Lupin, thanks for the heads up on this!
Barb emailed her host there and took the opportunity to:
1. Apologize profusely for the two most recent trips where she took offers, went in, ran the free play through and left. LOL
2. Asked if there was any way for redemption.
3. If there was, would it be possible to start now say with mutual good faith of her coming in to put 2,500 points on in exchange for the cruise that was being offered by invite only? LOL
Believe it or not, the answer was "yes"! She had to "pay" for the room for two nights....not sure what the amount was....but if she ran 2,500 points, that would be comped anyway.
I was pretty cynical and wondered what was included i.e. did we have to pay taxes and port charges, what kind of cabin, etc. Apparently, TI takes care of all costs other than ground transport to get to your desired port of depature which isn't an issue for us as we're either in FL or Vegas....either way, no more than a 4 hour drive to whatever port we choose to leave from. The cruise line is Norweigan which isn't our favorite but the cabin is a balcony stateroom which works for us.
We looked at our vp play options and even though 9/6 JoB has a better theo game return, the higher coin in requirements to earn a point put the next full point earning game, 9/7 DB as the better option. With cheat sheet in hand, she slow played this over 3 hours yesterday and lost $230 before $25 in cash back.
She was also told that if you run an additional 2,500 points through, TI will give you $250 in free play. She will be doing this later today.
According to either a paper she received after she played or something she was told (I can't recall what exactly she told me), you have until the end of April to book the cruise and until the end of the year to take it. It's your option for a 3, 4, 5 or 7 night cruise.
So, unless there is some fine print that she missed, this seems to be the "too good to be true" deal. I guess that when you consider that HET gives cruises away, it's not too much of a stretch.
TI used to be her home base for a number of years before she transitioned to MGM. I liked it more when it was part of the MGM family and considered a sister property to Mirage. We were RFB at TI but could eat at Mirage and just charge back to TI and it would be picked up. It'll be interesting to see if the play from this weekend puts her back on the TI marketing radar as well. I could enjoy a meal at their steakhouse but the big motivation for us to return will be free play. Time will tell...
Thanks again for the heads up....we would have never known about this if it wasn't for your post!
Dan
