In the last couple of blogs I have talked about the tier-match promotion the Palms ran in June, including the chart in which they listed the tier structure of most of the local and Strip casinos. Many of you found this chart interesting, as did I even though I could not take advantage of the promotion because I was already a Hall of Famer.
I knew about the tier structure at some of the casinos because I am either an active member of the slot club or have been in the past. But even at those, I learned some new details. Brad and I are Emerald at the Boyd properties but we had never heard of the Onyx tier. Obviously a lot of people hadn’t. There was some discussion about this on gambling forums and it seems this is not an option in Vegas and in most other places. Perhaps it is – or has been – a benefit in one or more Mid-West properties. I also wasn’t up on the new categories at the M Resort – Producer, Executive Producer, and Icon.
I can add some information about the top levels that the chart does not give. Actually there is a Palms tier higher than Hall of Famer. It is called Legend but you have to be invited to reach that height and no one seems to know what it takes to get there.
Another high tier you have to be “invited” to join is the Mlife Noir. I used to be in that special group before they dropped the simple specific coin-in requirement but I was glad when I fell out of it – I never could say my title without getting my tongue twisted. Now qualifications to snag a Noir card “invitation” are not in writing and seem to vary depending on the property. However, in most cases, if you play video poker exclusively, you can forget about getting into this special high grouping.
You need “approval” to gain Seven Stars in Caesars Total Rewards program, but your host can put in the request and it is pretty automatic unless you have had marker/credit issues. The initial approval process sometimes does take several weeks due to slow paperwork; renewal is pretty routine and fast.
Remember, tier-level benefits vary greatly from property to property, sometimes not even being standard in all the casinos within one umbrella group. You need to be a master researcher to ferret out all those details that can add money to your bankroll and more enjoyment to your life.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.