Musings from a New Years visit to Caesars

- There is apparently no way for Total Rewards to "unredeem" offers if a TR staff member accidentally redeemed them. I had 8 High Roller tickets coming to me via Diamond Aspirations -- four plus four. The first four are standard High Roller tickets. The second four come with the "Happy Half Hour" drink, where you get free drinks for 30 minutes prior to riding.

I only needed four tickets, and as most of my party were non-drinkers, I decided to save the four "drinking" tickets for another time. However, they printed the one with the drinks (despite my saying it THREE times throughout the conversation, and them repeating it back to me). This created a mess where they couldn't undo it, and just wanted to "note" my account that it was an accidental redemption. I wanted an e-mail in addition to that, verifying this had occurred. They couldn't provide me one for some reason. I just wanted a TR supervisor to send me an e-mail verifying this had happened. After a lot of arguing, they agreed to do it, but I still haven't received any e-mail. Supposedly I'll get it tomorrow. Ugh.


- The High Roller was so empty that our family was the only one in the pod at about 4pm. That is, we had our own private pod. It was nice.


- I have a unique situation where my Seven Stars lapsed for about 2 days in 2015, so technically I should be a "new" Seven Stars, entitling me to the Diamond Celebration $100 dinner. Total Rewards went crazy trying to figure it out. Even more maddening, for some reason they couldn't even see that my play was THIS year and not last year (even after extensive research in the back room), and they kept insisting I was 2015 Seven Stars from last year's play (which wouldn't have qualified me for the $100!) NO!!! After wasting a lot of time on this and nobody STILL understanding it, a host finally agreed just to comp $100 food and beverage for me to solve the matter.

- During the above $100 mess, one excuse they gave was that I already redeemed the $100 Diamond dinner in New Orleans in January 2015. This was FALSE! While I did stay at Harrah's New Orleans in January, I did not eat once at any of its restaurants, nor did I obtain any voucher from there. So odd. They claimed they had no more details because "it's an out of market property". LOL.


- Caesars once again claims you need wristbands to get into the property tonight, and scared guests that this was necessary. Once again, they gave no instruction on how to get them. And once again, they don't seem to be enforcing having to be wearing one. Last year Caesars looked like a refugee camp on New Years Eve, with large numbers of people sitting on the floor near the Augustus Tower and Diamond/7 Star check in doors.


- They forgot to put a "media profile" on my room to get me the free internet and movies, as required for all Seven Stars. This is a very common mistake. I knew they forget often, so I reminded them at the end of check-in, and it was added. They sheepishly admitted when I asked that it wouldn't have been added if I hadn't mentioned it.


Anyone who is around who wants to meet up in the next 2 days, let me know and I'll see if I can make some brief time for it.

Also, I got a 2nd room at the Nobu, thanks to a generous listener to my radio show.

Interesting to see it. Rooms are pretty small, though tastefully done. Bathrooms are very nice.

For whatever reason, they have a hard time coming up with coffee makers in that hotel. Some employees claim they don't have them, some claim they have them but never actually send one when you ask for it, and one employee told me there are 2 coffee makers for the entire Nobu hotel. LOL. (I never got one, btw).

Free movies were not added to my room either. As soon as I saw the first charge I called the front desk and it was immediately changed with no problem. We didn't get wrist bands either but it didn't matter as we watched fireworks from our room.

Drinks before riding? I don't think so. How cool would it be though to open a window and take a wizz from the top.

Still no-email.

I went to Total Rewards AGAIN, and told them how ridiculous this was. I finally convinced a supervisor to just send me an e-mail on the spot, and she did so. Problem solved, at least for now.

Updating the other issue, the host who promised me the $100 came through and indeed wiped it off my folio.

I still believe I was entitled to that $100, but my situation was so unusual (a 2-day lapse in Seven Stars status) that CET probably had no protocol to handle it. Everyone at TR was confused, no matter how many times I explained it.