Probably the best "bonus" that Caesars Total Rewards offers is the Great Gift Wrap Up. Your play during the year gives you "extra points" for the year-end gift giveaway in Vegas and the points used to "purchase" items or free play or gift cards do not come out of your other "comp points."
And now, just two weeks after the 2013 Great Gift Wrap Up ended, the marketing and promotion of the 2014 GGWU has started.
In the mail today came a Total Rewards mailer for GGWU "bonus events" which give you extra GGWU if you show up at the casino -- and even more bonus points if you play certain levels.
My basic rule is never play for comps, and that is essentially what these "bonus events" are -- a chance to play for comps -- so be sure you take note of that.
The mailer that I got today says that if I show up for a stay at the Vegas Total Rewards casinos I will immediately get a bonus of 140,000 GGWU points. So the first thing I did was figure the value of that "bonus." And, 140,000 GGWU points is the equivalent of about $460 worth of Shell gas cards or $460 of free play based on the exchange rates in the 2013 GGWU event.
That on its own tells me this is not worth it. A $460 promotion is not enough to get me to make the trip to Vegas, especially since I can't "cash in" the bonus until November or December of 2014 and there is no guarantee I will be able to attend the 2014 GGWU event. While I would hope to go anything could happen during the next year, and frankly, a lot of people at my age don't buy green bananas anymore.
The mailer also says that I get extra GGWU points for certain levels of play. If I earn 13,500 tier credits I will get an additional 46,500 points. And 46,500 points is the equivalent of $150 in gas cards or free play. If there are no changes in the Total Rewards system in 2014 it would be possible to get those 13,500 tier points "on a budget" over two days, and here's how:
If I play each day for two days and earn 2,500 tier points I would get the 5,000 tier point bonus for each day. In video poker, except on certain full pay games at certain casinos, my coin in would have to be $25,000 to earn 2,500 points. And playing 8/5 Bonus (available at Rio) my theoretical loss would be $200. That would be 1,000 hands at $5 Bonus Video Poker and it would take a certain amount of luck.
However, a theoretical loss of $200 on video poker to get an extra $150 of gas cards doesn't make sense, does it? The loss is 33% more than the value of the GGWU points.
And the mailer says if I earn 20,500 tier credits during my stay I would get an extra 140,000 GGWU points. That would mean $205,000 of coin in, at 8/5 Bonus poker the loss would be $1,640 to get an additional $460 of GGWU value which means high rollers are getting screwed by a bigger percentage. For the high rollers the loss is almost four times what the extra GGWU points are worth.
There will be five of these GGWU Bonus Events in 2014 and that will mean more GGWU for showing up, plus -- according to the mailer -- If I earn 5,000 tier credits per trip there are more bonus GGWU that will be added at a rate of 25,000 additional points per "bonus event."
But keep in mind that the GGWU points earned with play are in addition to other comps that you might earn and there is the chance you might win when gambling, so the GGWU Bonus Events should not be immediately dismissed.
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