Back to the Mountains and Video Poker
Last week I gave you website links to help you learn the basics of the Caesars players club program, but I told you this was just the beginning step in determining whether a CZR casino might be a good choice for you. I am going to write about that in detail, but in a future post, since I’m still doing some more research to be sure I have the most current information.
In fact, I’ll be doing some of that research first hand! My dear daughter and son-in-law are very aware of the stress that caregivers can experience and are committed to helping me cope. So what can they do to give me a break? You guessed it – take me to a favorite casino that has good VP games!
The four of us will be going back to Harrah’s Cherokee on June 24th for 3 nights. Brad and I will be staying in a comped room, thanks to my play on the last trip there. In times past when Brad and I both played, we could get two comped rooms, but that’s no longer possible — unless I play more often and at a much higher level. But this is not a problem, since Angela and Steve have a camper to pull behind their big truck and they (and their two dogs) love the out-of-doors. They’ll stay at a campground just 3 miles from the casino, on a lake and a trout stream where Steve can enjoy fishing. And granddaughter Kaitlynn will probably join them part of the time and she always organizes long family hikes.
Of course, they’ll all join us at the hotel for some meals and casino play, plus staying with Brad when he tires of the casino. And he and I will probably join them at the campground for a cookout in the fresh mountain air.
On this second trip to a CZR casino this year, I plan to play enough each day to maximize my tier-credit bonuses and therefore reach my goal of Diamond Elite. I’ll talk more about this in a later report, but I think that this will put me at a much higher free-play level and I’ll see even more offers than I’ve been getting at Diamond Plus. I’ll let you know.
For now, I do want to mention one CZR item that seems to be a problem since the pandemic hit and many players can’t get to casinos as often as they used to: How do you keep your benefits from expiring?
I did address this issue in a recent QOD. (I hope you’ve found that section here on the website and check it regularly. It is a constant fountain of gambling knowledge!) In my answer there, I warned about players club benefits in any casino, not just at CZR properties, and the danger of hoarding them. Life and casinos have a way of unexpectedly changing your plans.
But for CZR, you’ll find information on the website I mentioned in my last post, specifically in the “Partners” section, which will give you ideas about how to keep your points from expiring without visiting one of their casinos. Then check the long summary list here for exact details; earning just one credit will keep your reward credit balance safe from expiration for another 6-month period.
Now remember, the above is for reward credits, not tier credits. CZR spells it out plainly on their website:
TIP: Your Tier Credits always reset to 0 on January 1 since Tier Status must be earned each year to maintain your status for the following year.
However, in that QOD I mentioned earlier, I did give some ideas how you might recover the value of some lost tier benefits. And you will be happy to read this on their website:
NOTICE: Due to COVID-19, we extended 2020 Tier Status and unused 2020 benefits through January 31, 2022. More details can be found in the Caesars Rewards FAQs.
Now for some news I wanted to share with you about another casino, the Wynn/Encore in Las Vegas. I’m always happy to learn of new players club benefits and this tier-match one may be popular with many of the readers here. Go to their website where you will find a list of casinos that Wynn will match their higher-tier players cards with theirs. (Not all casinos are eligible for this match.) This benefit is good until the end of August.
Also, here’s a link to an interesting article by one of my favorite gaming writers, Frank Legato. It gives you a glimpse into the future and how the way casinos are rapidly and drastically changing their systems for rewarding their players. It’s making old-timers’ heads spin! But I’ll continue to soldier on and try to stay on top of things.
Maybe I’ll see some of you in Cherokee next weekend? Email me at [email protected] if you want to set up a meeting time.
I am a diamond plus. I have noticed my free play is going down lately. I will be interested in seeing if Diamond Elite will help make a change or not for you.
We are still getting great offers of rooms in nearly all Caesars locations. I have seven nights available for Las Vegas or Atlantic City.
Plus we have had some flight offers to enjoy different locations.
During the last 15 months, my players’ club benefits expiring was the least of my worries; what I really worried about was ME expiring. I think it would be an excellent PR move for all the casinos to preserve tier status, or whatever they want to call it, all the way from 2019 through this year. If you were Plutonium in 2019, you’re Plutonium in 2021, even if you haven’t darkened their doorstep at all since.
Embedded within the Legato article is a very interesting concept: the idea of rewarding players with gifts of “high perceived value but low actual value.” This is corporatespeak for “fool them into thinking they’re getting more than they actually are.” However, the example the author gives is slot free play. Now, you might think that free play’s perceived value and actual value are pretty close; even if the player perceives, say, $100 in free play to be actually worth $100, he isn’t that far off: it’s worth $90 even if he stuffs it into a poor-paying slot machine. But then I remember what a Stations manager told me once about free play offers: the casino recovers, he said, about 95% of all free play awarded to players. I guess people just play and play until it runs out, never cashing out…?