The Imperial Palace casino in Biloxi has overnight RV parking and we stayed there, as well as the Island View in Gulfport and Hollywood in Bay St. Louis. Beau Rivage has an oversize vehicle lot too, but we didn’t stay there on this trip. What lessons learned in south Mississippi?
The Rule Is: Never throw away a casino offer before it expires.
Did I already know this? Yes. Did I follow it? No. We had 2 free tickets to a performance at Hollywood Bay St. Louis and I tossed them, thinking we wouldn’t be in town. Yep, we were there and missed out.
Other than this we did a good job of planning. We had many mailed casino offers, and we sorted them out and planned which to take advantage of based on value, expiration date, how good the gambling was at the casino in question, etc. Being organized will help you get the most freebees from the casinos, and stretch your entertainment budget.
Go West
From Biloxi we traveled west, visited family, visited friends, and in late February we ended up briefly in Tucson, AZ at Casino Del Sol for a rendezvous with two friends. Then it was on to Las Vegas.
Our travel plans are always “carved in Jell-O” so when we arrived in Las Vegas we didn’t know how long we’d stay. After a few weeks we decided to get a local mailing address at a mailbox service and see how good our casino promotions were as locals. We stayed there about 4 1/2 months and learned a lot.
Wow, locals in Las Vegas have it good!
We received many offers that included point multipliers (which vacationers didn’t get) and we were especially happy with the casinos off the strip that market strongly to locals. These are the Station casinos, Coast casinos, and a few independents; Tuscany, Ellis Island, Cannery, etc. One major name in this mix is the Palms casino. It’s a really eclectic clientele there. The rich young socially “in” crowd in the same building with thrifty local senior citizens. With the loud popular music playing, many hearing aids were turned down upon entering!
Examples of promotions to look for
Here, I’ll tell you about some of the better promotions we participated in. To put all this in perspective, we are NOT high rollers by any stretch. We play mostly video poker at the Quarter level, sometimes half dollars and dollars.
Free buffets Promo: In the month of June there was a promotion at Stations Casinos, if you earned a minimal number of points in a single day you qualified for a free buffet, and they didn’t deduct the points from your account, so it was really an additional freebee. We ate 9 buffets for two at Stations casinos in the month of June, a value of almost $300. The comp served as a line pass too, so we could use the VIP line.
New Member Bonus: I’ve told you before about bonus promotions for new players club members. We took advantage of one at the Tuscany Casino. They have an Italian restaurant that we like, so we each joined the slot club and in under 30 minutes we each earned a $50 food comp.
Point Multipliers: We now get a monthly mailer that gives us 4x, 5x and 6x points at the Stations casinos. A very good thing and only available if you’re a “local”. Also included are some gift items and some special events.
Ask and you may get, don’t ask and you won’t: On several occasions we saw free gifts being given out and we had no promo card for them. We asked how we could qualify and usually we were told we did, and given the gift. The same thing has happened to us time and time again. For example, we wanted to eat at a higher-end restaurant but didn’t have enough comps in our account. We asked, and the host said “sure you can”. If we hadn’t asked…?
Are you a “local”? If you visit a casino town and stay for several months you may want to research the situation and see if locals have more fun. I’m not aware of what they’re doing in Biloxi, Tunica, Bossier City, Reno, etc. but it’s worth finding out.
Passing it on the next generation:
Our youngest daughter and her husband visited us in Las Vegas for the 4th of July week. The photo at the front of this post is of the fireworks at Caesars Palace. It was a real treat combined with a special show from Bellagio’s fountains, and we had a front row seat.
Because of our play the previous 3 months, and being frugal with our comps, we could take the kids to lunch and dinner each day for free. One evening we took them to Tuscany and our daughter helped pay by signing up as a new member and earning the $50 food comp.
Two days into the trip the kids caught on to “working the system”. We picked them up for lunch, and they excitedly told us about the previous evening. They were out half the night, and each time they wanted a drink they’d find the penny video slots, play one cent on one line, and get free drinks except for a tip to the cocktail waitress!
Bargains are where you find them – and not always where you expect
Staying at a casino in comped rooms (or a comped RV park spot) can be a good value, but it’s not always the best overall choice. There are several casinos with RV parks in Las Vegas, and we could have stayed all of them in rotation for free; however, that would have required us to give those casinos a minimum level of play for the comp. Location is also a consideration in a large metro area like Las Vegas. For most of our 4 months in Las Vegas we stayed at the Nellis AFB RV park, two months in dry camp, and paid cash for our spot. We did, however, take advantage of a promo there. If you’re a NCO Club member you get a 10% discount, and the Nellis NCO club allows out-of-state persons to join at 50% of normal dues. So in our case, using my military benefits gave us the most flexibility and suited our needs.
Casino Visits and Planning
So far this year we’ve visited and played in over 30 casinos, and in most cases we had a specific reason for being at that casino on that day. Before deciding where to go we look over all our promotional mail and review what we know about the plays available at that casino. We consider things like free play, food coupons, tickets to shows, free nights, etc. One thing we keep an eye on is expiration dates, not only of our coupons and promotions but also our points.
Each casino has a policy regarding how long points stay on your account after the last date you played there. We’ve seen up to 18 months, and as little as 6 months. Before we left Florida, Chris received notice that she needed to play at a Harrah’s property by March 1st or she would lose the comp dollars in her account. The Grand Casino in Biloxi, MS is a Harrah’s property, so we could play there. Now we had another decision to make, would she just play one hand to keep the points valid? The problem with that is, it would have counted as a “trip” and lowered her average, resulting in reduced offers. So we found the best video poker available there, and she gave them a normal session of play.
Maintaining our Player’s Club Status
One thing we deal with because we travel so much is trying to keep our status level in the various player’s clubs. We’re not high rollers, so we typically have a mid-level status at most properties we visit. Some of our travel planning revolves around when these levels will expire, and giving the required play to that property in time to avoid being downgraded. Some places it takes us quite a while to earn a level, so we have to consider what value we receive for our effort, and sometimes it’s not worth the trouble so we’ll let a card expire. We feel it’s important to look at these things rationally. Some places are just too upscale for us. They are targeting bigger players, and if a casino doesn’t appreciate our level of play why should we keep going there? Many other casinos do want our play and will reward us for our loyalty.
Travel plan from here
Since leaving Las Vegas we spent 10 days in Reno, then we moved up to Lake Tahoe on Thursday and we’re now at Horizon Casino. We’ll bounce around here, Carson City, and Reno for a while. Later, we plan to make our way south on US 395 through Mono County, a really beautiful part of California on the east side of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, and yes, there’s a casino along the way. We’ll eventually get back to Las Vegas for a couple of weeks before heading east in early September.
So, how are we doing for the year? Sometimes people ask me this, knowing that we seek out good plays and try to always have some kind of edge. I’ve written before that in 2007 we lost only $64 for the whole year, and I call that a win! At this point in 2008 we’re having a great time. We’ve enjoyed many nights at casinos, eaten over 100 free meals, attended several shows – and we’re LOSING, really, really badly!
However, because we’re only “losing” our entertainment budget we’re happy campers! People who visit Disney World “lose” their entertainment budget too; they just call it “spending”.
The lesson learned here is to never risk more money in a casino than you can afford to spend on any other form of entertainment.
Happy travels and good luck at the casinos,
Mac