I think I shot myself in the foot playing the "comp game" with the Total Rewards program. I'm not sorry I did it because I got what I wanted... and I may have gotten what I deserved.
Over the past couple of years I decided to take advantage of all of the free play and shopping sprees and offers I could get without overspending on my entertainment (gaming) budget. It worked for a while. But the system caught up with me.
For much of 2011 and early 2012 I was a very frequent visitor to Caesars Palace but my play for each trip was limited to a certain fixed amount. Over the course of a year it totaled up to be high enough to have four times the points needed for 7Stars. But in mid-2012 the value of my offers was cut by about 70-percent. During that same time, a friend of mine who had about the same number of tier points (which is based on annual play) but who visited Caesars only a few times during the year did not suffer a cut in his "offer value" and in some cases it was even increased. Why would my offers be reduced and his offers be increased when we had the same number of tier points?
Well, the explanation I got was that while my level of tier points came from many different visits, his similar level of tier points came from fewer visits making him more valuable since he played more per visit.
This year the same thing appears to have happened with me at Harrah's Rincon, another Total Rewards property. I was diligent in taking advantage of the many daily and weekly free play offers, and while my tier score this year is already above 691,000 I have seen the value of my offers at Rincon cut by more than half during the course of the year. Again I believe that while my total play is high (691,000 tier points is more than four times the required amount for 7 Stars), the value of my play per visit is low plus I've taken advantage of "too many" free play offers.
There is another reason why my "offer value" has dropped and that is how my value has changed as a player. In years past I played games with a higher house edge including 9-5 Double Double Bonus video poker with an expected return of about 98% but now I play 8-5 Aces and Faces video poker with an expected return of about 99.2%. The difference is that I play longer and score more "tier points" with the same budget.
The big point is that you can "milk" these comp systems for only so long before they catch up with you. That's the game. Cows don't give good milk forever.