Below is the rough draft of an article I am writing for a future Frugal Friday's column. I want to be sure my facts are accurate, so I would appreciate any corrections or additional information anyone might have. If you are the anal editor type, you can even give me hints for better structure, grammar, etc. 
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Slot Club Changes
Harrahs slot club made a change as of the first of this year: There will no longer be any combining of accounts for determining tier status (which some Harrah's properties allowed in 2006 and prior) or marketing offers. Although not all Harrahs properties have the same policies or promotional details, it looks like the mother company is trying to achieve standardization in as many "children" as possible. Of course, with the sale of the company looming in the future, who knows how much will change. Probably so much that it will set back my retirement a year or two as I try to keep you posted!
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Station Casinos' monthly mailer change: It is now based on 90 days instead of 3 months. For example, the December mailer was based on play from August 3 thru October 31.
This new policy was put in place last May. I was surprised when I found out about it just last month; Stations is usually pretty good in announcing major changes. This time they never notified players, by individual letter or signs or in any other way. One might not notice this until he plays
sometime on the 1st or 2nd of a month and later finds one or more of his
monthly mailers have decreased.
I hate it when casinos do sneaky things like this. Of course, they can do
anything they want - but a good PR move is to let players know of changes,
especially when they have been doing something routinely for many years. But why change a logical system to an illogical one in the first place?
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The Gold Coast has now joined the Orleans and the Suncoast in giving monthly bounce-back rewards in the form of free play that you download from your players card (and must play through at least once), rather than in cash you pick up when you take the mailer coupon to a change booth.
Rewarding with free play is a strong casino trend as casinos are quickly updating their machines to give this option. All of the former Mandalay Bay properties went from cashback to free play as they were absorbed into the MGM Mirage company, which had already been changing over completely to free play at their properties.
Right now you can get same-day cashback at the Cannery, Venetian, Hard Rock, and Tuscany, but bounce-back is in free play. Ellis Island has both same-day and bounce-back cash. Stations, the Palms, and Silverton have comps instead of cashback and their bounce-back is in free play. You can use your points for comps at Harrahs properties, but in some (like in Vegas) you do get cash in the mail. Their bounce-back for Vegas locals is in cash, but requires a minimum amount of play. Wynn advertises "cashback" but it's given at the machine in free play, as is their bounce back to Vegas locals.
I predict that within a few years most casinos will no longer give cash rewards, either as same-day ones or bounce-back ones. It's to the casino's advantage to give free Play: "Breakage" (free play not redeemed) is a bigger percent. Once people play through the free play, many are tempted to play until they hit a big jackpot or until it's all gone, the latter being the most frequent happening. And, finally, if free play is used at a less-than-100% machine, the free play theoretical worth is reduced by the casino's edge.
If savvy players are only going to redeem the free play without playing any additional hands, they will redeem their free play at the highest-percentage game they can find. If we're collecting free play when we're playing anyway, we count it merely as part of our bankroll and therefore it has full value for us.
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Jean $锟給tt - "FRUGAL VIDEO POKER"
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