Point multiplier days have become common practice at casinos over the years. Some have bristled at the idea, since it makes it easier for some players to reach status that others earned without such a benefit. A reader asked whether perks are impacted by this:
I see so many casinos (mine included) offering 5X or even 7X tier points on certain days. In my case, I am at the highest non-invited level at my casino, partially due to these offers. However, I also notice that the rewards and perks have diminished. Do you think casinos are offering fewer perks when more and more people are reaching higher tiers?
Steven M.
There’s probably a bit to this – if more players have perks, it waters down the perks. Line cutting privileges aren’t exactly useful if the line for the higher level is longer than the entry level for, say, hotel check-in, something we’ve occasionally witnessed in certain scenarios. And if more people have status, they may choose to water down what’s offered on status to compensate for this.
Casinos, just like other companies with loyalty programs, will sometimes water down perks as a cost cutting measure. Your frequent flyer perks or hotel status benefits have probably over time become less enticing or valuable than they used to be. Or, conversely, the cost to maintain them has gone up.
To that end, there’s sometimes changes that make higher tiers harder to achieve. A number of programs went this route in recent years, whether it was the introduction of Diamond Plus to make lounges harder to reach (at the time, anyway) by Caesars, or the changing of how a tier point is earned in the case of MGM (to make it more difficult), just to cite a couple of examples.
By making the statuses harder to reach, but then offering tier multipliers, those players willing to commit to those days that are offering them (usually at slower times where the casino hopes to draw in more business) can more easily reach those statuses, where otherwise it might be difficult to impossible for players to reach these statuses.
So there’s a combination of things going on, but ultimately perks diminish because it’s an easy thing to cut without slashing other core benefits like casino offers. Tier multipliers are also a way a casino gets players in on days or weeks (or even a month, as may be the case) they need more business, while raising the overall requirements to get there to begin with.
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