MGM Rewards with new benefits in 2025, including "free" (very cheap) cruies for Gold members

MGM Rewards is attempting to entice customers away from Caesars and other properties, by improving their guaranteed benefits of MGM Rewards. Prior to 2025, MGM Rewards base benefits were not particularly exciting, especially below Platinum.

Before I begin, here's the MGM Rewards levels, and their rough correspondence to Caesars Rewards:

Sapphire - The base card. Equivalent to Caesars Gold.

Pearl - Basically only gets you free parking, and a few other things. Similar to Caesars Platinum.

Gold - Gets you out of resort fees, has a $100 dinner, and now a cruise (see below). Similar to Caesars Diamond.

Platinum - $600 air travel credit and a $200 dinner. Similar to Caesars Diamond Elite.

Noir - $1200 air travel credit, $500 dinner. Invite only, not based on tier score. Similar to Caesars Seven Stars.



Royal Caribbean Cruise Improved, Added

As stated above, MGM has now introduced a "free" (actually very low cost) cruise on Royal Caribbean lines for their Gold level. Caesars does not have an equivalent to this, as you only get your cruise (on Norwegian) if you make Seven Stars.

Here are the cruise benefits for Royal Caribbean Cruise Line (RCCL):

Gold: Up to 5 nights in an oceanview stateroom, or you can trade it in for $750 fare credit on any other RCCL cruise. Also get $75 casino freeplay and $125 onboard spending credit. Prior to now, Gold got no cruise benefit, other than a small discount.

Platinum: Up to 7 nights in a balcony stateroom, or you can trade it for $1500 fare credit. Also get $100 casino freeplay and $200 onboard spending credit. Prior to now, Platinum got similar to what Gold is now getting.

Noir: Up to 10 nights in a junior suite on RCCL, or Concierge Class on Celebrity Cruises. Or you can tradee for $3000 fare credit on RCCL. Also get $200 casino freeplay and $300 onboard spending credit. Prior to now, Noir got similar to what Platinum is getting.

This is superior to Caesars, as Seven Stars get up to 8 nights on Norwegian, on a balcony stateroom, and cannot trade it in for fare credit. All other levels get nothing.

One caveat. You do not qualify for the free cruise if you got your MGM status through a status match!



Marriott Bonvoy Status Match

You can now match MGM Rewards to Marriott Bonvoy. That's a fairly good perk, as Marriott is one of the three large US hotel chains (the other two being Hilton and IHG). Note that Marriott has swallowed up a lot of other brands, such as Westin, so there's a lot of hotels where this perk will be helpful.

- MGM Pearl matches to Marriott Silver Elite

- MGM Gold and Platinum match to Marriott Gold Elite

- MGM Noir matches to Marriott Ambassador Elite

Please note that you cannot match your Marriott status to become a higher MGM Rewards tier, so the match only goes one way.

To get higher Marriott status, click here.





Milestone Rewards

It takes 75,000 tiers to get to Gold, and 200,000 to get to Platinum. In order to make things a little more palatable to those who don't quite get to these statuses, MGM has introduced "milestone" rewards on the way.

If you get 50,000 tiers, you guarantee yourself 7,500 free tiers to start 2026. Prior to now, you would start with 0 at every new year.

If you get to 125,000 tiers, you'll guarantee yourself 25,000 free tiers to start 2026. These don't add on top of the 7,500 benefit above -- they replace it.

Not a huge deal, but at least you get a little boost for the following year.



These benefits began March 25, 2025, even though the MGM Rewards year began February 1.