Station Casino Offers - Any Changes?

I have been receiving and using free room marketing offers from Stations for years. There has been an ebb and flow with the level of the offers through the years, but free room offers were the base level. My primary spot has been Sunset Station, so the offers from there have been the best and most consistent, but I have also stayed and played at GVR on a regular basis.

This summer the offers have been degraded, the free buffet coupons are now 2-4-1s and the free nights are now 40% off, the minor free-play amounts are gone. My play has not changed, so either they have re-evaluated the value of my play or they have cut back in general. If the cut back is across the board, I am guessing others will have similar stories to share. If my offers got trimmed due to a re-evaluation of my play, I'm guessing this link is what is going on:

Station Casinos - Informatica

Lines in this document like: "Reduced database marketing reinvestment costs by $1 million per month" it means some poor customer like me is getting less of a deal than he used to.

Fortunately for my July trip I got an offer from RR out of the blue for a couple free nights. The offers from there had dried up in the last couple years as I had been staying at GVR lately. I have options other than Stations, just in case they reduce their "marketing reinvestment costs" any further, but there is a lot to like about several of their properties, so I will miss them if they quit serving gravy.

I think monkeys counting on fingers and toes would be an improvement over any system containing 80% bad data.

We are staying at RR for 3 nights comped in July over the 4th and 3 nights later at GVR on that same trip, so, no, our offers haven't decreased. What has changed is the # of free buffets they're sending us. For our trip in Dec. we had a total of 19 free buffets so we used them to treat friends to dinner. Now we each have 2 so I'm hoping they'll send more before we leave. We are not whales but we do go to LV often. I play mostly penny slots and my husband plays mostly 25 c VP. I will be VERY disappointed if the offers stop since they are our favorite places to stay in LV.

I read most of what they are trying to do (skimmed the rest). The way I see it, they are going to cut down the unnessary mailings that mostly go unused. This will cut their marketing cost by a huge amount right off the bat. No printing and no postage on offers that go unused anyway. I played at a blackjack tournament they held once and less that half the people that comfirmed that they were coming showed up. My friend had the offer but called too late to get in. They told him to come anyway and they would give the free room part of the deal and he could play if there was space, which there was. People took them up on the offer, didn't show up, and kept people that REALLY wanted to play a chance from using the deal. This was a huge waste of their time and effort in creating the tournament.


I think this is why they are going the "We Love Locals" route in promoting thier casinos. If I lived in Vegas, I would hop on about 50% of the 2-4-1 offers they have been sending out. I got the $100 gift card for $50 they offered about a monty ago and just missed the $50 gift card for $25 last week. If you go to Vegas often you should be using these deals if you like Station properties. I think this is a great way to go for them. Offer great deals over the internet at a low price, the people that will really use them ( and show up at the casino), and (hopefully) spend money gambling.

Now having said this, I hope they are send the people that are the higher tiered players e-mails to offer them the free rooms and other perks that they are used to getting so they don't lose their play or it will be just a great waste of time for them.

Ray

KP,
It makes you wonder if the 80% was an error and it was supposed to say 8%. That would be ironic to make an error on the error rate.

N&J,
My second guess may be right if you are getting the same offers. It may be a targeted cut-back rather than across the board. Your play on penny slots may make you a more attractive customer than I am.

Ray,
The "We Love Locals" campaign may be part of a shift of their "spend" to their base customers. Those of us from the other side of the country may be losing what the locals are gaining.