I stumbled on a great deal flying from the east coast to Vegas for $230 roundtrip. I’m taking a week’s vacation around the 4th and my wife has to work so off to Vegas again for a solo trip. I could only get two nights comped at Caesars Palace, but I’m tired of the other CET properties and I haven’t stayed there in a while so I book the first two nights there. I get $60 in table game vouchers, so that almost covers the resort fees. I also got an offer from MGM for two nights free with $50 resort credit so I book it too, and am able to get a stay-well room (which I haven’t had yet). Even though the credit doesn’t cover the resort fees, it does let me use a couple buffet comps that I earned on My Vegas, so I’ll consider that a win. Right after I booked those rooms, I got an offer from Cosmo for a free room during the same time period. I’ve never stayed at Cosmo, but love the casino. Since the other rooms are basically free, and I just have to pay the resort fees at Cosmo, why not? So I’ll check-in to Caesars on Tuesday night, then check-in to Cosmo and MGM on Wednesday, have three rooms to choose from that night, check-out of Caesars on Thursday, and still have Cosmo and MGM for Thursday night before leaving Friday morning.
I’m only Platinum on Total Rewards so far this year and want to be diamond again, so I’m going after tier credits with their new quest along with daily bonuses.

I plan to review the rooms, the buffets (Aria and Bellagio), and track my tier credit quest, with lots of pics. I'm a craps degen, used to be addicted to blackjack, and like everyone else, I've been inspired by Leon to play more VP. I plan to do all of this, and maybe a daily tourney, with the occasionally slot pull thrown in. Wish me luck.

Sitting at the airport, waiting to board. I haven't noticed how deformed my shoes (or feet) have gotten until now.


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The quest for rewards is pretty fun. I did it - but they screw up a lot with the table games part. The slots will load your teir credits easy.

Fastest way to get tier credits is playing craps. I played pai gow and black jack at first, but I had the best luck playing the passline $10 at craps. I got tier credits fast. The bet isn't that big of a favorite for the house ether.

You don't realize the longterm expectation though. You're only going to get through about 10 decisions and could easily get crushed 8 of 10 times.

The flight in was smooth, landed a few minutes early.


Checked in to my room at caesars using the kiosk, not sure why so many people were in line for desk service?

My room is in the forum tower. It's a decent room. tv in the mirror.
phone just in case
. Meh view.





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I drop off my things and decide to go with a burger. I've only been to in n out once in my life (in San Diego) and was very disappointed. Last time in Vegas, I had shake shack and thought it was awesome. It's 150 degrees outside so I don't feel like walking all the way to shake shack so lets give in n out a second try.


There might be ten people in line to order but it goes fast. Then of course there's about twenty people waiting for food after they ordered.
I go with the #1 combo - double double burger with fries and drink for under $10.


And I wish I went to shake shack. There is just nothing special about this burger. On the east coast, I'd prefer cook out any day. And even Wendy's would be comparable at half the price.


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So I've been in Vegas for over an hour now and haven't gambled a penny yet. I want to do all the caesars properties for the quest and decide to just do rio tonight and all the strip properties tomorrow so I can get a daily bonus too.
I decide to catch the shuttle at harrahs and get there just as the bus is pulling up. The line is long but there's enough room for me so it's off to the rio.
I immediately find an inviting craps table and buy in for $300. I mostly place the 6 and 8 for $30 each, $10 on the hard 6 and 8, and 10 each on the small, tall, and all. It was up and down for the first 30 minutes and then a lucky shooter finally hits the small and gets within a ten on the tall/all. I decide to lay $300 on the 10. Glad I did as the seven comes, and I win $150, better than losing everything. I'm the next shooter and seven out immediately after setting a point. I decide to cash out ahead $300. I go stick my card in a slot machine and it hasn't registered any tcs for the day so I go ahead and feed $100 in and get my 25 tcs. I end up cashing out $30 with 27 tcs. I withdraw my card and re insert and see my total tcs for the day is 92, so I earned 65 tcs for approx 45 minutes of craps. So I got what I needed at rio and came out ahead $230. This quest is going to be easy!
I don't want to play any more caesars properties today as I want to maximize tomorrow. Let's go to cosmo. I buy in to a craps table for $300, and its gone within a few minutes. I add $200 more and it's gone shortly after, so I add another $200, it starts to come back including hitting the small for $310. Then it starts going back the other way and I seven out with $100 left so I cash out down $600 at cosmo. I walk next door to bellagio and buy in for $500. As I'm waiting to buy in, the shooter hits the small and needs a two for the tall/all. He doesn't get it. I should Know better then to join a table after a hot roll but I proceed to lose my buyin with nothing eventful to report. I feed $40 into a couple high progressive jackpot slots and don't hit anything. After leaving the rio up 230, I'm Now down about a grand. And it's not even 8 pm yet. Time to slow down.



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will check back gl gl gl

You could've done Smashburger in Caesars and not had to go outside.

But then they'd have been subjected to ****ing Smashburger, which is considered a war crime in some countries.

Well, i definitely slowed down the bleeding, bought into the $150 donkament at caesars. I make it thru two hours and the first break and then busted well short of the cash. Got to catch some good scenery going into Omnia. It's almost midnight vegas time which is 3am home time. I'd normally be waking up in two hours so I guess it's time to go to sleep. Tomorrow the quest continues. Will catch some pool time too.


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I figured someone that didn't like In n Out probably likes SB. But yeah, Earl of Sandwich is probably better than either and is right there in CP foodcourt.

Day two
As expected, I wake up at 3am (6am back home). I check in with the family who is starting off their normal day. The TR days don't start til 6am so I manage to fall back to sleep for a little bit. At 6am, I trek over to planet Hollywood to start the quest but first...

A Vegas tradition for me.
Steak and eggs special at planet dailies for $8.99

And then the quest...
I fed $100 into a tdb video poker machine and didn't catch anything. I cash out $20 and feed it into a wheel of fortune slot machine. I end up winning a whopping $32 but have my 25 tcs so i cash out. There's only one craps table running so I buy in for $300. It goes pretty quick so I reload for $200 more and get a little run going. After thirty minutes, I end up cashing out $370 After hitting the repeater bet for three threes for $50.
I cash out, walk around a bit and check my tier score. Earned 77 tcs 31 in slots and 46 at craps, costing me $178. But that will get me the extra 600 tcs with the three badges.
On to Paris next door.
I'm up and down at craps and eventually lose my $300 buyin plus another $20 but I think it's long enough to get 25 tcs. I stick $100 into a $1 wheel of fortune slot machine and hit this.

I keep playing to get my 25 tcs and cash out $202
So the total for Paris is -$218 with 86 tcs.

Ballys is next. Since craps isn't going my way today I decide to start with a double deck bj table. I lose $200 and the players at the table are all miserable so time for a move. I go ahead and feed $100 into a slot machine and go thru it all and get 45 tcs. I didn't get 25tcs at bj so I hit the craps table again. And lose $300. I walk around and check my balance and I got 72 tcs from Bj and craps so another 3 badges earned but these cost me $600. Who said this quest was going to be easy? Oh yeah me, after the first three badges at rio.



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FWIW you can probably get 25tc at craps making $10 line bets for 45 minutes based on the experimentation I did.

Unfortunately the day keeps going poorly.
To summarize the rest of the morning...
Cromwell: -$338 for 107 tcs
Flamingo: -$760 for 52 tcs
Harrahs: - $630 for 378 tcs

I skipped the linq but might go back later today or tomorrow, and I still have to do caesars. I'm close to 1,000 tcs today so that gets a 1,000 tc bonus. I'm not gonna get to 2500 today so I should stop once I get to 1,000.



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Wat?

Wendy's double burger, fries, and shake costs more than In N' Out double burger, fries, and shake, ainec.

You can't compare Las Vegas Strip In N' Out prices to Podunkville Wendy's prices..

I'm actually from podunkboro, podunkville is on the other side of the state. I wasnt really comparing prices, I was comparing taste and threw prices in there as an exclamation.



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So I didn't gamble much more on Wednesday, mostly because I was out of cash. I did check in to my other rooms at MGM and cosmo.

MGM stay well


The room was nice, had some fancy air filtration system and special lighting, the most anticipated part for me was...

The vitamin c infused shower head. I guess it added something to the water but I really couldn't tell. It definitely didn't taste like orange juice...

Cosmopolitan
I hate to say it but I didn't get any pictures of the room, but it was really nice. My favorite of the three rooms, by far.

Buffets
Aria dinner buffet - nothing special, glad I didn't pay $39 for it. The crab legs were decent, but pretty standard vegas buffet stuff. I was impressed to see the Vietnamese soup pho. It had potential but the broth was lukewarm at best, maybe if it was hot it would have saved it.
Aria breakfast buffet - again nothing special, except that they had crab legs. Again glad I didn't have to pay $29 for this.
Bellagio dinner buffet. Beef brisket and stone crab were very good. Sushi selection was minimum. Given the choice, bellagio definitely wins over aria.



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Day three
I've got $1,000 for the day and I want to get the tier quest badges from caesars and linq. I decide to spend some time at the MGM pool before gambling.
I got a chair next to a light pole of some sort. I laid on my back for about fifteen minutes then took a dip in the pool. Then I laid on my front. After about two minutes something wet splashes on my back. I look up at the light pole, and of course it's some type of pigeon. I wiped my back with a towel and sure enough I had gotten pooped on by this bird. Nobody else seemed to notice, but it was time for me to get out of there anyways.
I've heard that this is considered good luck in some cultures, and I definitely needed some so off to caesars.
The bird poop worked.

I bought in for $400 and cashed out $2200 after an hour. I then fed $100 into a wheel of fortune slot and cashed out $304, then I checked my tier score and I had earned 902.
Time to get my last badge at the linq. The rungood continued. I won a other $200 at craps with 214 tcs and got another 41 at slots costing $60.

The rest of the day continued well.


I booked wins almost everywhere I went with the biggest loss coming at the end of the night. I guess the bird poop luck had run out.

For the day I won back about $3000 which still meant a loss for the trip. But the last day was definitely a blast. And I got enough credits to get diamond status again when they give the badge bonuses in September. So I'm sure I'll be back this year and probably several times next year.


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Man, i need to stand under some pigeons.

Nicely done!

Yup, go find another on OP. Instead of slots do video poker. 4000 credits for a royal.

glad to see some solid rungood to get most of your losses back. that would have been a brutal trip otherwise.

GLGL. Just got back from a trip with a bunch of non-gamblers, and still managed to get me some badges. Stayed at Harrah's so got all three of those playing badges plus Linq pretty easily. Got the slot badges at all the casinos between NYNY and Harrah's after waking up with $500 in NYNY chips in my pocket from craps the night before. Cabbed down to NYNY and walked back, hitting VP at each of the casinos in between.

Only ended up with 11 badges total, didn't have the time to hit the table game badges at the other casinos.

With craps if you just play the pass line and degen it up for a while you get a lot of teir credits. I was betting $10 - $15 and 5xin it after a point hit. Sometimes I would throw $5 on the nonsense numbers like hard Ten and sixes. I made a lot of teir credits and didn't risk much at all.