Category: las-vegas

MGM Pearl Status for life for watching a 30 minute video

One of the lesser known paths to MGM status is via status match with Celebrity Cruises. Classic members (2-149 Club Points) get matched to MGM Pearl. You get points by sailing with Celebrity Cruises, typically 1 Club Point per night sailed. And unlike most loyalty programs, cruise loyalty programs count the number of nights during your lifetime, which means your status is permanent.

In addition to getting Club Points for sailing, you can get Club Points outside of the cruise. By signing up for the the Captain’s Club (free to join), you get invited to surveys or webinars to earn Power Up Points. Each 10 Power Up Points convert to 1 Club Point. Since Classic status only requires 2 Club Points, just one activity is enough to get you Classic status for life. Unfortunately, they only send these offers out once or twice a year.

For example, on 9/18/24, a webinar link was sent out that is worth 30 Power Up Points = 3 Club Points, or enough for Classic status for life. The webinar link seemed to be unique but is good for up to 5 viewers.

So the play here is:

Sign up for Celebrity Cruises Captain’s Club.
Wait until they send out a survey or webinar OR ask someone who received a link to add you as a viewer. Each link seems to be valid for up to 5 people.
Get 30 Power Up Points, which are automatically converted to 3 Club Points, netting you Classic Status
Match Classic Status to MGM Pearl (should work for a lifetime, as long as the match stays in place)

Of course, you can also get Pearl status for signing up for the MGM Rewards Mastercard (no annual fee). The credit card also gives you priority line access, which Pearl status doesn’t on it’s own.

Easirent Rental Car Experience at LAS, part 2

My flight arrived at 4:43PM, scheduled for 4:40PM. They had people with connections to Boise and Indiana, which seemed to be half the plane, deplane first so it took longer than usual. I understand this if the flight was late, but the flight arrive on time, and the connecting flights were leaving in 50 minutes from the same terminal. The gates were literally 100 feet apart.

After I deplaned, I walked to the rental car area and both shuttles were essentially waiting there so I arrived at the desk at 5:30PM. I was 4th in line and it took 45 minutes since there was only 1 person at the counter. Each person took a little over 10 minutes, partially because of all the excess documentation required.

What was incredibly frustrating (and possibly illegal) was that they only took two cards for car rental CDW: the Amex Platinum and Chase Sapphire Reserve. The Platinum card doesn’t even have primary CDW. I had booked the rental on Hopper an charged my Venture X Card, which has primary CDW.

They also seemed to have no idea how CDW works with credit cards. I presented the Platinum card as proof of insurance, but they would have allowed me to pay with my Venture X. The Platinum card requires the entire purchase to be made with the card to get CDW, so CDW would not have applied.

I have a feeling that this is a lawsuit waiting to happen. I had valid insurance through my credit card, but it was voided because some manager decided to only take 2 credit cards for CDW.

I called the customer service line to clarify and the agent, who seemed over it, very plainly said it was a money grab to get more people to purchase the insurance.

Easirent Rental Car experience at LAS

I rented a car from Easirent for $27 per day, which was reduced to $2 after using credits, through the Hopper app. The next lowest price was three times higher, so I figured why not.

It was early in the morning and I was first in line. It took about 10 minutes to pick up my car because they required an unusual amount of documentation. They required:

ID and credit card
Proof of insurance with declaration page
If you don’t have comprehensive insurance, you need to buy their insurance or
Show that you have primary Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) through your credit card, which requires showing that the credit card was used for the rental car purchase, and the benefits guide for the credit card
A confirmation of an outbound flight – if you don’t have one then you will considered a local rental

For some reason the CS person insisted that it must be primary CDW, even though secondary should work just as well. The local rental restrictions are severe: a cap of 150 miles/day, and you have to show documentation matching the driver license address. Of course, you can bypass this if you buy a refundable outbound ticket.

They gave me a relatively new Nissan sedan with 9000 miles, but with only 25% left in the tank (55 miles). It needed an oil change and wiper fluid replacement but otherwise ran fine. I would strongly recommend recording the car before and after pickup in case you’re charged for any damage.

The return was pretty smooth but there was an additional 15 minute wait for the shuttle. There was also a long line for pickups at 1PM (roughly 10 people), and 3 people working the counter, or roughly a 40 minute wait.

Trip Report: Rio Las Vegas as Hyatt Globalist

Beginning March 1st 2024, the Rio in Las Vegas was bookable through Hyatt. For globalists, you get:

Waived Resort fees (saves $45+/night)
Free breakfast at Hash House A Go Go, for 2 adults and 2 children
Elite Qualifying Nights
Upgrade to a renovated room in the Ipanema Tower

I arrived on 3/4 and tried to do mobile check-in (both on phone and at the kiosk) but they both failed. I manually checked into my room after waiting about 5 minutes in line. I was told that globalists could do elite/VIP checkin but there wasn’t a dedicated line for it. They provided 2 waters at check-in. The resort fees seem to be manually removed at check-in so it seems like ghost stays aren’t an option. I also asked about upgrades but I believe they consider the renovated room as an upgrade and didn’t want to push it.

The room itself was surprisingly nice given the price point. The renovated rooms are about the same level as NYNY or Park MGM, but much larger. They have an empty refrigerator, which is a nice change compared to strip hotels. Even though the hotel is huge, everything seemed centrally located in relation to the Ipanema tower. The front desk, gym, and restaurants were all within 5 minutes walk from my hotel room door.

I ordered 2 entries for $54 for takeout from the bar at Hash House and charged it to the room. They were efficient and took only about 20 mins to get my order ready. The portions were large enough that I could probably make 4 meals out of it.

My only hiccup with the hotel came when going to the fitness center. I called the front desk to confirm that the fitness center opened at 5AM. I went down at 6AM but they were still closed. I asked the front desk what the hours were and they said 7AM. However, they still weren’t open at 8AM.

I stayed from 3/4-3/8 (4 nights). My total for the 4 nights should be $36 + $40 + $24 + $24 = $124. In return, I get 4000 points from bonus journeys, an additional 750 points from Hyatt spending, and card points. I was able to book the points plus rates before they were removed so I should be receiving an additional 5000 points. So $124 for a total of about 10000 points and 4 EQN. Oddly enough, the bill for my first day said I had earned 2 EQNs but will see if they post.

In the future, weekday nights at the Rio should be around $24 per night for Globalists. Currently, Hyatt Bonus Journeys offers 1000 points per night until April 30th. There is also a new hotel promotion April 1-June 30 where nights earn an extra 500 points.

In theory, if you’re local to Vegas or visit often, you can get 60 night globalists for:

March: 17 days at $24/night, earn 17k points from Bonus Journeys, 4k from spend.

April: 14 nights at $24/night, earn 4k points from Bonus Journeys, 7k from New hotel bonus, 3360 from spend. April is the month where both promos stack.

May: 8 nights at $24/night, 4k from new hotel bonus, 1320 from spend.

June: 21 nights at $39/night, 10.5k from new hotel bonus, 8190 from spend. The June nights are more expensive, but may potentially go down (or up).

Total: $1755 and you receive 60k points, a Cat4 Award ($150), 2x2k Next stay award, 3xGOH award ($150), 5x SUA award ($250), and a Cat7 Award ($350). The total value of the milestone rewards is roughly $900. The values are estimated from certain websites. You would also get breakfast (with plenty of leftovers) every day, as well as a place to stay off-strip.

I don’t know how long this will last. It seems like they are losing money for each stay, especially if people take full advantage of the breakfast benefit.

Since the MGM/Hyatt partnership ended, I didn’t have a reasonable way to attain Globalist status but this was even better than expected. This would actually be perfect since I prefer to stay off-strip and I travel to Vegas monthly anyways.

Trip Report: Vegas Trip

Flew out to Las Vegas with some expiring credits I had with Frontier. Not a full flight and we left and arrived on time. They closed the gate exactly at T-15 minutes because, supposedly we would have to wait an hour if we missed our landing slot at LAS.

Rented a car via Hertz – they had about 6 Mustangs and a Mini in the Presidential Circle Lot and a couple sedans in the gold lot. I chose the Camry with 5000 miles. Pro-tip: you can drive a Toyota for about 50 miles before the fuel gauge goes below full.

Stayed at the Four Queens hotel because I had a vegas.com $100 off code and they don’t charge resort fees. It’s a very basic hotel but has free parking for guests and is right in the middle of Downtown Las Vegas.

Walked around various Downtown LV hotels and used about $250 worth of freeplay/sign up offers/Las Vegas advisor offers but only returned about $190.

Ended up doing the status match at Fontainebleau to their gold status from Diamond Elite. There was a line of about 10 people and many seemed to be signing up or doing status matches.

I left Downtown LV at 11:08 for a flight that was scheduled at 12:43. Drove to the rental car center, hopped into the shuttle as it was about to leave, and arrived at the departure gate at 12:05, leaving about 15 minutes for the Priority Pass lounge in the E gates. They upped their food game a bit. They had rice, mashed potatoes, pulled pork sandwiches, shredded chicken, broccoli, and a salad bar. Previously they only had the sandwiches.

myVegas: Prizes and 1099-misc

Last year, I won a myVegas sweepstakes for a 2 nights stay at NYNY with $100 in freeplay and $200 in resort credit. I had to submit a W9 form with playstudios because the winnings are considered as income. I expected to be taxed but I was definitely surprised at how much they valued the prize.

I received my 1099-misc for the winnings and the prize was valued at $1000. They seemed to just pick a random number for the value of the prize, without considering the actual value. At a 30% state + federal tax rate, I would owe an addition $300. The actual value of the prize, based on publicly available rates on the same day, was:

2 weekday nights at NYNY: No resort fees. Had to go on weekdays due to schedule. Actual value: $220
$100 freeplay: Actual value: $100
$200 resort credit: Actual value: $120

The resort credit value is based on the premium they add for their room rates with a food and beverage credit. Typically, for $100 daily credit you only pay $50-$60 per night. So the actual value of the stay was only about $450, yet I had to pay $300 in taxes for it.

What’s even worse is that the REAL value for me is significantly lower. If I had to book this trip, I would have paid:

2 weekdays nights at NYNY: free through myVegas, no resort fee through MGM Gold. Price: $0
$100 freeplay: Price: $100
$200 resort credit Price: $120

If I booked the trip myself, I would have only spent $220! Yet by winning the prize I would pay $300 in taxes.

Conclusion

The lesson here is 1) if you win a prize, ask about taxes 2) book weekend rates to maximize value 3) consider decline the prize if the taxes is more than you would pay for the trip.

In the above picture, if someone won the NCL cruise, they would owe taxes on $1800, in addition to the gratuities and port fees. They could have gotten the cruise for free and saved $540 if they purchased the NCL reward directly loyalty

myVegas: myVIP levels and myVIP points

What is the myVIP program?

Separate from loyalty points, you can get myVIP points through daily play and by purchasing on most apps. It is intended to give incentives and rewards to the most active and highest paying players.

What is myVIP Status good for?

Higher myVIP levels will get you marginally more chips, priority support and, access tournaments, and a personal host at tier 7. At tier 7, you can ask your host for some sold-out rewards or to convert your LP into freeplay. You may also receive some gifts from your host.

Without spending any money, the highest you can get is myVIP level 5, which nets you priority support and access to special tournaments. The tournaments may be worth participating in because the pool of players is smaller and your odds of winning is higher than a general tournament.

How do you earn myVIP points?

You can earn myVIP points by collecting hourly/daily bonuses. The ways to earn myVIP points are:

Pop Slots (60/day)
myVegas (30/day) and 5 every 2 hours.
myVegas Classic (30/day)
Konami Slots (30/day) and 5 every 2 hours.
Bellagio Poker (15/day)

So you can earn 175/day by logging in once in each of these apps, up to 285 day if you collect every 2 hours.

You can also earn myVIP points by making purchases in most games at the rate of 80 points per dollar spent. The only game that isn’t linked to the myVIP system is Tetris and all the other games seem to earn 80 points per dollar.

How do you earn myVIP status?

The chart showing earning requirements is a bit misleading. For example, you don’t need only 5500 points to get to tier 5. Once you get to a tier 4, you need an additional 5500 points to get to tier 5. So to get to tier 5 you need to earn 5500+1600+300+75=7475 points. Once you reach tier 5, you can maintain tier 5 by earning 7400 points (tier 4 + tier 5 requirement). Or you have 45 days to earn 22k points to get to tier 6.

At a rate of 285/day, you can get 12k+ points per 45 days so you can realistically keep tier 5 forever since it only requires 7400 points to maintain. To get to tier 6 from tier 5, you will need to spend about $125 on top of daily bonuses. To get to tier 7 from tier 6, you would need to spend at least $550 in addition to the daily bonuses.

Trip Report: 15 hours in Las Vegas

Drove to SNA airport and parked at main street parking. It is $14/day and is perfect for very short trips. They also have free level 1 car charging, which gets about 60-70 miles per 24 hours. You have to provide your own charger.

Took the Frontier flight to LAS, it was on time and was a smooth experience. I had Diamond status from a status match in 2023 and I gained Diamond organically for 2024 from 100 segments. The elite membership gives incredible value. I netted around 1600 miles from this flight.

I actually bought flight tickets for effectively $13 round trip from the vegas.com $100 promo. They offered a $100 promo code for any purchase, and it was possible to make a purchase for as low as $13. You can add your frequent flier number after booking to get most elite benefits.

After landing, I went to the lounge for a quick bite and took the shuttle from terminal 3 to the car rental center. I had Hertz Presidential status from the Venture X card and I grabbed a car from the Gold lot since I booked class B (class C or above would allow a choice from the Prez Circle lot). In the gold lot there were mostly sedans, a Mini, a mustang, and some SUVs.

Drove to downtown Las Vegas and grabbed some freeplay and dinner. I did a mobile check-in and headed to Excalibur/Luxor to get some more freeplay (through myVegas) and gambled a little. Overall I had $225 in freeplay but did poorly and only made $165 from it from video poker.

Returned the car around 6:00AM and was in the Amex lounge in about 30 minutes. Had breakfast and the mostly empty flight left at 7:50AM.

Total Cost:

Airport Parking: $14
Flight: $13
Car Rental: $35
Hotel: $22
“Gambling” (gain): +$165

Total Cost: $-81

Paths to MGM Gold Status

Now that the Hyatt and MGM partnership has ended, getting MGM gold status is significantly harder and more expensive. So far, I’ve found the following ways to get MGM gold status:

Earn MGM Gold Status via gambling. This requires 75k tier credits, or 2 days with 20k points per day with their accelerator. At an estimated 8 points per theoretical dollar, it would cost around $5000 to get status this way.
Folio spend counts towards MGM status at a rate of 4 credits per dollar. This works with the tier accelerator and will require $5000 of spend for two days to get gold status.
Bets on the betMGM sportsbook rewards TC, around 20 TC per $100 wagered on even bets. It will take $375k in bets and if the typical hold on an even bet is around 5%, this would cost roughly $20k.
You can spend $37500 on the MGM rewards card at grocery stores or gas stations to earn 75k points. For most, this method requires manufactured spending. Since you’re sacrificing a higher earning rate at grocery stores, this costs around $1200.
Loading the betMGM app through the MGM rewards card earns 1 TC per dollar. In some states, this isn’t coded as a cash advance. It may be possible to arbitrage with other betting sites to minimize risk. However, they are very strict and any suspicious activity (like repeatedly depositing and withdrawing) will get you shut down.
You can status match from other casinos. For example, Caesar’s diamond elite will match to platinum for 3 months but it is once per lifetime.
MGM has a partnership with Royal Caribbean Cruises and their Emerald status matches to MGM Gold. Emerald status requires 55 nights with Royal Caribbean. However, Emerald is a lifetime status and should net you MGM Gold as long as their partnership remains. Even comped cruises count towards the night requirements, but there are still taxes and gratuities. You can also get additional nights by paying the solo supplement or by booking a suite. At a bare minimum of $50 per night, this method requires at least $2750 spend and a lot of free time. addendum: myVegas sometimes offers free cruises, and your out of pocket would be around $35 per night for double occupancy.

Caesar’s Diamond Elite Status

Caesar’s Diamond elite and diamond plus have significant benefits over base diamond. Many people have Caesar’s Diamond status from the Wyndham Business card. The benefits include waived resort fees, $100 celebration dinner annually, and free parking.

Diamond Plus adds:

Free $30 per month sports bet online when you bet $100 the previous month
Four free drink coupons per day in Vegas
Five free nights stays (1 night per 5k tier points earned, up to 7 nights)

Diamond Elite adds:

Free $75 per month sports bet online when you bet $100 the previous month
$600 air fare credit to Las Vegas per year
Better tier matches with other casinos
Seven free night stays (1 night per 5k tier points earned, up to 7 nights)

Diamond elite allows you to match to MGM platinum for 3 months, which can match Atlantic City hotels for free cruises and Vegas stays.

Earning Diamond Plus and Diamond Elite

Earning Diamond Plus and Diamond Elite requires 25k or 75k tier points, respectively. The fastest way to earn this without excessive gambling is during the 10X tier point multipliers that occur regularly in Reno and Laughlin. It takes less than $25000 coin in video poker to earn diamond plus during a 10X multiplier day. It takes about $65000 coin in to earn diamond elite with the diamond in a day bonus. With a 0.75% expected loss, it’s possible to earn Diamond plus for around $200 expected loss, and diamond elite for about $500 expected loss.

The value in Diamond Elite

In exchange for $500 expected loss, you get significant value. I assume that you have status for 20 months. In the 2023-2024 loyalty year, I’ve received:

$75/month sports betting bonus, extra on birthday month. These are free bets and are worth about $30 each. ($660 value)
Free $600 airfare to Vegas each calendar year
Comped room offers in Vegas, including 2 weekend nights in a suite and 3 comp nights during EDC weekend
Comped rooms with roughly $50 Freeplay and resort credit per night in Reno and Laughlin
Seven codes for free nights in Las Vegas
Ability to match to MGM platinum for 3 months
$50 uber voucher

There are probably other benefits that I’ve missed or haven’t taken advantage of. Obviously, it would be wise not to abuse this because they can stop your offers at any time. Also, it is more likely than not that you lose more than $500 unless you get a royal or multiple 4 of a kinds.