Extremely weird pattern with comp rooms at Caesars properties in Vegas

I did not play any casino games at any Caesars property between January 2, 2020 and mid-June 2022. Some of this was from COVID, and some was just from not playing. As expected, Caesars did not offer me any comp rooms, though I got a better deal than people off the street. I got Diamond via status matching.

Anyway, in mid-June, a friend was at a Bally's bar and wanted to order a drink which was going to be like $12. I said, "Don't do that. I'll just play quarter video poker here, and I'll get free drinks and give them to you." So that's what we did. I didn't play very fast (though I wasn't super-slowing playing either), and I lost a whopping $17 in about 20 minutes, at $1.25 per hand. The friend drank more than $17 worth, so it was worth it anyway.

I didn't think much of this until I checked the Caesars website a few days later, and suddenly I had tons of comp rooms on the calendar, including Paris during busy times at the WSOP! Wow! This little $17, 20-minute foray at bar video poker was the only action I had given in 2.5 years, aside from playing the WSOP. Since I was at Caesars properties for WSOP and other reasons, clearly the system had been seeing that I was staying and not playing, so I was shocked that this scant VP play got me such comp rooms.

Obviously I wasn't complaining. I canceled my upcoming WSOP reservations (which I booked for $), and rebooked them comp. Great success!

I figured that these comp rooms would die soon enough. No! They kept up, and I stayed a number of times through mid-July without playing anything but WSOP.

Then I didn't come for 4 months, but I was still offered similar comp rooms, but now I wasn't able to get weekends anymore.

Finally I did a short, 3 night trip this past week. This time I decided I would play just to keep the room comps continuing, figuring it would end soon. I actually stayed away from the 99%+ machines because I figured those were not going to give me much credit, if any, for putting in action (plus they were $5/credit, so the variance would be high, too). I decided to play a 9-5 JoB machine in Bally's, triple play for $1/credit. Unfortunately I ran really badly and lost about $1100 after just $8500 in coin-in. I didn't intend to lose that much when I sat down, but whatever. I stood up and quit, figuring at least this would probably keep the room comps rolling in for awhile, and maybe even some decent offers.

I came back home. I looked at my offers. They abruptly changed, indeed, just like they did last time. However, it was reversed! My comp rooms offers were GONE, even on totally dead days at the worst Vegas properties. And the weekends got incredibly expensive, whereas before some were reasonable.

So my hotel offers got WORSE for playing and losing $1100 after $8500 coin-in.

Can anyone explain this?

I know that Caesars used to be very slow to react (sometimes months behind) to reflect your play on your room comps & offers, but now I've seen it almost instantly adjust twice -- one surprisingly generous (tons of comp rooms from tiny coin-in) and one actually regressing from $8500 coin-in.

Any explanations for this? Anyone seen something similar? I'm very annoyed. I kind of think I'd be getting comp room offers for months more if I just didn't play.

Here's my only explanation at the moment:

When I played in June, even though it was very low coin-in and low stakes, it was the first VP it saw me play in 2.5 years. Maybe it started comping rooms, hoping that the little VP it saw me play was indicative I was about to start heavily playing again.

When I stayed and didn't play at all, maybe that didn't trigger any change in comps, because it was still waiting to see what I would do when I played a second time.

Finally when I stayed this past trip and only put in $8500 in coin-in over a 3-night stay, the computer was very unimpressed ("This is what we've been waiting for?!"), and decided to end the comp rooms.

Do you get any TC or RC playing in the WSOP? That might have kept you in good standing for awhile.
My wife and I have no played the evil empire while staying at Bally's several times. Her View Offer Calendar rooms have held up, as mine (hers are better). We have been with them for 20 years as Diamond, but no more. Life with Caesars ends 1/31/2023, unless we book an offer and add a Diamond companion.
They don't like VP players much, some slots might have changed the algorithm, but let's face it, people have been trying to figure out the algorithm for 20 years.

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Originally Posted by jpfromla

people have been trying to figure out the algorithm for 20 years.

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True story.

I can't make any sense of it. For me this year, the calendar has been slow to react. I splashed down in a market where I was unknown, and then it was 6 weeks or longer iirc before I saw comped weekend dates there. Right now, my Vegas (where I don't play) calendar is a mixed bag. Some other markets such as AC (where I've never been) are almost fully comped.

They also like to opt me out of stuff, so for example I may not see offers from certain markets.

Before I played this past trip, part of me was like, "Maybe I better just leave well enough alone and not react until the comps vanish", but you know how comp rooms are. It's so tilting to have to pay $$$ when you need to take a trip and they abruptly vanish.

It's too early to panic, because perhaps it just needs a few months to analyze my play and re-enable the comps. I really don't need them very much until April. However, this is very disappointing, between the losing of $1100 and the fact that I was actually hurt by giving them action.

Oh, and also there's nobody you can complain to about this. It's not like I can get a human being to adjust it. The computer does what it does.

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

Before I played this past trip, part of me was like, "Maybe I better just leave well enough alone and not react until the comps vanish", but you know how comp rooms are. It's so tilting to have to pay $$$ when you need to take a trip and they abruptly vanish.

It's too early to panic, because perhaps it just needs a few months to analyze my play and re-enable the comps. I really don't need them very much until April. However, this is very disappointing, between the losing of $1100 and the fact that I was actually hurt by giving them action.

Oh, and also there's nobody you can complain to about this. It's not like I can get a human being to adjust it. The computer does what it does.

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I would be extremely tilted by this as well. First the bad variance losing 1.1k (over 8x your expected loss) then the bad news on the room comps.

Assuming this is a 98.45% machine.

My guess is that after the 3 day stay, they may have felt they got an accurate ADT, or at least an accurate assessment of your play.

$8500 x 1.55% = $131.75 (3 day theoretical loss)

$131.75 / 3 days = $43.93 ADT Loss

I think when you took the 2.5 year break and returned for the Coin-in for “free drinks” the algorithm may give a previous “High coin-in player” great room offers to try and entice them back in. It’s my guess that any coin in after a long absence is rated very generously. My guess is even a few dollars coin-in would trigger these great offers for someone like yourself. I think they give the benefit of the doubt, as maybe you stopped in to take a piss and this isn’t your typical play level.

I think once they get the player back after that point is when they try to accurately gauge that player. I think 3 days of coin-in action is enough (as far as they are concerned anyway) to properly rate the player.

It’s also possible their algorithm may negatively rate a player that plays only VP, over x number of days. I have read from some of these multicarders to play a little bit of 1% BJ (or count and play a slightly +EV game) or $10 on a 8% HE machine to disguise VP play. I’ve read this in a couple places, does it work? Not sure, but it cost very little to potentially disguise play.

It’s likely they are strictly rating you on Average Daily Theoretical Loss of $44 and not your Actual Loss.


It sucks, I feel for you. I hope the system “catches up” to your play, but unfortunately I think it’s current.

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Originally Posted by PositiveVariance

I would be extremely tilted by this as well. First the bad variance losing 1.1k (over 8x your expected loss) then the bad news on the room comps.

Assuming this is a 98.45% machine.

My guess is that after the 3 day stay, they may have felt they got an accurate ADT, or at least an accurate assessment of your play.

$8500 x 1.55% = $131.75 (3 day theoretical loss)

$131.75 / 3 days = $43.93 ADT Loss

I think when you took the 2.5 year break and returned for the Coin-in for “free drinks” the algorithm may give a previous “High coin-in player” great room offers to try and entice them back in. It’s my guess that any coin in after a long absence is rated very generously. My guess is even a few dollars coin-in would trigger these great offers for someone like yourself. I think they give the benefit of the doubt, as maybe you stopped in to take a piss and this isn’t your typical play level.

I think once they get the player back after that point is when they try to accurately gauge that player. I think 3 days of coin-in action is enough (as far as they are concerned anyway) to properly rate the player.

It’s also possible their algorithm may negatively rate a player that plays only VP, over x number of days. I have read from some of these multicarders to play a little bit of 1% BJ (or count and play a slightly +EV game) or $10 on a 8% HE machine to disguise VP play. I’ve read this in a couple places, does it work? Not sure, but it cost very little to potentially disguise play.

It’s likely they are strictly rating you on Average Daily Theoretical Loss of $44 and not your Actual Loss.


It sucks, I feel for you. I hope the system “catches up” to your play, but unfortunately I think it’s current.

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Positive, you do such great posts. I'm no CET comp expert, but what you wrote seems likely. The theoretical on Dan's play for three days was just too low. Now if he had done the $8500 in one day, that would have been interesting to see the CET consequences.

While I'm at it, Dan, I haven't been to Cherokee in a couple of years. If you put through 8K or 10K in a day, what consequences will that likely have? Any ideas?

First play triggered teasers. You could have earned one tier credit and got the same offers on dormant accounts. Additional play required now in some areas to generate real offers. Results Very depending on region. Finding the right combination of properties to play it is the play. GL

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Originally Posted by PositiveVariance

I would be extremely tilted by this as well. First the bad variance losing 1.1k (over 8x your expected loss) then the bad news on the room comps.

Assuming this is a 98.45% machine.

My guess is that after the 3 day stay, they may have felt they got an accurate ADT, or at least an accurate assessment of your play.

$8500 x 1.55% = $131.75 (3 day theoretical loss)

$131.75 / 3 days = $43.93 ADT Loss

I think when you took the 2.5 year break and returned for the Coin-in for “free drinks” the algorithm may give a previous “High coin-in player” great room offers to try and entice them back in. It’s my guess that any coin in after a long absence is rated very generously. My guess is even a few dollars coin-in would trigger these great offers for someone like yourself. I think they give the benefit of the doubt, as maybe you stopped in to take a piss and this isn’t your typical play level.

I think once they get the player back after that point is when they try to accurately gauge that player. I think 3 days of coin-in action is enough (as far as they are concerned anyway) to properly rate the player.

It’s also possible their algorithm may negatively rate a player that plays only VP, over x number of days. I have read from some of these multicarders to play a little bit of 1% BJ (or count and play a slightly +EV game) or $10 on a 8% HE machine to disguise VP play. I’ve read this in a couple places, does it work? Not sure, but it cost very little to potentially disguise play.

It’s likely they are strictly rating you on Average Daily Theoretical Loss of $44 and not your Actual Loss.


It sucks, I feel for you. I hope the system “catches up” to your play, but unfortunately I think it’s current.

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Blending is what I call it and it works. The right mix is for the individual to figure out. The real magic secret sauce they say.

Seed, do you find when “blending” your play there is a consistent level that must be reached at most casinos? Basically, on the games being played solely for disguising/blending purposes, do you find the amount of coin-in needed for blending purposes is fairly consistent between casinos? Or does the amount of coin-in needed, vary significantly to pull off a successful blend?

Are any casinos as simple as $1 coin-in, on 3 different 8% HE machines, to trick the algorithm? This after giving them 10k coin-in on 99.5% VP.

I don’t expect you to give away your secrets, just basically looking for the level of “blending” needed and if that varies heavily casino to casino.

Well the good news is that it essentially "bounced back" today to what my offers were before this last trip.

So, while not great (basically no freeplay and only comp rooms on weekdays for the most part, with discounts for the weekends/holidays), at least it doesn't appear to be worse anymore.

Very odd how quickly this changed and changed back.

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

Well the good news is that it essentially "bounced back" today to what my offers were before this last trip.

So, while not great (basically no freeplay and only comp rooms on weekdays for the most part, with discounts for the weekends/holidays), at least it doesn't appear to be worse anymore.

Very odd how quickly this changed and changed back.

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Could be a silly question but,


Occasionally I’ll log into Caesars & see all my comped rooms gone then I realize I thought I was logged in but actually was not so it was just showing the regular rates it shows to the general public.

Once I actually log in, the comped rooms are back.

Any chance this is what happened to you?

Happens to me a lot when logging in from a mobile device because they have a crappy website where you think you logged in but it didn’t recognize your login the first time.

In the old days we called it "sandwiching" when mixing advantage video poker with slots.

These days advantage slots are the way to go for room comp.

They have a high theoretical. If you look at penny slot stats they hold around 10% give or take a point or two. And don't let the "penny slots" fool you. They carry $7, $8, 9$, 10$ betting and even higher. So it don't take much to run a fairly big wager. But the trick with the advantage slots is only play when the theoretical is at breakeven or higher. Working advantage slots carries big edges, 5%, 10%, 20% even higher.

I haven't talked about it much but I enjoy perpetual room comp. That is, if I want to I can get every day of the month comped. And it starts all over every month.

Two casinos send me 2 days a month.
Two casinos send me 4 days a month.
One casino sends me 8 days a month.
One casino sends me 5 DAYS A WEEK for most months.
One casino sends me 3 days a quarter but they have multiplier days where I'm getting as high as 2% on the wager in comp dollars, which in turn, pay for a lot more room nights.

All of these casinos have advantage slots. And the competition for the plays is not out of hand. Easy enough to track my wager. I try to do at least a 5K a day wager.

I don't work my ass off anymore. I spend a lot more time in the room than the casino. You could call it casino vacations. Except some months I do a lot of casino vacations.

I don't run the route every month. Right now I've got a lot of shit going on at home and it won't be cleared up until after Christmas. But I've got a 4 day New Year's package to start the year off right.

Twentysome years ago I would play 5K hands of video poker a day for six months straight. And mix in advantage slots with it. I'm to lazy for that shit now. I just stick to the advantage slots. Very little boring ass video poker. Life is easy.

An advantage play don't last long. That's what I like. I ain't sitting there going cathartic. I'm up out of the seat looking for another play. I never know how many plays I'll get on a lap thru the casino. Might be just a few might be 20.

Once I knock everything down then it's to the restaurant. Then up to the room where I usually take a siesta, and spend time on the laptop with the TV on. I post a lot on genealogy. I'm also a youtube junkie. Then I hit the gambling forums and call all of you assholes....assholes. Then back down to the casino. Usually 2 to 3 laps over a 24 hour period.

The Life of Riley, baby. And I hope Riley don't come home.

PS: You should be looking at advantage slots as a way to run comp. It's much easier than video poker.

Mickey, I’m surprised you don’t do the Multicarding gig. Or do you??

I would think a nice route like you have would be perfect for it.
Not overdoing it, only 2 or 3 more cards for each casino on your route?


If you ever retire, will you sell your “route”?

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Originally Posted by PositiveVariance

Mickey, I’m surprised you don’t do the Multicarding gig. Or do you??

I would think a nice route like you have would be perfect for it.
Not overdoing it, only 2 or 3 more cards for each casino on your route?


If you ever retire, will you sell your “route”?

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I made a decision early on to stay away from anything that might compromise my position in the casinos. I try to stay as legal as possible while using legitimate strategy and all available information. That's enough money for me. I've only lost a few casinos in 26 years.

And I'm already retired. Lots of retiree's gravitate toward gambling. They move to locations like Las Vegas so they can be around the gambling everyday. The old codger is in the poker room and his ol' lady is in the bingo hall.

Now, what about someone that's been an advantage gambler for a few decades? What does he/she retire too? Staying at home and looking at 4 walls? Move to Corn Junction, Iowa and watch the corn grow?

I don't think there is such a thing as a gambler "retiring from gambling." Like I said people retire from their jobs so they can go gamble. Why would an advantage gambler stop making bets? I can't think of a single reason other than death.

These days, at my age, I call it casino vacations. I don't play off all the EV I see because I don't want a job anymore. But I play off enough. I just mosey around and pick off a little EV here and there, enjoy the restaurants, free rooms and concerts. The only difference between the gambling retiree's and me is I know how to turn a profit at it.

And casinos aren't the only things I do. I also do national parks, state parks, scenic byways, historical districts, historical graveyards, etc. I love the motor touring and the casinos are on the routes.

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Originally Posted by mickeycrimm

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Originally Posted by PositiveVariance

Mickey, I’m surprised you don’t do the Multicarding gig. Or do you??

I would think a nice route like you have would be perfect for it.
Not overdoing it, only 2 or 3 more cards for each casino on your route?


If you ever retire, will you sell your “route”?

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I made a decision early on to stay away from anything that might compromise my position in the casinos. I try to stay as legal as possible while using legitimate strategy and all available information. That's enough money for me. I've only lost a few casinos in 26 years.

And I'm already retired. Lots of retiree's gravitate toward gambling. They move to locations like Las Vegas so they can be around the gambling everyday. The old codger is in the poker room and his ol' lady is in the bingo hall.

Now, what about someone that's been an advantage gambler for a few decades? What does he/she retire too? Staying at home and looking at 4 walls? Move to Corn Junction, Iowa and watch the corn grow?

I don't think there is such a thing as a gambler "retiring from gambling." Like I said people retire from their jobs so they can go gamble. Why would an advantage gambler stop making bets? I can't think of a single reason other than death.

These days, at my age, I call it casino vacations. I don't play off all the EV I see because I don't want a job anymore. But I play off enough. I just mosey around and pick off a little EV here and there, enjoy the restaurants, free rooms and concerts. The only difference between the gambling retiree's and me is I know how to turn a profit at it.

And casinos aren't the only things I do. I also do national parks, state parks, scenic byways, historical districts, historical graveyards, etc. I love the motor touring and the casinos are on the routes.

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Is there a move to Vegas in your future?
Keep the Montana address and get room comp.


Just curious, how much of a pay cut would you take if you “moved” to Vegas and did strictly a Vegas machine route everyday? I know there is massive competition there, but I’m sure you could still earn room
Comp for all or most days Plus a decent income?

Then you can vacation in California periodically and I can show you a couple places to bank some games, but I know you said your not interested in it :-)

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Originally Posted by PositiveVariance

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Originally Posted by mickeycrimm

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Originally Posted by PositiveVariance

Mickey, I’m surprised you don’t do the Multicarding gig. Or do you??

I would think a nice route like you have would be perfect for it.
Not overdoing it, only 2 or 3 more cards for each casino on your route?


If you ever retire, will you sell your “route”?

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I made a decision early on to stay away from anything that might compromise my position in the casinos. I try to stay as legal as possible while using legitimate strategy and all available information. That's enough money for me. I've only lost a few casinos in 26 years.

And I'm already retired. Lots of retiree's gravitate toward gambling. They move to locations like Las Vegas so they can be around the gambling everyday. The old codger is in the poker room and his ol' lady is in the bingo hall.

Now, what about someone that's been an advantage gambler for a few decades? What does he/she retire too? Staying at home and looking at 4 walls? Move to Corn Junction, Iowa and watch the corn grow?

I don't think there is such a thing as a gambler "retiring from gambling." Like I said people retire from their jobs so they can go gamble. Why would an advantage gambler stop making bets? I can't think of a single reason other than death.

These days, at my age, I call it casino vacations. I don't play off all the EV I see because I don't want a job anymore. But I play off enough. I just mosey around and pick off a little EV here and there, enjoy the restaurants, free rooms and concerts. The only difference between the gambling retiree's and me is I know how to turn a profit at it.

And casinos aren't the only things I do. I also do national parks, state parks, scenic byways, historical districts, historical graveyards, etc. I love the motor touring and the casinos are on the routes.

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Is there a move to Vegas in your future?
Keep the Montana address and get room comp.


Just curious, how much of a pay cut would you take if you “moved” to Vegas and did strictly a Vegas machine route everyday? I know there is massive competition there, but I’m sure you could still earn room
Comp for all or most days Plus a decent income?

Then you can vacation in California periodically and I can show you a couple places to bank some games, but I know you said your not interested in it :-)

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LOL. I left Nevada 15 years ago. I worked every part of the state for about 11 years. I played a lot of video poker in those days and I would go to wherever the strong play was. Laughlin, Las Vegas, Mesquite, Reno, Tahoe, Carson City, Fernley, Fallon, Elko, Wendover.

I ran perpetual room comp in Laughlin for about 5 years. I rotated thru all 9 casinos every month. The longest stretch was 5 months. I could have done it year round but liked to travel to other parts of the state. There were so many strong video poker plays in those days I was like a kid in a candy store. Sometimes I didn't know whether to zig or zag.

So anyways, those bright lights of Las Vegas quit looking bright to me a long time ago. No desire to return. The M sent me a 4 day room comp a couple of months ago that expires at the end of this month. I won't be using it.

In Laughlin, the Edgewater, Aquarius, Riverside, send me room comp from a free gambling junket Harrah's sent me in 2018. I flew from Great Falls to Laughlin and back. Harrah's didn't have jackshit for advantage plays so I ran zero action the whole 4 days. Instead I went upriver everyday. A couple months later then sent me another 4 day package. LOL I didn't use it.

I have a good friend in California who did the multi-carding for years. He explained to me the copious amount of time and travel it took to do it. We still trade information on advantage slots.

Mickey is right about LV. I'm over it. Post pandemic I had quite a few free rooms due to whatever. If not free, I could stay at Bellagio for $70 a day or whatever it was mixed in with free days. Problem is I'm too cheap to want to spend money at the places to eat there. On occasion, sure, but I can easily spend more on food than rooms.

I couldn't get a good offer at the Aria on on weekend so it was going to cost me $500ish for the 3 premium days. Cancelled and went to the plaza. The money I saved paid for car rental for rest of the day. If you don't have to pay the fucking parking lot tax then it is easily worth it. Plaza once gave me a nice room where window was straight looking down freemont. The place has its issues and I don't trust the doors between rooms all over but it can be a welcome change from the strip.

If I was going to enjoy myself at a casino and not have some specific reason, I wouldn't go to LV unless she hadn't been to LV.

edit - the other thing I meant to add is a non-gambler but really sharp friend of mine told me that someone was able to add him to the room at LV. It was either Caesars or MGM. This person was still on the plane at the time? Maybe they called a host?

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Originally Posted by DGenBen

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

Well the good news is that it essentially "bounced back" today to what my offers were before this last trip.

So, while not great (basically no freeplay and only comp rooms on weekdays for the most part, with discounts for the weekends/holidays), at least it doesn't appear to be worse anymore.

Very odd how quickly this changed and changed back.

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Could be a silly question but,


Occasionally I’ll log into Caesars & see all my comped rooms gone then I realize I thought I was logged in but actually was not so it was just showing the regular rates it shows to the general public.

Once I actually log in, the comped rooms are back.

Any chance this is what happened to you?

Happens to me a lot when logging in from a mobile device because they have a crappy website where you think you logged in but it didn’t recognize your login the first time.

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Not what happened.

Also, I didn't have "general public" rates. The former comp rooms were now showing as $10-$20 per night, and the non-comp rooms went way up.

It legit just snapped back.

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DGenBen

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

Well the good news is that it essentially "bounced back" today to what my offers were before this last trip.

So, while not great (basically no freeplay and only comp rooms on weekdays for the most part, with discounts for the weekends/holidays), at least it doesn't appear to be worse anymore.

Very odd how quickly this changed and changed back.

---

Could be a silly question but,


Occasionally I’ll log into Caesars & see all my comped rooms gone then I realize I thought I was logged in but actually was not so it was just showing the regular rates it shows to the general public.

Once I actually log in, the comped rooms are back.

Any chance this is what happened to you?

Happens to me a lot when logging in from a mobile device because they have a crappy website where you think you logged in but it didn’t recognize your login the first time.

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Not what happened.

Also, I didn't have "general public" rates. The former comp rooms were now showing as $10-$20 per night, and the non-comp rooms went way up.

It legit just snapped back.

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You just reminded me (& I don’t know if this is what happened to you) but once I forgot my players card & got a new one at the rewards desk.

As I was outside NV where I originally created my account, somehow they screwed up & assigned me a new rewards number even tho they did get my name and address correct.

Once I found my old card & had both of them i didn’t notice the different account numbers & if I happened to log in with the rewards number with less play my offers would be much worse.

Finally figured it out & they were able to combine accounts although it took them a long time to fix the problem. I saved the correct rewards number into my log in on all my devices so it wouldn’t happen again.

This was a few years back & they told me that although its all the same rewards programs, different regions have different types of account numbers based on where account is created & thats what got it all screwed up.