Good evening everyone, I hope you had a great Memorial Day Weekend. Over the weekend, Laura and I stayed at the Paris Las Vegas, I completed a few casino status matches, we had some nice brunches and dinners, and we saw 2 Cirque Du Soleil shows. I will write more about our time in Las Vegas in a future post, but first, let me get this post out since it is time sensitive. I carefully read and followed Nick’s post (Planning an epic status match run in Las Vegas) and this is what we did:
1: Caesars Rewards Diamond
As a reminder, I originally matched my Wyndham Rewards Diamond to Caesars Rewards Diamond thanks to having the Barclays Wyndham Rewards Earner Business Credit Card ($95 annual fee). I stopped by the Caesars Rewards desk inside the Paris Las Vegas casino and picked up my new Caesars Rewards Diamond card. My previous card expired 01/2024.
The rep informed me that I had a $100 dining credit available and handed me this paper with the current list of participating restaurants (May 2024).
I also checked my Caesars Rewards offers and had 2 free anytime tickets to the High Roller Observation Wheel (Ferris Wheel behind the Linq). Unfortunately, We didn’t have time to use this voucher on this trip.
2: Match Caesars Rewards Diamond to Wynn Rewards Platinum (expires May 31, 2024)
We then walked up Las Vegas Blvd from the Paris Las Vegas to the Wynn. I went to the Wynn Rewards desk inside the casino and asked to match my Caesars Rewards Diamond status to Wynn Rewards Platinum. The rep was very helpful and processed my request. The perks of Wynn Rewards Platinum include:
- $100 spa credit
- $150 dining credit in your birthday month
- Complimentary Holland America Cruise (read Nick’s post for more info)
It wasn’t my birthday month and we didn’t use the $100 spa credit, but this was not a wasted stop, because…
3: Match Wynn Rewards Platinum to Fontainebleau Rewards Gold (expires June 2, 2024)
We then walked up Las Vegas Blvd from the Wynn to the newest casino resort on the strip, the Fontainebleau. I went to the Fontainebleau Rewards desk inside the casino and asked to match my Wynn Rewards Platinum to Fontainebleau Rewards Gold. The rep was very helpful and processed my request. The perks of Fontainebleau Rewards Gold include:
- $150 spa credit
- $150 dining credit
The rep informed me to insert my card into any of the casino slot machines to activate my card and activate the above benefits.
A few days before our arrival, I made a reservation at Don’s Prime (steakhouse) through the website for 5pm (they require a credit card in case you no show your dinner reservation). We arrived a few minutes before 5pm and were seated within a few minutes. The service was excellent. We started with the complimentary Bread Platter, then split the Classic Caesar Salad, and then ordered 2 sides: Macaroni & Cheese and Potato Gratin – all were excellent. Our New York Strip Steak (prepared medium) was good, but not as good as the previous dishes. When the check arrived, I told the waiter that I had a $150 dining credit on my Fontainebleau Rewards Gold card. I then paid the remaining balance with a credit card. Our entire dinner was less than an hour and then we took an Uber to The Mirage to see the 7pm Cirque du Soleil Beatles LOVE show.
We did not use the $150 Spa credit, but the credit is valid through 1/31/25, when my Gold status expires.
4: Match Wynn Rewards Platinum to MGM Rewards Gold
The next day, we walked across the street from the Paris Las Vegas to the Bellagio. I went to the MGM Rewards desk inside the casino and asked to match my Wynn Rewards Platinum to MGM Rewards Gold (I couldn’t match with my Caesars Rewards Diamond or Fontainebleau Rewards Gold statuses). The rep was very helpful and processed my request, but my status is only valid for 3 months. The perks of MGM Rewards Gold include:
- Resort Fee Waived
- $100 Tier Status Dining Credit (requires 75k Tier Credits)
- Free Enhanced Room Upgrade
I don’t have plans to stay at any of the MGM resorts in the next 3 months and didn’t have enough tier credits to qualify for the $100 dining credit, but this was not a wasted stop, because…
5: Match MGM Rewards Gold to Unity by Hard Rock Icon
For dinner that evening, we went to Giada at the Cromwell to use my $100 Caesars Rewards dining credit. Dinner was excellent! We started with the Orzo Meatballs, split a Romaine Salad, Laura had the Rigatoni and I had the Pappardelle. At the end of our meal, I gave the waiter my Caesars Rewards Diamond card and asked him to use the $100 dining credit. I then paid the remaining balance with a credit card.
After dinner, we walked up Las Vegas Blvd to The Mirage. I went to the Unity by Hard Rock Rewards desk inside the casino and asked to match my MGM Rewards Gold to Unity by Hard Rock Icon. The rep was very helpful and processed my request. Here are all the benefits of Unity by Hard Rock Icon.
After completing the match at The Mirage, we took the tram over to Treasure Island to see the 7pm Cirque du Soleil Mystere show. Both Cirque du Soleil shows were awesome and very entertaining.
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- Cirque du Soleil Beatles LOVE Show at The Mirage
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- Cirque du Soleil Mystere Show at Treasure Island
In a future post, I will show you how to get Cirque du Soleil show tickets for 20% off. I will also share my experience using the Las Vegas Monorail, using InKind for brunch at 2 restaurants, and about redeeming 60,000 Caesars Rewards Points toward a paid stay at a Caesars property (follow up post to Transfer Limits & Times for Wyndham Rewards to Caesars Rewards; No Taxes on Hotels Booked with Points). If you have any questions about any of the casino matches, please leave a comment below. Have a great evening everyone!
Hey Grant, this was a great post! But what’s the point of the Unity by Hard Rock match? Getting Ocean Resort Prime at NJ?
I don’t have any concrete plans for my Unity by Hard Rock Icon status but I figured since I was in Vegas, I would pick up the status. I thought I read somewhere that the status came with $50 free play, but that turned out not to be true. I wish I had a better answer.
Hey Grant,
I appreciate your very orderly, stepwise fashion of explaining the process you used to collect all the swag!
Do you feel like you maxed out your possibilities for useful status in Vegas during this trip or are there others which you didn’t have time for? Emphasis on “useful” as we travel hackers would define it.
Hi Brant, I looked at using the spa services but my wife and I didn’t find any that we wanted to do or that fit our schedule, so we didn’t take full advantage of the spa credit. I looked to see if there were other meaningful casino matches in Vegas but didn’t come across any other worthwhile options.
I will be going to Las Vegas in July (after the Wynn Status match expires) – I have Caesars Diamond, what matches will be available then, if any?
Guess I will have to wait until June 1st to find out.
FYI, InKind is amazing.
I wish I could predict the future in Vegas, since that would come in extremely handy :)
No clue about casino status matches. You may get lucky and have 1-2 good matches going on during your trip.
Almost all of the InKind restaurants we have been to in Vegas have been great. Check out my next post coming out today at 4:05pm for my 2 InKind restaurant reviews.
I kind of touched on this in my comment, but thought I would reply to you directly.
As a Caesars Diamond like me, you should be able to match to a higher tier at Resorts World and Mirage if you have never had their respective cards. And assuming you get here before Mirage closes.
Onstrip, you should be able to tier match to Sahara, but I don’t know what you would be as their website is lean on those details. I will be tier matching there later today and hope they have a brochure so I can post details.
Offstrip, I believe Palms tier matches, but I couldn’t get a good answer through doing an online search.
Hope this helps.
Thanks Grant. Your write up is so much more useful and normal compared to the nick writeup.
Thank you Lance, I’m glad you liked the step by step guide to casino status matching. Are you going to be in Las Vegas in the next few days to complete them?
With the Wyndham Earners Business card I didn’t get the Celebration dinner when I picked up my Diamond card at a Harrah’s in Council Bluffs IA. I need to earn a 100 tier points to get it. Did I do something wrong or did you get lucky? Thanks
Hi Steven, yes, that is the new rule from Caesars Rewards that you need to have earned 100 Tier Credits to be eligible for the $100 dining credit. I have exactly 100 Tier Credits but I cannot remember how or when I earned them. Here are the different ways to earn tier credits. Scroll down halfway to “HOW DO I EARN TIER CREDITS?”: https://www.caesars.com/myrewards/earn-and-redeem
The cheapest ways to earn tier credits are via hotel and dining at participating hotels & restaurants:
“HOTEL: Earn 1 Tier Credit for every $1 spent on hotel room rates and resort fees when reserved directly with us. (Upgrades and room charges during stay do not apply) Book Now”
“DINING: Earn 1 Tier Credit for every $1 spent at participating restaurants. Learn More”
I did have a $515 paid stay at The Linq Hotel in Las Vegas last December and also spent $100 at Guy’s Burger Bar inside the Linq, so I wonder if either of those triggered the benefit. It would be pretty funny if my $100 dinner earned me 100 Tier Credits, for my next $100 dining credit. I am not sure if that is how it worked.
For those who read the comments on Grant’s original post on tier matching, you know I like to write. For those who are being exposed to me for the first time, be prepared for a long comment.
Like Grant, I owe a thanks to Nick Reyes for detailing the steps to achieve the best results for tier matching.
If you were an MGM Pearl, a local Vegas vlogger suggested using that to tier match at Fontainebleau then to tier match at Wynn using your Fontainebleau status then going back to an MGM property to get Gold. But there were issues with that approach.
The issues were it did not give you instructions if you were Caesars Diamond and you ended up leaving freebies on the table as you would get only $100 Fontainebleau dining credit instead of $150 by going MGM, Fontainebleau, and then Wynn.
If you have someone who shares your address with ID to prove it, you can take advantage of MGM’s shared status to double your tier match fun.
This is what we did and here are the steps we took.
While I am MGM Pearl, I am also Caesars Diamond.
We went to Wynn to tier match my Caesars’ status and then to Fontainebleau to tier match my new Wynn status. We followed that up with going to Bellagio, an MGM property, to get both of my wife and me MGM Gold using the fact that two people, with proper ID, share status.
This enabled us to go back the next morning to Wynn for the wife to tier match there and then to Fontainebleau to tier match her Wynn status.
The bottom line is both of us got full value at Fontainebleau in terms of dining credit.
We ate at Mother Wolf using my dining credit and we are eating tonight at Komodo using the wife’s dining credit.
For my review of Mother Wolf, you can check out the comments on Grant’s original tier match post or Nick’s post on his Mother Wolf’s experience.
I am not a travel hacker so I don’t know if there are useful benefits in that regard, but I know that in addition to the aforementioned Mirage, both the onstrip Resorts World and Sahara tier matches. You have to be a new member at Resorts World to tier match as is the case at Mirage.
Offstrip, I believe Palms also tier matches, but I don’t think we will get there this trip. Rio, also offstrip, does not tier match. They offer match.
Sahara’s website is pretty cryptic about their tier matching and says to see their reward desk to find out who they match to and what status you get.
Before going to Fontainebleau, the wife and I are going to Sahara via tram to tier match there. We are taking our MGM, Fontainebleau, and Wynn cards to see which one gets us the highest tier match. I will also take along my Caesars’ card.
I hope they have a brochure I can snag so I can come back and post the particulars.
Thank you for sharing your experience. I hope you learn something useful with the Sahara tier match :)
I have and will post more when we get back to hotel.
I will say MGM Gold gets your their highest non-invite only tier.
I want to be clear that of all the high tier cards I have from the various casinos, MGM Gold got me the highest card at Sahara.
I do not know what using another card will match to.
That’s good to know. I only got a 3 month match to MGM Gold.
A three month tier match is all MGM does now. They call it a tier match challenge.
For those of us who don’t live in Vegas, or near an MGM property, maintaining status is a challenge.
As far as Fontainebleau goes, they have extended their tier match promotion to September 2nd.
Oh nice, that is great to hear that Fontainebleau has extended their tier match promo to 9/2.
With the Wynn tier match ending tomorrow, it will be harder to get Fontainebleau Gold I think because Wynn was quite generous in the number of cards that would tier match their platinum compared to the number of cards Fontainebleau that tier match their Gold.
Yes, that is true. I wonder if Wynn will extended their tier match, like Fontainebleau did.
Before going to Komodo at Fontainebleau to use the wife’s $150 dining credit from tier matching, the wife and I stopped at Sahara to do the tier match there.
This is a once in a lifetime tier match whether you are a new or current Sahara player’s club member. The player’s club said we had six months to earn the points necessary to keep our status, but our cards have expiration dates of the last day of March in 2025.
After running down the cards we had, the desk said being MGM Gold would get us matched to their highest non-invite level, Iconic.
What benefits that potentially gets you can be learned by going to the Sahara website. I say potentially because there is a disclaimer that some benefits are subject to being earned and/or available. Frustratingly, they don’t make it completely clear which benefits are from being earned and which simply need to be available.
I don’t list all the benefits here because I don’t think anyone wants to be subjected to the length my comment would have to be in order to do so.
Tomorrow I will run down all we got at Komodo.
Thank you for the info on the Sahara tier match. Glad MGM Gold worked.
Mirage/Hard Rock did tier match my MGM Gold to Unity Icon even though I already had a card from Hard Rock Hollywood Florida.
It is a once in a lifetime match and might not seem to make much sense given Mirage is closing, but there might be other Hard Rocks I can use it at until it expires.
It is funny that at Sahara I am Iconic and at Mirage, I am an Icon.
I don’t have any plans to use my Hard Rock Icon status, but I figured this was the easiest way I would ever get it, so I picked it up.
You’re an Icon and Iconic to me :)
I was in the midst of a long comment when I answered a phone call. When I went to go back to the comment, I accidentally deleted it.
I am under the weather and don’t feel like typing it again so I am going to give you the abbreviated version of what statuses we got, how we got them, what benefits we used, and what major benefits we have yet to use.
Z will mean me, w will mean wife, and zw will mean both of us.
Caesars Diamond (z) > Wynn Platinum (z) > Fontainebleau Gold (z) > MGM Gold (zw) > Wynn Platinum (w) > Fontainebleau Gold (w). MGM Gold (zw) > Sahara Iconic (zw) and Mirage Unity Icon (zw).
We got $150 dining and spa credits of an unremembered amount at Fontainebleau while at Wynn we have $150 dining credit and a spa credit
of an amount I don’t remember. The dining credits at Wynn are only good during your birth month.
We used each of our dining credits at Fontainebleau and still have the spa credits at both resorts and the dining credits at Wynn.
We were under the $150 dining credit at Mother Wolf and over at Komodo.
Enjoyed the effort required as the fruits of our labors, the two dinners, were worth it.
Your experience sounds very similar to ours except Laura didn’t want to piggy back off my MGM Gold to repeat the tier matches in her name. We didn’t use any of the spa or birthday dining credits at the Wynn or spa credit at Fontainebleau but maybe we will be back later this year in November to use my birthday dining credit at Wynn.
I hope you feel better soon :)
A tier match benefit just showed up in my email.
If I stay by September 5th, I can pay as low as $110 a night during the week at Fontainebleau and if I stay three nights, I also get $175 resort credit.
Oh nice, I just checked my email and I got a similar offer:
NOW THROUGH SEPTEMBER 5, 2024
Exclusive rates from $110 per night, Sunday through Thursday
from $190 per night, Friday and Saturday, with a complimentary upgrade to a Gold King room based on availability.
$125 Resort Credit
when you stay at least two nights
Book your stay online, or call 1-833-702-7272 and reference offer code SUNNY1.
To add some context, I looked at September 2nd to September 5th and the cheapest room if you don’t have a player’s card is $280 a night plus taxes and fees for a total just over $1100 for the stay.
I haven’t signed up for online access yet so I can’t tell you what the total would be for someone who is Fontainebleau Gold.
I am going to guess and say around $500 total.
Ya that sounds right to me. I’m gunna pass on this offer.
Appreciate the thorough write up Grant.
I did Caesars Diamond -> Wynn Platinum while in town a few months ago but then tried to go to Hard Rock and only ended up with Legend instead of Unity with the Wynn status (I remembered Caesars Diamond wouldn’t cut it). I’m guessing MGM Gold is the key to that one. Won’t matter in Vegas with the impending Mirage closure but I hope it doesn’t block me from getting Icon and Ocean Prime for the MSC cruise if I ever make it out to Atlantic City. I’ll have to pick up Fountainebleau Gold if I come back before September.
Glad we got to see the volcano before it’s gone!
MGM Gold was the only status that I tried that matched to Hard Rock Unity, it didn’t work with Caesars, Wynn, or Fontainebleau status. I’m glad you got to see the volcano one more time while in Las Vegas :)