Diamond status (CZR) via video poker

Well, there are several negative aspects to having more credit cards than one needs, and since one requirement is that you need to actually build a charge balance, that will reflect on your credit score. I agree that you may be able to garner more goodies than the annual cost of the card.

I do value comps at less than face amount. If I were to get a comp for a room that would have cost $349 if I had paid cash, that's not a $349 comp as far as I'm concerned--it's a comp for whatever I would have been willing to pay for a comparable room. If I never would have ponied up the $349...Similarly, if I get a resort fee waived that I never should have had to pay in the first place, I don't feel like I've gained that full amount.

What I'm primarily interested in is getting a room during slow periods at the lower-tier properties--you know, when CZR advertises room rates of FOURTEEN CENTS A NIGHT (resort fee of $158 not included). The resultant savings may indeed be worth it if you would normally stay on the Strip anyway.

Anytime I get a comped room and/or do not have to pay a rip off resort fee, I consider that money saved. 

This thread is at least partially about acquiring Diamond status with CET,right ? The Barclay's Business Earner card is simply one means to acquire said Diamond tier ($1000 spend in first 90 days + $95 annual fee to acquire the Wyndham Diamond tier which can then be converted/ tier-matched to CET Diamond). Compared to earning Diamond via gaming spend, it might be a cool drink of water for some. Then again...

Let's assume one Diamond tier player spends 14 nights in Vegas annually..he / she would save 14 x $50 ( roughly a ' high-end average' resort fee/ RF in Vegas these days) = $700 savings in RF fees alone with CET properties. Let's assume this same Diamond player drives / rents a car ( it's been said that about 15% of Vegas visitors rent a car; another greater proportion drive their own vehicles when in Vegas..that figure significantly influenced by all the California visitors who drive in). Regardless, Diamond players are currently eligible for free self and valet parking at CET resorts; current self-park charges at CET properties average $18  for 3 to 24 hrs of parking time at their resorts, while valet parking charges at their flagship property (Caesars Palace) is $50 flat fee per day. So, it's reasonable to assume that, for those who drive their own or rented vehicle while in Vegas, there is some additional cost savings from no parking costs at the CET Diamond tier. Plug in your own assumptive figures for that savings calculation ($18 x 14 days = $250 + for self parking fees saved for drivers at the Diamond level..and up ).The other unrelated and current semi-AP approach would be to park at TI, Wynn, or Venetian / Palazzo to obtain free parking on the Strip, but we're not discussing that, right?

Further, as a Diamond tier CET member, one will obtain free room offers ( I guess..we'll find out for certain soon). It's reasonable to consider the value of free rooms which vary of course with property level.

So, this card provides a means to obtain CET Diamond for a $95 annual fee, plus $1000 in spending early on..which users are generally likely to fork over anyway for everyday spending ( be it cash or alternative credit sources). A potential additional perk is the 8 Wyndham points earned per dollar spent on gasoline..which might have current application due to gas prices. From what I'm able to deduce from all the fine print info gobbledygook, accumulation of 7500 points gets you a free night. Accordingly, $1000 spend on gasoline results in a free night's worth of Wyndham points. Value from this perk would depend on gas expenditure averages which vary all over the map ( I spend about $1000 / month on gas currently...business use).

The irony of it all is...for gamblers, one is hard-pressed to find one decent game of any kind/ genre to play at CET properties in my experience (past two years). So, one might have to be enthralled by the pools, their one buffet, the fake Roman architecture at Caesars Palace, some particular room amenity, etc to justify going in these places.  They have really burned the goose as far as I'm concerned. Yet, I signed up for this card because staying at CET properties provides an alternative lodging option for week-long stays ( MGM room comps are for 4 nights only and one can't stack successive room stay offers..plus my SO simply likes the Strip). The tradeoffs of another special brand of misery, I guess.

Next week we'll consider the Founders Card for Diamond tier matching..currently $595 for signup fees. But dammit, you'll be Diamond with CET. Then you can explain why in hell you're patronizing the properties.

Cheers..

Yeah, the ultimate question is, what's it actually worth to spend a night at one of CET's glittering pleasure palaces? I think most people approach this question from the opposite direction: I'm staying at the Golden Commode (pretty much no matter what), so how can I make it cheaper?

The value of a comp isn't what it goes for on the market: it's what you would have been willing to pay out of pocket for what you're getting. Let's say that (because of my studly manliness or something), I receive an offer for two nights at the Golden Commode AND dinner at their steakhouse, the Scorched Cow; the limit for the comp is $200. What's that worth to me? It's worth whatever I would have been willing to pay for the room, plus whatever I would have been willing to pay for a meal similar to whatever I can get with that $200 comp.

Those amounts will be much less, at least for me, than the face value of the comp. I can get a perfectly adequate room for $100 a night and a dinner equivalent in quality to that offered at the Cow for $75. Therefore, the comp is worth $275 to me--not $349+$349+$200.

Or let's say I get my resort fee waived so that my $150 room is now "only" $95. Would I have paid any more than $100 (total) for that room? If the answer is "no," then the comp is really worth...$5.

I think it's a bit of a trap to jump through whatever hoops/blow whatever money it takes to achieve some kind of "status." You wind up spending money--however indirectly--that you wouldn't have spent otherwise. You probably have to really use the crap out of your status to make it worthwhile; the good news is, the more you do use it, the lower the ultimate cost of having gotten there will be.

Kevin, because I have Caesars Diamond via the Wyndham credit card, I could stay at Harrah's Las Vegas this Sunday through Friday for $10 per night, with no resort fee, and free parking. What would I be willing to pay for it? A helluva lot more.

And because of Diamond, last December, and again this December, I get four nights at the Atlantis Bahamas for $59.20 per night with $100 freeplay. What would I be willing to pay for it? A helluva lot more.

And my $20 per month online sportsbook bet is worth about $200 a year to me. And my $100 food comp is worth about $70. And getting free parking at all Caesars and MGM casinos is worth a bit more. And - back to the original Wyndham credit card - my upcoming three-day stay at the Wyndham Grand Crete is costing me nothing with no resort fee, which saves me at least $200 over Motel 6 (if they had them there). So it all sounds worth it to me.

It's funny how you assume others don't make this type of calculation.

Not to quibble, but in many situations having more credit cards than one "needs" increases their credit score. I started playing the credit card bonus game a couple years ago, and my score has never been higher. In my experience, the keys are 1) be careful of the 5 cards/2 years rule and 2 (MOST importantly) keep the balances paid off. If by "build a charge balance" you mean carry a balance across the billing period then, yeah, your score will suffer (in addition to paying interest). But if you charge the minimum amount required to get the bonus and pay it off before the end of the month, it will either increase your credit score or have no effect. 

If you get a $10 room rate, that's a lot better than the promised resort fee waiver. Do you have some kind of status that's better than plain old Diamond?

Plain. Old. Diamond.

I sign in to my account, click on the hotel reservation link, and I often get those kinds of offers unless it's there's a big convention in town.

Then I wonder why CZR doesn't scream it from the rooftops that you'll get considerably better hotel benefits than just a resort fee waiver? I'm not (ever) going to go the credit card route, but the room rate benefits you report would make playing the needed amount of shit VP worthwhile.

So I wonder if they treat you differently if you arrived at Diamond Harbor aboard a gleaming Wyndham credit card yacht as opposed to paddling there on a video poker raft. That would actually line up with some things I've heard anecdotally; it used to be much easier to earn the required Tier Credits via VP, so maybe in addition to making it harder, they've considered VP players to be gaming the system.