Goosey

Can casino hosts freely distribute show tickets or give discounted pricing? Can you even buy tickets and charge it to your room (which means you'll be buying tickets rather last minute)?

Cirque shows rarely gets discounted (although things have changed a bit lately) and I was wondering if show tickets are a perk that are relatively hard to come by and something that is worth using your comp dollars on.

mitchell

For free rooms,

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At MGM chain:
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Mirage - 6,000 pts ($9,000 coin-in slots, $27,000 coin-in video poker)
Bellagio - 6,700 pts ($10,000 slots, $30,000 video poker)
At Mirage, they said 4,000 pts/day was the lowest promotional level
However, one of the promotions I asked about only needed 1,250 pts/day

However, MGM marketing started sending me free offers at 1,000-1,500 pts/day. (1) Rooms at Mirage for $45 + tax ($47.05) with $50 free slot play (2) Two days free at Mandalay Bay (3) Two days free at theHotel

I've only accumulated 13,000 pts at MGM over the past few weeks ($20,000-25,000 coin-in), and I have 16 offers in my e-mail (only 5 of which are meaningful, e.g. free room or better).

Cash-back at MGM is very high at 0.67%

I think Platinum level is $1 million coin-in.

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At Planet Hollywood:
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At ~$200-300/day theoretical (200-300 pts/day = $2,000-3,000/day coin-in), they brought me in on a promotion - free rooms + bonuses for play.

Cash-back at Planet Hollywood is low at 0.25%,
but they give you nice signup bonuses, $5 free, $15 free after 4 points ($40 coin-in), 2 free buffets ($60) after 100 points ($1,000 coin-in).

The current $2 million free pull after 10 pts each day is pretty lame - only once in 8 days did I earn anything more than a flashlight ($10 free play). Unlike the Harrah's promotion from 2007 where you could make $100-500+/day from the promotion. The best wins each day seem to be buffets and $15 free plays. Even the $50 free play seems scarce.

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M resort:
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had an Easter promotion where they gave out free $5-100 slot play eggs all day just for sitting at the slot machines.

Cash back 0.33%
Currently 2X video-poker and 3X slots for April 2009
Comp rate (2.0-2.5%) seems to be 3.5-4.0X the cash back rate (I had 2.14% comp rate on my first day there).

Mitchell

mumbojumbo

My wife and I recently returned from a stay at the Venetian hotel (very swanky) in Vegas for 4 nights. I played craps 3 times during our stay which was rated at $109/hand for 10hours. Realistically I played between $105-165/hand (15 pass 30 odds 30-60 on 6&8) for about 3 hours total and lost $2200 and I got comped full rooms which on the bill was valued at a little over $360 or $90/night and two very good seats to the blue man group which is valued around $280(first time seeing, its a fun show). My slot play wasnt anything to write home about with a little over 9500 coin in and I lost less than $1000 for the whole trip(LUCKY!). My wife and I play on the same players card to increase the benefit status.

My suggestion to anyone who wants to recieve comps at any casino without spending the bank would be to be friendly to the dealers, tip well, and be willing to talk to people. At the Venetian your going to definately have to play a total of $1000 a day to get a room comp. Remember that the more you loose the more generous the pit boss will be with your rating so dont feel pressured to rebuy in order to keep your rating up (casinos understand $1000 losses are hard for 99% of people around the world). Talk to a host the night before you check out and ask them *you "Im checking out in the morning and was wondering if you could take a look at my bill for me" *host "sure" *you "would you like to see my I.D."(use those exact words). Lastly and most importantly is to play for fun and to accept comps as a reward for the play you had already planned on giving. DO NOT PLAY FOR COMPS.

OverThereTooMuch

I wish I had as good of an idea as some of you folks how much my "coin in" is. But I'm very confident that I have not averaged $1k coin in per day on my few trips to Venetian/Palazzo. And I've been offered a ton of room comps. The majority of the offers are for weekdays, but I think they average about 1 comp offer per month that's good on the weekend. For days where they aren't offering comps, the discounted packages (cheap room + free slot/table match play or free show tickets) are a good deal.

I think I'm a very low roller, so I don't think they have a very high bar. I've seen folks here point out that they have the most rooms in Vegas, so they have a lot to give away

Great advice. Wish I would've followed it the last time I was at Encore

Beckles

It sounds like you did quite well, just wanted to point out that for craps most casinos do not count odds towards your per hand average, so "realistically" your rating should range from $75-$135 (not $105-$165), so you made out fine at a $109/hand rating.

I never worry about my rating, but I always make sure to play on a card and I get what I get. I'm a pretty low roller (I play craps mostly at table minimum on the pass + always on the come + occasional place bets and horn bets), but I get some decent offers from NY/NY, Hilton, Paris/Rio/Ceasars/etc., and Hooters for free weekend rooms and a few other comps.

Goosey

Are you sure? So you were rated as having played 10 hours of craps when you only played 3? That's pretty surprising. Playing time isn't something that is regularly adjusted unless you've been playing for a while but forgot to present your card.

mumbojumbo

Yeah im absolutely positive on my play time the host told me my rating when i went to him at the end of my stay and I only bought chips 3 times $600, $1000, and $600 again but at the amount I was betting I went broke pretty quick. The first time i played I didnt give them my players card becouse I was so nervous walking up to the craps table for the first time lol. The $1000 lasted about 2.5 hours while my wife napped and the $600 only make it about 30-45min.

I never really kept track of this before but it shows you your daily points and your total points on the little screen when you play the slots (I guess 1 point = $1 coinin). $300-$400 a day x4 days with wins was more than enough to get 9500. Im waiting on offers but my host "Jeff" told me to ignore them and to just call him when we are coming back and he would take care of us.

Wife and I strolled over to Wynn for the buffet it was great! Not as much selection as I perfer but everything they had was definately a step up from others.

mktozd

Any idea if comps have become more generous since the downturn in the economy?

OverThereTooMuch

Venetian/Palazzo have completely ended comps except for the really top players. More info here.

MGM has just rolled out a new comp program (Mlife). I don't think there's enough known about it yet to see how good it will be. From what I've read, the biggest "advantage" they are promoting is that it's more of a self-serve program. I see that they still don't allow people to book some offers online though (which is really silly).

Caesar's/Harrah's total rewards is still offering comps to me (at IP/Harrah's/Flamingo, not Caesar's or PH), with very little play in their casinos. From reading other boards, it appears that nothing has changed here recently regarding how they hand out comps.

socalduck

Supposedly, Mlife includes total spend (F&B, etc.), which is a great idea. However, early reports are that they still have a lot of glitches to work out with regards to the website. I will have my first opportunity to try out Mlife in Detroit next week.

baccarat_king

Caesars (Total Rewards), and Club Grazie (Venetian) have been counting spend (F&B, Spa, room charges) for a while (at least 1 year++). Unless Mlife goes by a different model (formula) the points earned through spend tend to be inconsequential. Perhaps, if you were hosting your wedding and charging to the room; it might be worthwhile. As a Grazie Gold (with Gold Status 20 points/$1) I would have to charge $30,000 worth of F&B to earn Grazie Platinum.

mktozd

Thank you very much. Any idea about the Wynn in particular? Any status levels that can be reached? Thanks.

baccarat_king

The special people at Wynncore get a little :-: on their card.

socalduck

Good info, too bad Grazie is so stingy with the non-gaming points. Seems like a great opportunity to build loyalty and repeat visits from non-gaming and/or low-rolling guests. Of course, for a meeting planner, hitting that $30k in F&B could be quite easy, assuming they allow you to count group functions in your total.

Any idea how Grazie compares with Cosmo's Identity program?

mktozd

How does one get the star on your card?