ELLIS ISLAND
When we stopped in today, we saw signs at the players club desk about the change in the Platinum Tier: The 6-month requirement has changed from 54k to 60K and January play would be reflected in the March mailer.
Now I like advance notice of changes from casinos, but this was a little frustrating…well, maybe truthfully, a lot frustrating at the time. Because the change from 48K to 54k was not announced in advance, many of us were surprised by a downgraded mailer in January – and we may have the same downgrade in February because we didn’t have information about the increased requirements when we played in December.
However, I am not complaining really since I realize that casinos are a for-profit business and have to look to protect their bottom line. I can live with this change because I like the games they are offering. And I like their pizza coupons!
TUSCANY
Speaking of frustration, we went to Tuscany today to do the pull-tab promotions. And as we have always done, we first downloaded any free play we had to collect, including bounce-back and point redemption. Then we watched the card reader and put on 4000 points (plus a few more for good measure) that we needed to get the max of 4 tabs. We then go to the players club, and to our surprise, they say we have earned only 3 tabs each. Brad needs 7 more points to get the 4th tab and I need 32 more. I question them, “But the card reader said we had earned 4000+ this session.”
“Oh, you can’t count the points you earn when you are playing off free play.”
I say, “But we have always done it this way and there wasn’t a problem before.”
“Oh, this is the way it works since we recently upgraded our computers.”
So we go back to the machines and earn the necessary “missing” points.
Can you guess what happened?
Did the extra pull tab cover our losses to get those extra points?
No happy ending to this story!!!!! 🙁
And other note here: Many of the 8/5 Bonus games have been reduced to a 7/5 paytable. Another 🙁
Pull tabs at Tuscany are a minimum of $10 so that is fairly close to the equivalent of 10x points which are offered two or three times a week. And often they are higher. As usual, skilled players there – and there are lots of them – add the value of 10x points, plus pull-tabs or gift-card days, plus twice-weekly generous bounce-back FP to get over 100%. And then there are generous comps as “gravy.”
How can you tell whether the pull tabs offer enough value to push the game over 100%? As I recall, the best you can find at Tuscany is 8/5 Bonus (and recent reports have even that being dowgraded), so those pulltabs would have to be worth a LOT.
Dec offers,
Sincere Thanks for your Dec Info.
We took advantage of the Albertson offer while we were on vacation 12-9-12. We were also glad to find out there was an Albertson’s near the Orleans.
It was a great vacation and the only thing we didn’t get to do was go to Red Rock casino for Senior Day.
It is a drive from the strip and our return flight had us enjoying our last day at the Orleans.
We did use many other Senior Promos that you \informed\ us about.
Thanks again,
MO
I guess you can’t practice what you preach: it’s not frugal to chase comps.