If you've got Total Rewards points, you can spend them in state – but do it fast. On Nov. 8, Global Gaming Business reported that "Total Rewards points accumulated up until the transition [to full Rock Gaming ownership] will be able to be used at other Caesars properties outside of the Buckeye state." As Rock Gaming absorbs Caesars Entertainment’s 20 percent share of Horseshoe Cleveland, Horseshoe Cincinnati, and ThistleDown Racino, it is also preparing a new rewards program into which your Total Rewards points will be rolled – although it will of course no longer be called Total Rewards. Apparently, it will be equivalent to – and presumably interchangeable with? – Rock Gaming’s existing GT Rewards, for which you can currently accumulate points at Greektown Hotel-Casino, in Detroit. Perhaps the current parallel programs will be amalgamated into one new one, but either way we can't guarantee that points accumulated in one will be matched value-wise by any future incarnation of Rock's program, so best to redeem whatever points you have while they're still linked to a valid system.
The changeover in Ohio is expected to take six months to implement. The good news is that, out of state, your Total Rewards points will still be honored by Caesars … although you won’t be able to accrue any in Ohio past the middle of next year. The nearest casino where you’ll be able to earn Total Rewards points will be Caesars Windsor, in Ontario.
One Rock Gaming detractor complained, "Without the Total Rewards program it will be even harder for the [Cleveland] casino to draw folks from outside the region and state, as we were told they intended to do." Informed of the substitution of Rock Gaming points for Total Rewards, one blogger grumbled, "Doesn’t help for my Vegas comps."
During the waning months of its management contract, Rock Gaming Caesars, as it was called, saw the performance of its Ohio casinos suffer while competing properties owned by Hard Rock International and Penn National Gaming prospered. With Caesars out of the way, CEO Matt Cullen is initiating a shakeup. One Station Casinos veteran, Chief Operating Officer Mark Dunkeson, was already aboard. Now, former Station exec Mark Tricano is being brought in to shore up operations at Horseshoe Casino Cleveland and ThistleDown Racino. His predecessor, Scott Lokke, is being sent down to Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati, the best-performing of the three. Rock Gaming owner Dan Gilbert is clearly wasting no time getting his own set of ducks in a row.
Gilbert and Caesars aren't completely divorced: They remain partners in Horseshoe Baltimore and players can still earn Total Rewards there. Caesars thinks so highly of Horseshoe Baltimore, in fact, that it moved it and several other properties (including Harrah's New Orleans) into a special subsidiary to shield them from the bankruptcy currently afflicting most other Caesars casinos.
Anyway, think of the changeover in Ohio as the gaining of a new loyalty program while keeping (for now at least) what you earned under the old one.
