OverThereTooMuch

They confirmed today that they aren't doing any sorts of comps anymore. Nice of them to finally announce that. Perhaps another property will try to lure people in with offers for Grazie members.

I'm interested in hearing from folks that plan to move their play to other casinos. NOBODY should play for comps, but if the casinos are offering to give you money back, you should try to find the best offer, right?


For strip casinos:
What's the best program for slot/VP players?

What's the best program for table game players?

Has anyone had a luck on a status match from Grazie Gold/Plat to an equivalent tier in any other program?

kingalien

Actually I'm likely going to play more at Wynn and will also take a look at Cosmo. This stems from not only the fewer promos at V but also they have swapped out a lot of the machines I was playing that were considered more loose than usual.

mbstone

Grazie isn't much of a loyalty program anymore. Loyalty is a two-way street. Why bother using a Grazie card?

Could this be one of those hints to the rest of the industry, you know, the way the airlines raise fares in lockstep? Wynn, MGM and CET are now supposed to follow suit and stop all comps?

OverThereTooMuch

I certainly hope not!

V/P botched this. If one of the other companies follows, I don't think they'd make the mistake of cutting everything all at once.

It was mentioned in another thread I think that MGM just rolled out a new program, so it's pretty unlikely that they'd follow right now.

So mbstone - where do you plan to take your gaming?

mbstone

I haven't decided yet. Thursday is our 10th wedding anniversary. I need to book a romantic getaway. Now, keep in mind, our last anniversary was at the V. Most of our anniversaries have been at the V. We got engaged at the V. Lots of V casino dealers know that we got engaged at the V.

If I were to select the V, I would have to pay the V $179-plus-resort-fee per night for the same room that we have never paid for before, ever; in a hotel that is 59.7% empty; in a town where there are numerous other hotels that are offering me comp rooms for my entire stay (such as every CET casino except Caesars Palace) and which will be more than happy to extend food and beverage comps as warranted by my play.

Thinking of Rio or Paris (PH also a possibility).

baccarat_king

As on of my friends put it the other day Sheldon really runs a "Hotel-Casino" NOT a "Casino-Hotel."

I jumped on the V/P bandwagon basically around the time that Palazzo opened. Of course, with the all those new rooms coming online, and the economy tanking (and the biggest factor - convention business down substantially); they had to fill rooms. And, fill rooms is what they did.

I don't really see this as a 'change' as much as V/P reverting to their previous (pre-height of the recession) 'tighter' system with regard to free rooms offers.

I agree, they 'pushed-it' pretty far; since we know there were a LOT of folks who didn't deserve the perks (i.e. multiple free rooms offers etc.); but seems like they decided to cut almost everyone (but the largest players).

As long as conventions are filling the rooms; I don't expect much of a change.

But, I also don't see any other (casino) loyalty program following suit. It's all basically based on the "V/P" convention philosophy, IMHO.

Definitely Paris; perhaps a Red Room Suite. (or Planet Ho) NOT RIO. RIO is fine if you just need a place to crash, but it's pretty second (third) tier at this point with regard to room quality (a bit better in some of the semi-renovated Ipanema Tower rooms).

nottooshabby

mLife and CET . . . I've found that even Station Casinos are a bit tight on their comps, plus their nicest resorts (Red Rock and Green Valley Ranch) are a bit removed from the rest of the action (NTTAWWT )

pdxjayhawk

For our group's trip in March we are headed across the street to the Mirage.

Got an nice offer for the days we're staying there, two days comped and the third (a Friday) at a discount.

Will still probably patronize the V's poker room while we're in town though.

zacktravel

I will probably do most gaming at Ceasars family of casinos. I had up to this point been very loyal to V/P but if loyalty now becomes a one way street, I am outta there. Going to Vegas this weekend, maybe I will check out Cosmo gaming, at least it is a Marriott hotel (points for me).

beta1607

I am going to check out the mlife program and Caesars. As others have said, loyalty is a 2 way street and while I love the rooms at the Palazzo there are other beautiful places to stay in Vegas.

Hannibal Lecter

+1
I played quite a lot at Cosmo for two days last month, let's see if that result in any good offers

mbstone

For my and DonnaFrmVa's 10th we stayed at the Paris. It is but a few steps from the Cosmopolitan. We had a great time.

gengar

Cosmo offers have been excellent, as should be expected since they're new and trying to steal as much business as they can from competitors - especially disaffected V/P and mlife players. It's a great time to take advantage of them.

zacktravel

So to report back from my weekend at the Palazzo. Without getting too much into how the machines seemed to be pretty open, perhaps the sight at the Gold Lounge explains what's happening to the V/P. The lounge was totally empty! I asked the attendant working there what was going on and he was not happy. He indicated that ever since they cut the comps, customers were ticked off and not gambling there anymore. Needless to say I was happy to hear that. Perhaps it will make the casino re-think their policy change. The hotel itself seemed to be full with convention goers, but the gambling floor was a different story

x712xdamx

That's pretty mind boggling of them to cut comps, and ESPECIALLY to announce it in the newspaper like they did. It would be one thing to just announce your new earnings, and to cut back on comp "spending", but another thing to make a public announcement to people that have spent countless hours gambling and winning or losing $1,000's of dollars in their casinos and telling them "We don't care that you play here anymore. We only care about the convention goers paying for the hotel rooms".

I'm not surprised, and actually am happy that the gold lounge is closed.
I generally only frequented the Venetian for their poker room, as it still remains one of the largest, and best run rooms in Vegas (or the world for that matter). However, table play will now be a waste. I was thinking next time I hit Vegas (June), that I would try and rack up some comps at the V w/some heavy table play, but now I know I won't.