Total Rewards Gift Cards -- OUTRAGEOUS FEES

I can't believe this.

Caesars is marketing its Total Rewards Gift Cards. It wants Total Rewards members to buy the cards to use themselves or to give as gifts.

Frankly, it's not a bad idea to market gift cards because it means the user will come to a Caesars / Total Rewards property. After all -- you can't use a Total Rewards Gift Card at Bellagio or Wynn, right?

That extra business from the Gift Card holder should be attractive enough for Caesars. But -- oh no -- they have to turn the screws and ruin a good thing. How?

By charging ridiculous fees.

Look what I found when I clicked on the email promoting the gift cards:

The cost for a TR Gift card is $2.50, this will be charged to you upon checkout.

Upon check out, before your order is be placed you will see a convenience charge; this is a pass through fee that is charged to process your transaction online via your credit card. The convenience fee is approximately 4.5% of your TR Gift Card load amount. For example for a TR Gift Card loaded with $100 there will be a $4.50 convenience added to the total.

Let's just say you give a $100 gift card to someone -- you have to pay $7 or 7% in fees so Caesars can get $100 of extra business?

This offer should go into the shredder or the spam folder if it comes via email.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alan Mendelson

I can't believe this.

Caesars is marketing its Total Rewards Gift Cards. It wants Total Rewards members to buy the cards to use themselves or to give as gifts.

Frankly, it's not a bad idea to market gift cards because it means the user will come to a Caesars / Total Rewards property. After all -- you can't use a Total Rewards Gift Card at Bellagio or Wynn, right?

That extra business from the Gift Card holder should be attractive enough for Caesars. But -- oh no -- they have to turn the screws and ruin a good thing. How?

By charging ridiculous fees.

Look what I found when I clicked on the email promoting the gift cards:

The cost for a TR Gift card is $2.50, this will be charged to you upon checkout.

Upon check out, before your order is be placed you will see a convenience charge; this is a pass through fee that is charged to process your transaction online via your credit card. The convenience fee is approximately 4.5% of your TR Gift Card load amount. For example for a TR Gift Card loaded with $100 there will be a $4.50 convenience added to the total.

Let's just say you give a $100 gift card to someone -- you have to pay $7 or 7% in fees so Caesars can get $100 of extra business?

This offer should go into the shredder or the spam folder if it comes via email.

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Rumor has it that Gary Loveman resigned to star in a remake of the W.C.Fields' classic, "Never Give a Sucker an Even Break."

They forgot to include that the convenience fees are proceeds to the bankruptcy recovery funds. If the head of marketing forgot to put that in, he/she should be fired.

T.R. gift cards are crappy
Oh, how could I allow them to trap me?
Those bunch of old faggots
Who think we're all maggots
Can bite me, and then I'll be happy

I was going to post about this approximately a week ago, but I was on my yearly NCL cruise, so I didn't have time.

But yes, these new TR Gift Cards are laughably bad, and once again are more likely to piss off loyal customers than provide anything good/useful for CET. They still don't get it. Always thinking about extracting every last dime out of each transaction, and ignoring the bigger picture.

The funny thing is that, when I first got the e-mail, I wrongly read it and believed that they were allowing you to purchase TR Gift Cards at parity with RCs.

I thought to myself, "Wow, that's a really nice thing for loyal CET customers. They're allowing us to buy TR Gift Cards at full value, and then either use them ourselves or give them to friends/family!"

I thought that perhaps this was being done as a way to win favor with the public during the bankruptcy fiasco.

But no.

Then I read it again, and I realized this had nothing to do with RCs. You have to purchase the cards separately, and you have to pay ridiculous fees.

Such fail.

Why would anyone ever buy these with such fees attached, even as a gift?

What college did these marketing people go to?

Most competitive merchants will offer incentives to buy a gift card, Amazon occasionally offers $10 bonus gift card for a $100 gift card purchase. During the holiday season, definitely a lot more deals. Not everyone spends every last penny on the gift card so the merchants get value from that. This is so counter intuitive no matter how I look at it.

More and more forums should discuss this to embarrass the marketing people.

To add to the insult, there is a $4.95 monthly maintenance fee if the balance (only can be loaded at the time of purchase) remains after 12 months.

Terms and Conditions PDF

A monthly maintenance fee after 12 months. Wow.

I wish they would change the name back to Harrah's. The use of CET as a name really bothers my memories of what Caesars was like once upon a time. Using the Caesars moniker for the whole operation is disturbing on a historical level.

Ain't that the truth. It was a special place in its day. Now that it has been "Harrahsized", it is just another casino. No class--just another clip joint trying to take advantage of the schmucks.

Harrahs once had such a great name
It brought them fortune and fame
They changed it to Caesar's
And now you need tweezers
To find something other than shame

That was good, Rob.

Gone are the days of Evel Knieval, and heavyweight title fights, and the old helmet chairs in the sports book with 10K wagers a common occurrence Saturday and Sunday. The headliners are in keeping with the past, but not much else.

I second that, very good indeed. It follows the Limerick form of poetry as well.