I wish all casinos would put complete details of promotions on their Web site. But many don’t. Here are the facts that I know about a couple gift-card promotions I mentioned earlier in the week. We haven’t done either one of these yet so I may not have mentioned all the relevant details.
The Palms gift card days are only Monday, Wednesday, Friday – and if it is similar to the November promotion, you must pick up your earned gift cards on the day you earn the required points, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
There are 5 levels: $5, $15, $25, $50, and $100 and you are limited to one card in each level. It takes more points on VP than on slots to earn specific cards. You need to stop at the desk (at the edge of the food court) BEFORE you start playing and pick up a sheet that lists the cards that are offered and how many points you need to earn to get each one. Last month there was a large variety of cards available -Visa, Macy’s, Sears, Best Buy, Lowe’s, various restaurants, etc. – but not every card on the list is available every day since they run out and have to re-stock another day. One good thing is that they don’t take your points when you redeem for a card – you can save them and use them for the regular free play.
Tuscany’s gift-card earning days are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, from 5:01 a.m. until 11:59 p.m.. It takes 1000 points ($1000 coin-in – slots or VP) to earn one $10 gift card, from a variety of department stores, gasoline, or grocery stores. Limit 4 cards per day or 12 for the 3 days of accumulation, but all cards must be picked up by end of day Thursday of that week.
If any of you have done either one of these promotions, feel free to add in the Comments any details that would help others be more informed and/or forewarned!
I was under the impression that this promo did not apply
to 100%+ V.P. Am I wrong? As for the return… All
of the levels are at or below 0.5%. Add in the CB and it comes to 0.75%. FPDW is about 100.7 (a hair more with the progressive, but it does not add much) So I don’t see this getting over 101.5%
As for what you played…? Even though the point totals up the same everywhere, their system knows what games you played. If not, then everyone would be claiming they played slots to get the cheaper cards. They will even tell you at the slot club how many points you earned on each type of game.
In response to Kevin’s post, points earned on the full pay deuces and full pay jokers are excluded from this promotion. Other machines are also excluded, the machines have stickers specifically stating that they are excluded from promotions. Also, when you swipe your card at the kiosk for the gift card promo, a paper prints out noting the eligible points you’ve accumulated for slots and for video poker.
It seems that a person would have to be totally loopy to take any card other than the Visa gift card, since you could go ahead and use it at Lowe’s or Macy’s or whatever, but you couldn’t use the cards from those establishments anywhere else. Which means that the Visa cards are probably the first ones they run out of, so it might be a good idea to show up and play early in the day.
You also mention that more points are needed to earn the cards on VP than on slots–but since the Palms doesn’t have a separate point schedule for VP (the way Stations, for example, does), how would they make the distinction? It takes $400 coin-in to receive 1 point, no matter what you’re playing.
The best aspect of this promo is that you keep your points, so this is about a 102% play if you play the maximum, on the best machines. Note re the easiest play: the FPDW carousel is ALWAYS stuffed with grim-faced locals, but the FPJW nearby doesn’t get even close to as much play. Of course, there’s the $1 FPDB for those who can handle it.
This is the amount of VP coin-in needed for each gift card at the Palms for December:
20k – $100
10k – $50
5k – $25
3k – $15
1.1k – $5