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Thread: Married couple with two NCL cruise vouchers can't use at the same time

  1. #1
    This is yet another reason you should have your spouse listed at a different address than you in the TR system.

    If they have the same address, NCL will not allow them to take a "free" cruise on the same ship as you. (That is, they can be your second guest, but they can't get a second room on their voucher.)

    However, there is a small silver lining. If you want to COMBINE your benefits and get an upgraded room, you can call Teresita at NCL at (305) 436-4410 between 6am and 2:30pm PDT. Not sure how much they will upgrade you, I'm guessing not much. Maybe a balcony to a mini suite.
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  2. #2
    Hold it Dan. This policy makes perfect sense to me. The only reason why husband and wife would want to use BOTH vouchers at the same time would be to give a free cruise to another couple. The cruise benefit is for the player -- and I don't think it is meant to be transferable.

  3. #3
    Alan,

    As I understand Dans post both spouses are players who qualify for a cruise on their own.

  4. #4
    Correct. If they're married the only reason to book a second cabin would be to get someone else on free who did not earn the benefit.

    When you take advantage of the system and abuse it the system bites back.

  5. #5
    Originally Posted by Alan Mendelson View Post
    Correct. If they're married the only reason to book a second cabin would be to get someone else on free who did not earn the benefit.

    When you take advantage of the system and abuse it the system bites back.
    It's not taking advantage of the system.

    When you get a cruise voucher, they are expecting one gambler (you), and one non gambler (your spouse, kid, mom, etc) to be in the room. For example, on my last Seven Stars cruise, my second passenger was my 3 year old son, who can't gamble.

    And NCL was cool with that.

    So if you are bringing them two gamblers (because you and your wife both earned a free cruise), then it should be (but isn't) fine for the two of you to bring two non gamblers as guests.

    This situation is basically NCL saying, "We already got both of you on board by one receiving the benefit, so now we can skimp on what is normally being offered."

    Same with how CET is known to give inferior offers to married couples at the same address.

    Bottom line: Don't put the same address on your TR cards if you're married!
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  6. #6
    So Dan... why aren't the other gamblers also TR members and earning the benefit?

    If you start diluting benefits everyone is going to suffer with lower benefits.

    This is the problem with comp whores -- they ruin it for everyone else. And this is also the problem with "overcomped players" which is how the hosts at Caesars invented the term "Diamonds from Tunica" who demanded comps they were not entitled to.

    Go with the system, and the system will reward you. Try to milk the system for everything you can and you will get what you get, Dan.

    And by the way, who were the other gamblers you tried to bring on the cruise? Your kids?

  7. #7
    Originally Posted by Alan Mendelson View Post
    So Dan... why aren't the other gamblers also TR members and earning the benefit?

    If you start diluting benefits everyone is going to suffer with lower benefits.

    This is the problem with comp whores -- they ruin it for everyone else. And this is also the problem with "overcomped players" which is how the hosts at Caesars invented the term "Diamonds from Tunica" who demanded comps they were not entitled to.

    Go with the system, and the system will reward you. Try to milk the system for everything you can and you will get what you get, Dan.

    And by the way, who were the other gamblers you tried to bring on the cruise? Your kids?
    A few points to correct here, Alan.

    First off, this wasn't about me personally. It's a policy I just discovered (but always suspected might be the case). On the cruise I just took, I only used my Seven Stars benefit and bought one more room for the 3rd person.

    Second, this is an NCL issue, not a CET issue. Caesar's has NOTHING to do with the cruise, aside from issuing the original vouchers for the benefit. The "married people can't use the Seven Stars cruise simultaneously" rule is NCL's recent policy.

    Third, this is not about diluting benefits or trying to take advantage of the system. I'm just advising married people how not to LOSE benefits that they rightfully earned. Married people get penalized simply because they're married, whereas two unrelated Seven Stars (such as you and I) could take the same cruise and also bring another guest to our respective rooms. Married Seven Stars members can't, which is unfair.

    Fourth, "overcomped" players are simply taking benefits given to them by the casino and not playing as much as the casino wants. It means the player has beaten the casino at their own game. Nobody should ever pass up comps or benefits out of guilt or fear that they might "ruin it for everyone else". In reality, these benefits will degrade anyway, as casinos are constantly tweaking things in order to extract the maximum while awarding the fewest comps. The only place I feel restraint is necessary is where you find some something unique and don't want the casino to notice it.

    Fifth, "go with the system, and the system will reward you" is usually false. The system (and by "the system", I mean systems of all kinds) is designed to benefit itself and often people get both intentionally and unintentionally screwed. You have posted many (valid) complaints here about Caesar's and Total Rewards. These complaints are a result of the system not treating you as you expect. While you are typically proactive enough to get things corrected (such as that disasterous Gas for a Year thing), many others just chalk it up to a loss and don't have the time or persistence to get it corrected.

    Simply put, if CET allows me to overcomp myself, I will overcomp myself, and in fact will feel a degree of satisfaction that a system designed to separate me from my money has actually resulted in the opposite.
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  8. #8
    Dan are you suggesting married couples should be allowed to bring extra guests for a threesome or wife/husband swapping?

    Dan what you are overlooking is that all of the companies base these offers on specific formulas of how many will be claimed. When you start changing the rules and more benefits than expected are claimed the promotions get killed.

    The rules limit the number of cruises. Live with the rules or you might see fewer cruises or tier score inflation or extra fees.

  9. #9
    Originally Posted by Alan Mendelson View Post
    Dan are you suggesting married couples should be allowed to bring extra guests for a threesome or wife/husband swapping?
    That's one of the purposes of my suggestion, yes.
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  10. #10
    Learn to play the game properly and win, then all this nonsense goes away. It's a concept those who play for that oh-so-special feeling of status and comps, will never understand.

  11. #11
    I'm an advocate of Anton LaVey's "Do as Thou Wilt" as opposed to Mr. Mendelson's "Do as CET Would Have Thou Do."

    So, yeah, what Dan said. It's supposed to be "gambling," not "donating." So if CET wants my money, let them outfox me. I'm not going to sit and follow the CET Boy Scout manual. If other people are too dumb or lazy to put the bite on them, so be it.

    I'm not sure the cruise line should be discriminating against married people like this. Is that legal?
    Last edited by redietz; 08-16-2014 at 10:19 PM.

  12. #12
    Originally Posted by redietz View Post
    I'm an advocate of Anton LaVey's "Do as Thou Wilt" as opposed to Mr. Mendelson's "Do as CET Would Have Thou Do."

    So, yeah, what Dan said. It's supposed to be "gambling," not "donating." So if CET wants my money, let them outfox me. I'm not going to sit and follow the CET Boy Scout manual. If other people are too dumb or lazy to put the bite on them, so be it.

    I'm not sure the cruise line should be discriminating against married people like this. Is that legal?
    What are you saying, the inmates should run the asylum? Look... if you guys keep demanding things the end result will be tier score requirements will be raised, comps will be cut, fees will be added on, etc. What you seem to be missing is that they have a formula that anticipates a certain redemption rate. If too many redeem there goes the "math" and the business.

    It's like the coupon industry. The nationwide coupon redemption rate is about one-half of one percent. If suddenly two-percent of all coupons were redeemed businesses would go broke.

    You guys really think that you have a right to loot the store, don't you?

    As far as discrimination against married couples let me ask you this: what discrimination? They aren't saying the married spouse can't use their coupon. They're saying the married spouse can't use the coupon on the same trip.

    And why wouldn't the married couple want to have a second cruise? Of course they would UNLESS they wanted to bring someone else on the cruise who did not qualify for the offer which was meant for Total Rewards players.

  13. #13
    Alan, I think you're not looking at this from the right point of view.

    A married couple who BOTH earn 7 Star independently shouldn't be penalized or receive inferior benefits just because they are married.

    Yes, it's legal, but it's crappy.

    Getting around this unfair restriction isn't abusing the system. It's the customer preventing the system from abusing him.

    When I get my 7 Star cruise, I have a right to take anyone (even a minor) as my 2nd passenger, and I can also sail at the same time as other 7 Stars on the same ship.

    So why shouldn't a married couple each be able to sail independently (on the same ship) with their own "second" guests, if they so desire?

    NCL is just disallowing it because they figure a married couple won't likely split up, so they can keep the additional non-gamblers off the ship. That is, they want to force 2 gamblers on board at once, rather than the less-optimal configuration of one gambler and one non-gambler, as is often the case with families where only one is the 7 Star.

    CET has the same model with their promotions and benefits, as well.

    I say that's crap.

    If you earn the benefits, you should get them the same way a single person would.

    Alan, let's say that tomorrow you and I suddenly turned gay and decided we were in love, and got married. Would it piss you off if CET reduced your free play and benefits just because you married another 7 Star? If it wouldn't, it should.

    Don't worry, though. I won't actually be proposing any time soon.
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  14. #14
    Dan thank you for posting this, because now we come to the heart of the matter. And this is where we have different opinions and have different views about what Caesars and NCL are doing. You wrote:

    Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
    When I get my 7 Star cruise, I have a right to take anyone (even a minor) as my 2nd passenger, and I can also sail at the same time as other 7 Stars on the same ship.

    So why shouldn't a married couple each be able to sail independently (on the same ship) with their own "second" guests, if they so desire?

    NCL is just disallowing it because they figure a married couple won't likely split up, so they can keep the additional non-gamblers off the ship. That is, they want to force 2 gamblers on board at once, rather than the less-optimal configuration of one gambler and one non-gambler, as is often the case with families where only one is the 7 Star.

    CET has the same model with their promotions and benefits, as well.

    I say that's crap.

    If you earn the benefits, you should get them the same way a single person would.
    I actually agree with this strategy that CET and NCL are using. Why? Because I understand that a business wants to lower it's costs and when a business is able to lower its costs it can preserve its offers.

    You said it and you recognize it too. By keeping this restriction they are reducing the possibility that a non-gambler will get on the cruise ship. Yeah, I know that sucks but look at it from the CET/NCL point of view: if more non gamblers filled up space that a gambler could fill, gambling revenue would drop.

    Also, there might be a capacity limit for Total Rewards passengers. So why fill the cabins with non-TR members and disappoint a TR-member who wanted the cruise?

    It's like I said before with the coupon industry: they expect 0.5% of coupons to be redeemed and if suddenly 2.0% of coupons were redeemed companies would find their financial models collapse.

    Yeah, it sucks. I'll tell you what also sucks:

    Years ago husbands and wives could combine their play and have one Total Rewards account and it was easier for couples then to both be 7 Stars. But when Harrah's took over Caesars the rule became no more joint accounts -- and the number of 7Stars dropped. (Actually, it was the number of full RFB players that dropped.) I remember that. My wife and I had a combined account at Caesars and we were full RFB -- but when the change went through our accounts were split. I was still 7 Stars but she was Diamond based on our independent play.

    All I can suggest is this: if you really want the "marriage penalty" to be removed, be prepared to see the cruise benefit limited in some other way. It's just dollars and cents and bean counting. You can't have it both ways.

    Now I admit that because I don't take cruises I don't really care about this marriage penalty. But I am suggesting to you that if you manage to get the marriage penalty removed that you might regret what Caesars and NCL does to balance its "cruise budget." You might find fewer cruises, higher fees, maybe even a requirement for a higher tier score to claim a cruise.

    You know the phrase "be careful what you wish for"? In this case, be careful what you wish for.

    You might win the battle but lose the war. I am sure you would hate to find out that the new tier point level for 7 Stars has been inflated to 200,000 but that's exactly what might happen. Or, I am sure you would hate to find out that there was a fee of $300 for taking a non-TR member on the cruise and that would hurt plans for taking a minor on the cruise.

    Anything could happen.

    So... is the marriage penalty for cruising so important to you that you want tier score inflation or cuts in other promos? Choose your battles carefully. Caesars doesn't exactly have huge profits to spread around to its players. And the margin on cruising isn't that big either.

  15. #15
    I humbly submit that CET's bean counters aren't nearly as organized or far-seeing as Mr. Mendelson suggests. From my vantage point, CET is a staggering company that hasn't a clue how to make money in Las Vegas and is simply grasping at whatever straws they manage to invent this week, be it giant ferris wheels or 6/5 blackjack or docking high-end diamond players. Their formulas aren't terribly good models of anything, and people taking advantage of chinks in their Seven Stars organizing principles isn't going to automatically result in this or that, because the meltdown has already begun.

    The fact is that the evil empire is unsustainable, and has been, and people are going to have all manner of comps and statuses reduced and revoked because they are in a death spiral. Whether people take advantage of this or that will have negligible effects on what gets taken away, at this point, because the whole system has been evaluated by various indexes as unsustainable. To be succinct, you may as well loot Rome before it burns.
    Last edited by redietz; 08-17-2014 at 10:23 AM.

  16. #16
    I believe CET is doomed as well and it doesn't matter any more if anyone games the system. It may help Alan feel a little better in that I'm basically using next to none of the 7-Stars "benefits" I've "earned", so when someone like Dan comes along and "overcomps" (whatever that means) then I'm the equalizer.

    Dan, if you want to see CET crumble to their knees over this cruise policy, simply apply as two married queers.Then watch as all bets are off as they bend over backwards to accommodate this newly crowned group of misfits.

  17. #17
    Originally Posted by redietz View Post
    I humbly submit that CET's bean counters aren't nearly as organized or far-seeing as Mr. Mendelson suggests. From my vantage point, CET is a staggering company that hasn't a clue how to make money in Las Vegas and is simply grasping at whatever straws they manage to invent this week, be it giant ferris wheels or 6/5 blackjack or docking high-end diamond players. Their formulas aren't terribly good models of anything, and people taking advantage of chinks in their Seven Stars organizing principles isn't going to automatically result in this or that, because the meltdown has already begun.

    The fact is that the evil empire is unsustainable, and has been, and people are going to have all manner of comps and statuses reduced and revoked because they are in a death spiral. Whether people take advantage of this or that will have negligible effects on what gets taken away, at this point, because the whole system has been evaluated by various indexes as unsustainable. To be succinct, you may as well loot Rome before it burns.
    The above is 100% spot on.

    The incompetence I've seen at all levels at CET is amazing.

    There are a few smart eggs in the bunch, but they are surrounded by a sea of idiocy, cluelessness, and confusion, and the impact of the competent ones is minimal.

    They have much greater problems than worrying about guys like me who cost them a bit of money by using Seven Stars benefits beyond expectation.

    CET has unfortunately invented a messy bureaucracy full of out-of-sync individual departments that would even make our federal government jealous. The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Hell, the left hand doesn't know what any part of the body is doing. The Total Rewards program is confusing and ever-changing to where even the senior employees at most properties don't fully understand it. There is a constant series of embarrassing mistakes and gaffes, which pretty much exist across all properties, and just frustrate people into never returning.

    There is the weird and often contradictory Total Rewards comp structure. You get earn RCs from your play, and then you're contacted by a host, who acts like he's your best friend and wants to take care of you. But then when you want the host to do something for you, you're told that you have to blow your RCs on your own first, with a vague promise of future comps, which makes many feel uncomfortable. (Look at the recent poster who came out of the woodwork to raise this concern.) There's the status levels which don't at all correspond with your level of offers or actual status as a player. This creates the regrettable "Diamonds from Tunica" situation that Alan refers to, where players wrongly believe they are entitled to more comps and better treatment than they actually are. CET bombards you with material enticing you to reach their highest levels, and then treats you as a nuisance if you're not clearing the expected theoretical losses per visit. At the same time, new players who feed $1500 once into a machine are lavished with big rewards. There was the embarrassing situation in New Jersey where Seven Stars were invited to receive a "special gift" and were awarded with a cheap picture frame, while Diamonds were given all kinds of valuable vouchers and gifts.

    Hell, they can't even get their lines right. I get in the "Diamond" or "Seven Stars" line at the cashier, front desk, or wherever, and because the employees are poorly trained (and don't bother looking at those lines), they keep calling the players from the general line ahead of me. So then at some point I finally have to speak up on my own and say, "Seven Stars over here, am I next?", and the people in the regular line angrily glare at me, acting as if I'm cutting in line or too arrogant to wait my turn. I have even tried to wait a few minutes (letting the other line get repeatedly called) and let them call me over on their own, and usually still have to end up looking like the jerk while speaking up. How hard is it to get this right? If you're going to have a "priority" line, then you need to train employees to look at that line first before calling the next customer. It's not rocket science. But they can't get it right, and stuff like this just makes their best customers feel like assholes.

    Then there's things like the High Roller at the Linq, where they cluelessly underestimate expected revenue, and sink over a billion into something that ends up generating 10% the revenue they thought it would. Like, you would think they would spend some decent money on realistic market research so they could understand what it would likely yield, but CET seems to spend now and ask questions later.

    Alan's situation with redeeming the "Gas for a Year" promotion was classic CET fail, and a microcosm of their problems.

    Total Rewards had the concept right. They realized that their best Seven Stars players wanted more variety in their rewards for reaching 200k+ tier credits, and they correctly theorized that a lot of free gas would appeal to certain players. After all, everyone needs gas, especially at today's prices. But that's where the competence ended. Rather than simply issuing $1000 of Shell gas cards (something CET has easy access to at a discount, due to a big marketing partnership with Shell), they first decided to mangle the entire award by splitting it into twelve separate months of $80 each, and misleadingly labeling it "gas for a year". Even worse, you only get your full $80 if you buy 20 gallons in one purchase. You basically get one fill-up, discounted by $4/gallon, per month, with a maximum of 20 gallons. So it's not even $960 in gas. It's 12 fill-ups at a $4/gal discount, which is a huge difference. And to top it all off, they tried to bend over backwards to tie it into their partnership with the Fuel Rewards Network, meaning you could only get this $4/gal discount at Shell stations that take FRN, which in some areas don't exist for hundreds of miles.

    What a disaster. They took something really appealing ("free gas for a year") and turned it into a nearly useless mess.

    And how hard was this? Why not just issue $1000 in Shell gas cards? The customer put in $1,000,000 in additional coin-in, and this is all they're getting for it. Why not at least give them something tangible that the customer will easily use and enjoy, and perhaps help them justify their heavy play and (expected) losses? Why put them through this horrible FRN mess and an award that doesn't at all resemble the way it's promoted?

    It's Marketing 101. You make the customer feel happy, relaxed, and fairly treated. Stress the customer out with weird rules, restrictions, and misrepresentations, and he'll go elsewhere.

    This type of thing happens all over CET. It's not just Total Rewards.

    So CET is indeed circling the drain, and failure is imminent. Nothing I do or don't do will impact that.
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  18. #18
    Question: is MGM/mlife like this too?

    I'm too small a fish to know.

  19. #19
    Originally Posted by Alan Mendelson View Post
    Dan thank you for posting this, because now we come to the heart of the matter. And this is where we have different opinions and have different views about what Caesars and NCL are doing. You wrote:



    I actually agree with this strategy that CET and NCL are using. Why? Because I understand that a business wants to lower it's costs and when a business is able to lower its costs it can preserve its offers.

    You said it and you recognize it too. By keeping this restriction they are reducing the possibility that a non-gambler will get on the cruise ship. Yeah, I know that sucks but look at it from the CET/NCL point of view: if more non gamblers filled up space that a gambler could fill, gambling revenue would drop.

    Also, there might be a capacity limit for Total Rewards passengers. So why fill the cabins with non-TR members and disappoint a TR-member who wanted the cruise?

    It's like I said before with the coupon industry: they expect 0.5% of coupons to be redeemed and if suddenly 2.0% of coupons were redeemed companies would find their financial models collapse.

    Yeah, it sucks. I'll tell you what also sucks:

    Years ago husbands and wives could combine their play and have one Total Rewards account and it was easier for couples then to both be 7 Stars. But when Harrah's took over Caesars the rule became no more joint accounts -- and the number of 7Stars dropped. (Actually, it was the number of full RFB players that dropped.) I remember that. My wife and I had a combined account at Caesars and we were full RFB -- but when the change went through our accounts were split. I was still 7 Stars but she was Diamond based on our independent play.

    All I can suggest is this: if you really want the "marriage penalty" to be removed, be prepared to see the cruise benefit limited in some other way. It's just dollars and cents and bean counting. You can't have it both ways.

    Now I admit that because I don't take cruises I don't really care about this marriage penalty. But I am suggesting to you that if you manage to get the marriage penalty removed that you might regret what Caesars and NCL does to balance its "cruise budget." You might find fewer cruises, higher fees, maybe even a requirement for a higher tier score to claim a cruise.

    You know the phrase "be careful what you wish for"? In this case, be careful what you wish for.

    You might win the battle but lose the war. I am sure you would hate to find out that the new tier point level for 7 Stars has been inflated to 200,000 but that's exactly what might happen. Or, I am sure you would hate to find out that there was a fee of $300 for taking a non-TR member on the cruise and that would hurt plans for taking a minor on the cruise.

    Anything could happen.

    So... is the marriage penalty for cruising so important to you that you want tier score inflation or cuts in other promos? Choose your battles carefully. Caesars doesn't exactly have huge profits to spread around to its players. And the margin on cruising isn't that big either.
    Actually, I can have it both ways.

    This is because only a small percentage of people will do what I do (list my wife at a different address), so it will have no effect on what NCL offers to CET Seven Stars. This is only the sort of thing which hurts them if it's done on a mass scale. You would have a point if I was only one of 5 people receiving the Seven Stars cruise benefit, but given that many thousands take advantage of this benefit, any individual actions of mine are unlikely to affect anything.

    Besides, NCL is likely very happy with their partnership with CET. They get a captive passenger of a Seven Stars member (i.e. a big gambler in most cases) in their horrible-odds casino. I'm sure they make a lot from this, even with the "free" balcony room they give away. (Also, this isn't actually "free", as stated in my earlier posts. It basically costs NCL about $1000 in lost fare revenue, and sometimes even less depending upon the popularity of that sailing. I'm sure they more than make up for it in most cases in both casino revenues and high on-board expenditures.)

    Alan, my point is very simple. My advice here is telling married people how to get the benefit promised to them in the CET Seven Stars marketing literature. While CET/NCL can get away with reducing the benefit for married people through fine-print trickery, I am simply giving them a way to get around that unfair restriction.

    If you earn 150k tier credits, you should get whatever benefits come to everyone else earning 150k tier credits. You should not get punished because your wife ALSO gave them 150k tier credits' worth of business.

    Of course I understand the reason they're doing it, but it's a self-serving reason. My post advises customers how to be self-serving in return.

    And when it's all said and done, casinos and patrons are both out to beat each other. It's not a friendly or mutually beneficial relationship. You shouldn't treat it that way, nor should you fear that occasionally straying off the beaten path will somehow result in the main road being closed.
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  20. #20
    Originally Posted by RoeIncarnate View Post
    Question: is MGM/mlife like this too?

    I'm too small a fish to know.
    The short answer is no.

    MGM also has its issues, but far fewer of them, and is operationally run much better than CET.

    This also makes it a lot tougher to "overcomp" yourself, as I have at CET.
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