VegasGambler

To find such games, I highly recommend vpfree2. They exist at multiplay low denom in Tahoe CET properties.

Also, due to the 50% bonus TC credit promo that is running until march, it would be even less. 5k TC in a day = 15k TC after multiplier = 22,500 TC after promo. That would allow you to get to 7* in 7 days of $50k per day coin-in -- $350k total coin-in = $1610 expected loss, not including the freeplay that you would rack up.

You could literally take a week-long trip to Tahoe and have 7-star by the end of it, with very little coin-in.

Actually... this is not a bad idea. I may do this.

Edit: After noticing the 25k bonus pt limit in the other thread, I now think that the "sweet spot" to earn 7* is with 8 days of play.

8 days totaling 45k pts (with >5k on each day) + 80k from multiplier + 25k from bonus = 150k.

You could stretch it over 9 days to take advantage of another multiplier (with less play on the 9th day) but it's probably not worth either your time or your lowered ADT to do this.

I'd consider an 8-day, 7-night trip to Tahoe to do this... except... is there anything to do there when I'm not gambling? I can do a week in Vegas easily (especially in summer... pool all day; gamble all night) but what am I going to do in Tahoe for the 8-10 hours a day that I'm not eating, sleeping, or gambling?

Soccerdad1995

Do you ski? Tahoe is a great ski destination (my aunt used to have a place at Incline Village). Lake Tahoe is also great for waterskiing and the like, but that's a summer thing and this promo only goes through March.

Not to mention that Reno is a reasonably short drive away if you have enough down time.

It should also be noted that you really only need to get in 3 days at 6,667 base tier points / day during the promo time since you max out at 25k for that promo. The other 5 days (at an even 5k/day) could be later in the year, which means you can take full advantage of the promo if you can just schedule one long weekend between now and the end of March. This works well for those who have less flexibility with schedules, as well as those that would literally shoot themselves in the head from boredom after playing VP non-stop for 8 straight days......

Personally I think I will stick to BJ, even though CET is really stingy on tier credits for that game.

VegasGambler

It's actually very little play. The problem is spreading it out over 8 days, to take advantage of the multiplier. If I could put in that much play in 1-2 days and be done with it, I would.

50-play 25c is $62.50 per hand. So 880 hands will get me $55k in coin-in. That's about an hour at a moderate rate of play. Playing for an hour a day is nothing; the question is what do I do with the other 15 hours per day that I'm awake. It seems that the main cost of this plan is not the EV, but the value of my time for a week.

(I don't ski at all)

Soccerdad1995

No skiing makes it tough unless you like to hang out in the snow hiking or sledding or whatever. You could always go hang out in Reno, but there isn't a ton to do there either.

Maybe wait until March and hang out in the sports book watching college basketball? Or you could always play poker?