Staying in Las Vegas?
Caesars Palace, Mandalay Bay, Venetian and The Cosmopolitan are some of the Las Vegas casino resorts where hotel loyalty program members with Starwood, Hyatt, IHG and Marriott can earn hotel loyalty points and burn points for award stays.
Las Vegas, with nearly 40 million visitors in 2012, is a leading destination in the USA and more than 1 in 6 visitors to Las Vegas is from another country. Visitors to Las Vegas consumed 46 million hotel room nights in 2012, more hotel nights than any other U.S. city.
Las Vegas casino hotels in recent years have established partnerships for earning and burning loyalty points through mainstream hotel chain programs. InterContinental Alliance Resorts was created in 2010 partnering Sands-owned properties The Venetian and The Palazzo with IHG Rewards Club. The Cosmopolitan opened as a Marriott Autograph Collection property in December 2010. The M life partnership between MGM Resorts and Hyatt Hotels announced in summer 2013 placed many of the premier Strip resorts like Bellagio, Mandalay Bay and MGM Grand as Hyatt Gold Passport properties for earning points and redeeming award nights. Hilton HHonors shed some of its former casino hotel properties while expanding its Hilton Grand Vacations Club timeshares in Las Vegas.
Tapping into hotel loyalty preferences of visitors to Las Vegas is a win-win for casino resort operators who gain new customers and hotel program loyalty members who can earn and burn hotel loyalty points for Las Vegas hotel stays.
Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) and Caesars Total Rewards
The newest major chain partnership in Las Vegas effective January 9, 2014 pairs Starwood Hotels and Caesars Entertainment.
SPG-Total Rewards members can earn Starpoints at 17 Caesars hotel properties across the USA. Las Vegas has nine casino hotels including Caesars Palace, Bally’s, Flamingo, Harrah’s, Nobu (in Caesars), Paris, Planet Hollywood, The Quad (formerly Imperial Palace), and Rio hotels. Atlantic City has four properties with Bally’s, Caesars, Harrah’s and Showboat. Rounding out the list are Harrah’s New Orleans and three other hotels in Nevada with Harrah’s and Harvey’s in Lake Tahoe and Harrah’s Reno.
- Bally’s Atlantic City, NJ
- Bally’s Las Vegas, NV
- Caesars Atlantic City, NJ
- Caesars Palace Las Vegas, NV
- Flamingo Las Vegas, NV
- Harrah’s Atlantic City, NJ
- Harrah’s Lake Tahoe, NV
- Harrah’s Las Vegas, NV
- Harrah’s New Orleans, LA
- Harrah’s Reno, NV
- Harvey’s Lake Tahoe, NV
- Nobu Hotel at Caesars Palace, NV
- Paris Las Vegas, NV
- Planet Hollywood Las Vegas, NV
- The Quad Las Vegas, NV
- Rio Las Vegas, NV
- Showboat Atlantic City, NJ
All SPG members have the option to redeem Starpoints for hotel nights at participating Caesars properties, even if the member does not join SPG-Total Rewards.
Caesars properties have limited participation in Starwood Preferred Guest compared to casino resorts affiliated with other major hotel brands.
- There are no SPG elite member benefits offered on Caesars stays.
- SPG members only earn 2 Starpoints per dollar for Caesars hotel folio spend, limited to 100,000 Starpoints per year.
- Caesars stays do not earn SPG elite bonus points and will not qualify for SPG promotions. These are major limitations of the partnership.
SPG members can earn up to 10 elite qualifying ‘nights’ per year at Caesars properties on paid stays or award stays using Starpoints or Total Rewards credits, however, no SPG elite qualifying ‘stay’ credit is earned.
Caesars ten qualifying nights help reach 25 nights for SPG Gold or 50 nights for SPG Platinum, but Caesars hotel nights offer no ‘stay’ credit for SPG elite members qualifying on 10 or 25 stays per year. Caesars hotel nights also do not count for SPG lifetime elite qualifying nights.
Caesars Total Rewards
An additional benefit for all SPG-Total Rewards members includes earning 100 tier credits in the Total Rewards program per Starwood Hotel stay, up to 2,500 tier credits per year. No tier credits are earned for award stays.
Total Rewards basic membership is Gold. Elite tiers are Platinum (5,000 tier credits), Diamond (15,000 tier credits) and Seven Stars (150,000 tier credits). Potentially, 50% of the tier credits needed for Total Rewards Platinum elite qualification can be earned from Starwood Hotel stays and reduce the gaming spend requirement by half to reach Total Rewards Platinum elite. An example earning rate for tier credits at Caesars properties is 1 tier credit per $5 played in slots or 1 tier credit per $10 spent on video poker.
The value of Total Rewards elite membership is every US Dollar in spend at Starwood Hotels worldwide also earns 1 Reward Credit as an SPG-Total Rewards member. Reward credits can be used for hotel room redemptions with Starwood and Caesars and other dining and entertainment options with Caesars. Reward credits are earned on paid stays and eligible spend during award stays at Starwood Hotels. There is no annual earn limit on Reward Credits.
Top tier Total Rewards Seven Stars members receive complimentary SPG Gold elite. SPG elite members will not receive complimentary elite status in Caesars Total Rewards.
SPG-Total Rewards membership offers new value-added reciprocal benefits for Caesars and Starwood hotel stays. If casino gaming is not your style, the main point to know is SPG members may book award nights at 17 participating Caesars properties in 2014 using Starpoints, even if not a member of Caesars Total Rewards or the SPG-Total Rewards membership program.
Redeeming Starpoints for Caesars Entertainment hotel stays in the USA.
The redemption side of the SPG-Caesars partnership is an interesting study in reward night cost and SPG points value. This is the part of the story I find more interesting from an analytical view. The story of Caesars hotel awards using SPG points is the next Loyalty Traveler post.
*****
Ric Garrido of Monterey, California is writer and owner of Loyalty Traveler.
Loyalty Traveler shares news and views on hotels, hotel loyalty programs and vacation destinations for frequent guests.
Follow Loyalty Traveler on Twitter and Facebook and RSS feed or subscribe to a daily email newsletter of Loyalty Traveler blog posts.
1 Comment
Comments are closed.