Total Rewards 1 - Players Club 0

This morning I saw that BlogWorld was announced for October in Las Vegas. I’m not sure that I’ll be able to make the expo, but I figured I’d see if there were any comp rooms available in case I could make it.

Players Club

Since BlogWorld will be at Mandalay Bay I looked at my Players Club account to see if there were rooms at an MGM property. Not a bad site, but not very functional. Rooms cannot be booked through the site. You’re just given the information for your comps.

I saw that I had 3 comp nights at Luxor, but the offer only went to June. I called Luxor VIP services to see if they could offer the same in October and was told they would charge me (and my credit card) full rate and adjust if offers come through. Offers are only made available once a quarter. I thanked the woman and told her I’d probably go elsewhere if I can get an offer today.

Total Rewards

After that call I went to check my Total Rewards (TR) account to see if there were any comps available at the Harrah’s properties. My TR account showed me that I had comps available at 4 properties. Not too shabby. Since the offer was available I booked at Bally’s since I’ve never been there and it was the closest comp room to BlogWorld. It was easy as pie and done in about 5 minutes.

Conclusion

Harrah’s Total Reward program is the grand daddy of all comp programs. I’ve read multiple articles that say it is the best. MGM’s Players Club is still, relatively, new and developing. In fact, I recently posted an article how MGM is trying to improve Players Club

Nothing done here was wrong here as most casino offers only come out quarterly. For a person like me, that plans almost everything in life well in advance, the ability to book a comp room 6 months out is great.

There may be plenty of things Harrah’s doesn’t do well (6:5 blackjack, poor video poker pay tables and mediocre customer service) but Total Rewards shows comp offers and easily makes them available. That gives Harrah’s a big edge on the competition and gives them my business again.

MGM is trying to improve Players Club and a great place to start would be linking all of their properties reservation systems together and making offers available more in advance. I’m looking forward to seeing if Players Club can catch up with Total Rewards. They have a big hill to climb.