At MGM-Mirage, I used to play frequently at NYNY, TI & Mirage more so at
NYNY than the others. That was a year ago. Then the mailings stopped for 6
months. That was fine with me as I never was a fan of Cirque du Soleil or
Siegfried & Roy and the service and friendliness had suffered ever since MGM took
over. What I did miss were the accommodations at TI/Mirage and chinese dining at
Mirage. But Venetian had both and it's better. However, Venetian's vp
inventory is much narrower and my worst losses have been there.
So imagine my surprise when TI sent me an offer.
I guess I'll call this the Tulip offer because that's the code for this
series of events which span 3/23 - 6/16. I'll lump the first 3 together as
they're all drawings & the formats are similar:
March Mania 3/20 - 3/24 and 3/27 - 3/31
Free Play Gone Wild 4/3 - 4/7, 4/10 - 4/14 and 4/17 - 4/21
Cinco de Mayo 5/1 - 5/5
These were all drawings where $10K in free play are the prizes. (Many
consider free play better than cash since no 1099s are issued. If you have an IRS
conscience, you should report the amount to which the free play is converted
to.) I used to reach for the phone whenever I got my hands on an offer like
this but over the years I've slowed down in order to appreciate the finer things
like the fine print:
--Minimum 2-night stay required. Reasonable requirement. TI & many others
have been burned by those doing 1-night stands -- taking maximum advantage of
an event by booking a 1-night stay & playing 1 day at normal daily ave. Thus
there could be a great disparity in total play when compared with someone
booking for 3 nights -- $30K vs $90K, both still have a $30K daily average.
--6 players will win a share of $10,000 in FREE PLAY. This is what scares
me. For every drawing there's a certain amount of play which should not be
exceeded in order to attain the min EV you want for the event. Considering just
the EV for the event, if 1% is desired then total play for all players should
not exceed $1,000,000.
Scare #1: You don't know how many are attending. Easy to take care of. Book
the event. Wait till 3 days before it starts & call Marketing/host & ask. If
too many are coming, cancel.
Scare #2: You don't know if others are going to play a huge amount. Most
attendees don't think in terms of optimum play for an event. The play of 1 or 2
people could cut the EV to half or even less. In higher-end events, it's more
common for wannabe high rollers to overplay the optimum even if they knew
what it was because there's another benefit -- the increased play puts you at
another level where the events & bennies are better & even more exclusive. Do
you want to know how much more you need to play? Ask.
The 4th event is called FREE PLAY Freedom where you receive $250 in FP for
every 10K pts ($30K in play). Fine print for this one says "not available on
video poker machines".
--For all events FP "expires at the end of your trip".
There are other benefits such as 35 free entries into all the drawings, Spa
Package, limo ride, earning Holiday Gift pts (which I very deeply discount),
3 nights in a suite (also deeply discounted).
TOSS or KEEP?
I'm keeping it. I know what to expect ($0 FP). The idea of having 3 nights
at TI any time during a 3-month period has enough value to file for future
reference.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]