Agreed on CET giving you a lot for just hitting the 7* level. The other quirk of CET's TR system is that they rely so heavily on ADT and supposedly reset ADT after 6-12 months of non-activity. This leads to an obvious play of maxing out the daily tier credit bonuses (and this latest bonus), thereby getting 7* with play (and ADT) compressed as much as possible. This high ADT will generate big offers 2-3 months after your play. As soon as those offers materialize, book a bunch of weekend flights to Vegas, collect the free play, but play at other chains. After 6 months of this, the offers will dry up, but if you time it right you will still have over a year of 7* status to reap the minimum guaranteed benefits from. Once your 7* status is finally running out, rinse and repeat the above steps.

As an aside, there are some other property groups that give good guaranteed benefits just for hitting the highest tier levels, although I don't think any of them are in Vegas. Mlife is not good at all in this respect.

I think it is safe to estimate that one could easily generate $10,000 just in free play as a result of hitting 7*, as long as they compress their qualifying play into as short a period as possible (thereby maximizing ADT). Of course, you then have to actually make the necessary trips to collect on that free play. But if you also place a value on the free rooms / suites, $500 annual free dinner, etc., etc., then the value prop is clearly there.

This all assumes that CET does not decide to tighten up on discretionary comps as a result of their impending bankruptcy proceedings.