MLife or Total Rewards - Which is better?

I'm nowhere near the "higher levels" for sure but I'll give my two cents anyway...

I've found both programs to be fairly equal in terms of what you get out of them for similar play, that said, I have gravitated to MLife over TR for the past year because I prefer Aria/Bellagio/NYNY/Excalibur/Luxor/Mandaly to Caesars/PlanetHollywood/Cromwell/Harrah's/Bally's/LINQ.

That and I think the variety of ways to earn TC's on MLife make it easier to move up in levels.

I know there are several on this board who are loyal TR players who will now begin to tell you just how daft I am. (and they'd be correct, because TR is working for them).

Long story short, I would pick the one who offers the places you like to stay and play the most.

 

If you play blackjack, CET is much better with Cromwell and Planet Hollywood having much better rules at $25 per hand. You will have no problems getting free rooms there if you are gold with V/P. Mlife is good if you mostly play slots and Aria has some great rooms and restaurants if you want something a bit more modern than V/P. Personally I stick with CET because I like slots and blackjack. Cosmo and Mlife doesn't get much of my business because you need $50 per hand for 3:2 blackjack.

 

Play where you enjoy playing and let the comps come as they may. Really. Totally not kidding. Who cares if you get rooms and rewards at places you don't like to play and/or stay?

Personally, I think Cosmo has the best rewards program for slot players, but poor for table players. Casino and restaurant choices are solid, rooms are great (although I actually prefer V/P), cocktails are awesome, and casino is a lot of fun. I enjoy staying and playing there, so I make sure I keep my status. But I do spread my play around because I just can't play in one casino for several days running.

I'm with Nick on TR vs MLife. With TR is really easy to get base level to middle of the road rooms. Diamond doesn't take a ton of play to get with all the bonuses and has a couple of nice bennies, but other than better rooms at Caesars Palace, the rooms just don't do much for me and I don't get much freeplay from them, so I don't really care about my status there. With MLife, rooms seem to be a bit harder to come by, but freeplay and resort credit is better than CET. I enjoy the restaurants and room options at MLife more, and I like the overall casino options slightly better than CET, so it's more valuable to me.

I will say I felt very fairly treated with Grazie. I LOVE the resort/rooms and was surprised at the comps I got, but the gaming conditions there seem to have deteriorated significantly over the past couple of years and I wasn't getting much play for my money, so I moved that play to Cosmo.

But again, play where you like to play and stay and the comps will sort themselves out.

 

What Irish Dave said, play where you enjoy to play.

I play mostly slots and Mlife blows away CET in my opinion with similar play. Caesars doesnt send free play and food offers all the time. CET is very cheap. The last large trip i made, they first required me to use my credits before seeing if they could comp anything else, and actually the host offered limo transportation, but when checking out they had the charge on there and then only agreed to take care of half, and i can assure you i play enough to have it comped.

At mlife i never have to use express comps, all food covered, limo, multiple cirque shows covered and i also like being able to go to any property charge anything to room at bellagio and its covered.

I have heard cosmopolitan is good with slots, but it is not my favorite property. The casino seems small and it feels like a mall where most of the food is located. I did play there a few hours last trip and got a $500 free play offer next day. I am going to check what cosmo has to offer next trip, but again not sure if i would stay there because i dont love the place.

 

CET has properties around the country. If you gamble alot of places, its easy to get a comp room anywhere.
Mlife is mostly Vegas. If you only go there its great.
If only Vegas, i would pick Mlife. Properties are so much nicer.

 

Mlife has atlantic city, borgota. Biloxi Beau Rivage, new one in mass, Tunica Gold Strike and probably some others. CET does have more but mlife is across the country.

 

Hi, I know you guys said MLife is better for slot players, how about video poker players? Any of you guys video poker players and getting good comp from Mlife. I guess I can play video poker at Aria since it has some full pay spin poker machines outside high limit room according to VPfree2 website. I like the diamond lounge and the free show tickets but they are pretty cheap in giving out free play. I would try to play some video poker at Aria this trip if I hear from you guys, going today.

 

I think MLife has better overall pay tables for VP, at least you can still find several 7/5 BP machines on the floor at Aira at quarters, Bellagio has a couple of 8/5 games, etc. and the MLife bar top pay tables are significantly better than CET. I go with the pay tables over the points, as its really hard to do an apples to apples comparison with different tier benefits, CET's unending bonuses, MLife's different multipliers in different markets, etc.

Cosmo has the best overall pay tables on the strip, but I'm pretty sure they calculate ADT on the actual pay table (!), so if you play a good pay table you generate less in the way of comps.

So once again, play where you enjoy it! I play a lot at Chandelier because of the quality of the cocktails, even though I'm not generating a ton of theo; at LeCaberet because I love the live bands (and they have Guinness on tap), even though the CET pay tables suck; and at Bellagio because they have 8/5 BP on the floor and 7/5 BP at the sports book bar (and they have Guinness on tap).

 

I mostly agree with @NickPappageorgio and @IrishDave . At my play level, the total comp value of my offers from MLife and CET are about the same.

The main differences (again, at my play level):

• MLife gives me a little more FP & RC, but the max offer I get is usually 3 or 4 nights, and having the resort fee waived as part of the offer is getting more unpredictable
  
• CET gives a little less FP & RC, but I can always get 5 nights comped with an offer. It's easy for me to make Diamond by using the daily TC bonuses, so resort fees aren't an issue.

Cosmo currently beats them both by a noticeable margin:

• The room type I get offered has a much higher retail price than what I can get at MLife or CET, and I can upgrade it in advance if I want
  
• Freeplay & RC are double
• No resort fee on comped rooms
• Max offer is 4 nights, but that's enough for my stays there, because:
  • Gold tier comes with an additional 2 comp nights that can be back-to-backed with an offer

I'd say the less you play, the more you should lean to CET. Because their rooms overall are just cheaper, and that's usually the biggest cost in any offer. You will start dropping down in the number of comp nights offered at MLife well before your comp availability drops at CET.

 

We came back from Las Vegas yesterday. Was looking forward to play the 8/5 spin poker outside the Aria high limit room, but I couldn't find them. Just wonder if any of you have played the 8/5 spin bonus poker at Aria. Did they removed or moved those machines? I do like the casino, it has many variety of slot machines, even has 2 sets dragon spin machines which I like. Anyway, we still had a lot fun this trip despite losing money. Ballys upgraded us to a suite with a large Jacuzzi tub at the Jubilee tower from a studio suite.. Dinner at the Caesars Palace independence Celebration with entertainment was very nice. Firework at Garden of the Gods pool Oasis was awesome. In case if you want to watch it, here is the youtube link:

 

It seems that Mlife offers me more comped rooms (and more room types) for me in Vegas than what Total Rewards offers me. I can get Bellagio and Aria comp’d in April. Caesars is charging me at least $40 a night for a Forum Room at least and I think that’s embarrassing since I’m Diamond Plus. I barely play at MLife properties but the offers are better. Has anyone experience these circumstances as well since El Dorado has taken over Total Rewards?

 

A lot of people, myself included, saw a reduction in the room type they can get comped at Ceasars Palace starting last summer.

If your play level is the same and you used to be able to get better rooms comped at CP, I think it's not necessarily an ElDorado thing, it may be an inventory thing.

PH was closed for a long time. There were probably a lot of healthy-level players who might prefer PH to CP for whatever reason, but since PH was closed, they made reservations at CP, eating up inventory of the better room types and driving up the underlying prices, which determines what room type you can get comped.

I can't remember, but I think one or more towers at CP may have been closed for a while also, which would have exacerbated that situation further.

 

Don't think they closed any towers at CP, but they did remove all the smoking rooms for non suites. If you're filter is on smoking you have alot less options. Even with 'no preference' set they did do something to CP rooms to make them less available. Other properties didn't seem to be affected though. Room types have held there for me since the merger, but CP I no longer have the higher level suites and some weekends, no suites, and during the summer all i had was Forum Classic available. My host booked me Augustus rooms, but I couldn't do it myself and I've had suites available for a decade at CP. The other thing I noticed in other areas I can't book more than 3 days comped in the system when I could always do up to 5. The one thing Caesars has always had over mLife was that rooms were easier to get comp'd. If thats no longer the case mLife hotels are better than Caesars so guess where i'll be staying?

 

Interesting. Augustus used to have a smoking floor, I think it was 25, but it looks like that's maybe no longer the case.

One thing I noticed about the booking engine is that, prior to the revamp that took place a year or two ago, certain preferences were part of your profile and there was a page where you could edit them. Once they did the revamp, they converted some of them to filters and there's no way to permanently reset them.

So if you had smoking as a preference, it's now going to get applied automatically as a filter every time you're logged in, which can result in them saying there's no rooms available. And you have to remove it as a filter every session.

 

As a VP player I certainly lean to CET, but not necessarily in Vegas. I try never to stay on the strip and that kind of eliminates MLife. Lots of full pay machines around the country with CET and their free play offers are very good (as opposed to Vegas, where they suck most of the time). I've never had a problem getting free rooms at any CET casino, even on a few hours notice (and usually get a suite upgrade with lots of food comps). With their bonuses on daily pay, its rather easy to become Diamond and 7 Stars isn't that difficult.

 

Glad to see this thread get bumped. As I thought for sure there would have been a more spirited discussion on this topic, over the past 3 years since it was up.

I play mostly all slots, with a tiny bet of higher denom video poker sprinkled in.

In Vegas, with Mlife it takes $3.00 of coin in on a non-specialty slot machine to get 10 tier credits + 1 penny in slot play (point play/free play) and 1 penny in express comps (experience/dining credits). So, for every $300 of coin in you drive through those machines, you will earn 1,000 tier credits to move up a card level, $1.00 in free play and $1.00 in express comps. All in, that's at least $2.00 from points

If you had a higher tier level card, add 10% for Pearl, 20% for Gold, 30% for Platinum and 40% for Noir. It is pretty easy to get to Gold for most slot players, that will log a couple trips to an Mlife casino.

That would make the above $1.10 - $1.40 in Free Play + $1.10-$1.40 in Express Comps and 1,100 - 1,400 TC's.

25,000 TC's make Pearl (10% discount at the gift shop. Line cuts at the buffets. Free Self Parking)
75,000 TC's make Gold (Same discounts. Lines cuts also for pools, nightclubs hotel and restaurants)
200,000 TC's make Platinum (15% gift shop discounts . Lines cuts for all above, plus taxis. Free Valet and Platinum Experiences)

The math is a mess, as you earn more points as you go and the multiplier extends into that. But being lazy, if you start the year Gold (20% bonus TC's) with 0 tier credits, it would take about $50K of coin in, on non-specialty slots, to earn 200,000 TC's and be Platinum.

With Caesars Rewards, it is as straight forward as it can be. $5.00 in a slot, any slot, and you get 1 penny in reward credits (food/shopping) and 1 Tier credit. There is no accelerated earning for those points as you climb the club ladder.

The same $300 in coin as the above on slots (any slot) is worth 300 TC's and 30 cents in shopping/dinning. Making the Mlife program over 7 times greater in immediate return value. That adds up fast

5,000 TC's gets you Platinum (15% discount at the gift shop, line cuts at some buffets and free parking)
15,000 TC's gets you Diamond (20% gift shop discount, line cuts at most restaurants and hotels. VIP Lounge, but for a fee, and free parking)

You have bonus points, if you gamble enough each day. 500 TC's in a day is now worth 625 points. 1,000 TC's is worth 2,000. The bonuses above that are better, 2,500 gets you 7,500. But, since that is over $12K in coin in, on a single day, that is beyond typical play for most players.

The easy rout is the 1,000 TC's for $5K in coin. Which gets you a 1,000 TC bonus. With that, do it 8 times in 8 days and you are looking at $40,000 in coin, with the bonus, to be Diamond. Without the bonuses, you are looking at $75,000 in coin to get there.

I think CET is much easier to get free rooms, but the quality of rooms you get reflect that. Mlife generally has better properties, and my free play and dining offers are always twice that of what I get from CET.

I get a better room, twice as much free play and dining credits up front and my play earns me at least 7 times the immediate point play value of Total Rewards.

I appreciate that Mlife lets me earn points at my pace to move up, where CET has me gable more in a day in order to hit those much needed bonus points for the tier climb.

Flip that, and I like that CET gives me the same points no matter what slot I play. Where as Mlife makes me play $10 on some games to earn the 2 pennies in comp and 10 TC's. With that said, even those shitty ripoff specialty slots at Mlife STILL give me the same 2 cents in immediate comp value as any and every slot at CET, so it just becomes a push.

And with CET, if you would rather use those reward credits for slots instead of shops and eats. they are only worth half as much. IE, $5.00 for 1 RC and its only worth half a penny for slots. With Mlife, your $3.00 per is worth 1 full penny for slots and 1 full penny for shops/eats. Its a much better system.