Comments on: Tier Talk

By: Rich

Rich — Wed, 23 Jul 2014 18:10:03 +0000

Most slot clubs either can’t or won’t disclose how to get just one tier credit. That makes it almost impossible to know how to obtain the next level. Boyd casinos seem to be solely money through the machine, but most others that we play at have different criteria for getting a tier credit(what machine you play, how fast you play and what denomination you play being some). While we always ask, the responses vary and are always ambiguous to the point of being useless.
My wife and I always play on one card to enhance our mailers. We are nickel/quarter players for the most part and always get free rooms and some food or free play. We always ask for a comped meal if the slot club doesn’t have “comp dollars”(we hate comp dollars because we’re relatively low rollers)and have only been turned down once in our many years of going to Las Vegas.
Low rollers can concentrate their play using one card and may get to a higher level, but asking for comps and getting the best mailers possible should be the goal!!!
Have a great day and may Good Luck and Health be with you.

By: Kevin Lewis

Kevin Lewis — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 17:15:04 +0000

You’re right about that. Most slot clubs are set up so that the biggest jump in benefits occurs when you move from bottom tier to the next highest. For instance, Sapphire at Big Boyd gets you room discounts and such, while also doubling your points, while moving up to Emerald takes something like five times the points it took to get to Sapphire, but with only a 50% (from 2x to 3x) points increase. From my experience, the biggest bang for the buck occurs when you give a given property/operator moderate play BUT NO MORE. This also can create the “absence makes the heart grow fonder” effect where you get an offer out of the blue from a casino whose doors you have not darkened for months–or years.
It used to be a viable strategy to pump up your play with one entity until you reached Mega-Diamond with Mink We Will Shine Your Shoes With Our Tongues status, but you no longer receive goodies commensurate with your play when you do that. It’s best these days to spread your play around.

By: L. Feldman

L. Feldman — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 02:37:53 +0000

The interesting point about most of these “highest tiers” is that the bennies you get don’t justify the amount of play you have to give to reach the tier.

By: Dan Sowards

Dan Sowards — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 02:06:24 +0000

Jean, I read Darryl’s Seven Stars Newsletter each month. What I find interesting is that he often mentions complaints various Seven Star members have had with respect to mailers, air fares, free play, and so on. I’ve commented back to him at various times that as a Diamond I often get comps that apparently are hard for some Seven Star members to get. Now, there has to be a reason for this – different properties, different hosts…and perhaps, just perhaps, the way some elite members treat their hosts. I for one consider my executive casino host a friend, have had him for years, and he treats me right. I may not always get a suite, but when he can he does. So, my advice to anyone who has one or more hosts is to treat them with respect and not try to schmooze them. They know when someone is simply trying to get more than they deserve, and they also know who is demanding and who is not.

By: Kevin Lewis

Kevin Lewis — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 01:25:46 +0000

I’ve been very surprised in recent years at how ephemeral the upper tier statuses can be. My first high tier was Harrah’s Plutonium or whatever they called it back then. Three months later, they kicked me back downstairs–I had “only” played $150K during that period. My tenure as a Palms “All-Star” was likewise short. This seems like yet another example (of thousands) of casino stupidity–why award someone high status for their play and then shoot them down because they do other things, like have a life, for a month or three? I heard anecdotally of someone who lost Grand High Poobah status at some Vegas casino–he was a local–because he was in the hospital for almost two months. His “host” (an oxymoronic term if ever there was one) refused to reinstate him. Obviously, he was supposed to hobble out of the hospital in his gown, wheeling his IV stand, and take a cab to that casino and play some $5 slots for a few hours, at least once a week.