There are comp offers, and then there are comped offers. The difference between the two is pretty important for you to understand. To help explain this, I'm going to outline my reservations for a Las Vegas trip later in the year...
I'll leave the dates out because, as you can understand, I have no desire to publicly broadcast when I'll be out of town.
The Trip: 5 Nights in Las Vegas, arriving Sunday, leaving on Friday.
I have started booking this way to avoid the weekend for two reasons:
1. The rates are slightly cheaper and it's easier to get comped nights.
2. Vegas is less crowded during the week than it is the weekends.
Found a Business/First deal on United, from IAH to LAS for only around $750 per person. First win. I booked a flight that gets us into Vegas at around 3:30 PM, so I don't have to pay for early arrival.
Now, for the "comped" offer.
I received my deals from MLife and one of them was what is my current favorite: Up to 4 nights "comped" (resort fee only) in the recently renovated Tower at Luxor, with a $50 resort credit and $50 free play. We also reserved a cabana for the pool on Monday for $150. I booked Sunday and Monday night on this offer, with the cabana scheduled for Monday. All-in this is going to run me around $300 for room and entertainment, I will use the resort credit at the pool. I will then speak to a host at the property at the end of my stay to determine whether or not I lost enough money gambling to get the remainder of the pool spend taken care of.
This is a "comped" deal. I know going in that my base-room rate, and $50 of my F & B expenses have been taken care of on the front end. If you're a gamble of sufficient rate, you can probably get the resort fees waived, as well as enough F & B comps to take care of the whole pool charge. I, am not at that level so I'll take the deal and see what I can see.
The remaining 3 nights will be spent as a guest of the Four Queens downtown. Money goes further there and rooms are cheap as well. At the Four Queens I can get a Royal Suite for $139/night regular rate. That's a 620 sq foot room with a King bed, premium linens, a multi-head shower, in-room fridge and a 55 inch TV. On the Strip the same room would go for twice the price, at least.
Now, and this is the thing, I can attach my Player's card to the room and, through fairly aggressive gaming, expect to at least get one or two nights comped, possibly all three if fortune smiles, but if not I know that's the max that I'll be out because Four Queens is one of the last hold-outs in Vegas with no resort fee.
These places should be rewarded for this customer friendly policy, and I plan to do so more often in the future.
The thing about "comp" deals is that you cannot be afraid to ask at the end of your stay for a review of your play to receive comps on the back-end. As a matter of fact, if you've played at any significant level at all, you should even ask for that on the back end of your "comped" trips. Provided you charged your food/drink to the room, you'll be surprised what you can get.
In a Las Vegas environment where all casinos, not just the Strip ones, are doing their level best to remove low house-edge games from the playing floor, the comp game is fading, but it's not dead quite yet.
You just have to ask.
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