I've personally used the Venetian poker room rate multiple times without issues (once it involved having to get poker room to call the front desk again because it wasn't applied the night before.)

Does anyone have experience with Bellagio, Aria, or Wynn and their poker room rates?

I know Venetian is 6hrs per day and it's $129 midweek and $199 weekend. I think Aria, Bellagio, and Wynn are all within $10-$20 of these numbers and 5-6hrs played but has anyone actually done the rates? Any issues? Did all run smoothly?

Hopefully Bellagio has improved since a few years ago when they had the gangster mentality. You had to get the floor to sign a card for the hours you played, and like for everything else, they wanted a tip for it. When your card was filled out you gave it to a woman in the poker room office and hope she applied the rate for you. I'm sure I got screwed more than once, but I was going so often back then I lost track of hotel bills, etc. I would hope it's better now that they use the MGM players card.

The Wynn poker room used to make you get approved for the rate before you made the reservation, but they tracked the hours on your card. Then before you check out, verify with the poker office that you have the time. They were very cool in that if you were a couple hours short, they gave you the rate figuring they would get the hours from you next trip. They sort of debited your hours on the card so you have to play a couple hours just to get back to even.

Unless you really can't find a room elsewhere I recommend you don't do the poker rate. 5 hours may not seem like much, but it's every day and you have to put it in even if you don't feel like playing. Obviously it limits where else you can play as well. I was doing it a lot several years ago when the only rooms I could get were $400ish because most of my trips were spur of the moment and not reserved well ahead of time.

with the current venetian/palazzo rates i think they are slightly higher than the other poker rates.

For instance the aria offers $99 weekdays / $139 weekends (as of two weeks ago -- August 2015)

But.. the rooms also vary. Venetian suites have enough room to fit comfortably fit 3 adults each on their own sleeping bed (2 queen beds and a pull out sofa), whereas the aria only has two queens and the room is somewhat smaller.

I would suggest you weigh heavily on where you plan on playing the most as you'll need to cover several hours a day to cover the poker rate. (but.. if youre with a roommate, hours from both of your play can be counted towards the room)

I used to take the Bellagio poker rate in the old days. Maybe a dozen times and I never had a card to track hours once. Rather than tipping someone every day, I just used to go out the back at the start of the trip with no card and a $20 and asked if there were any problems. There never were. Even on trips where I hardly set foot in the cardroom.

Grease culture or not, that worked for me a lot better

Now that Bellagio has the tracking cards, I'm sure they check your actual play. Do they take off 5-6 hours of comps from the card to cover the room rate or do you get comps on card plus the room rate?

I've stayed at both Aria and Venetian with poker rates. Venitian was very easy just gave a code at time of reservation. Aria you have to setup first with poker room prior to reservation and then get ot cleared for hours by poker room prior to check out. One nice thing at Aria that was unexpected was that my hours and my buddies hours counted towards the daily 6.

before any of you book a poker room rate, please call the regular reservation line and ask if they would consider giving you a casino rate. I am staying at Cosmo on an offer in October and asked about getting my buddy a room as well, and she said no problem giving me a casino rate without me even asking. It is worth a shot

I've stayed at MGM using the poker room rate.
Not a single problem. Booked using a quote i got from the poker room manager (i think he was). He made the reservation for me (and a buddy).
Checked in, played the required hours and checked out with the bill being automaticly correct.

I stayed at Aria on the poker rate last weekend. It was very easy and a good deal. $99 week nights and $139 Fri/Sat. You only need an average of 5 hours a day (vs. 6 hours almost everywhere else), if there are two of you in the room and both names are on the reservation, both of your hours will count, and also playing in one of their $125 dailies counts as 5 hours. They also have a tram to bellagio if you want to play there (but it won't count towards your 5 hours).

I thought it was a great deal - room was very nice and adequately sized, although I found the bed to be too soft with not enough back support.

That's cheaper than Venetian and less hours. Nice! I'm sure I can do 6hrs a day but over 4-5 days it would be nice to hit it early and have the option to play in other rooms.

It really is nice. We were done with enough hours for our 4 nights after the second day.

You book this by calling the poker room or you enter some code online?

in october the aria rates are much higher like $140 weekdays and 180 weekends plus taxes and resort fees

RESERVATIONS
Kathleen Paculan, Poker Host
Phone: 702.590.7232
Email: KPaculan@arialasvegas.com

Could you explain what a "casino rate" is? Is that just the price you get over the phone when calling the casino directly?

Casino Rate is the lower rate they give their semi-preferred gamblers. Not the low rate of zero they give their very preferred gamblers, but on the spectrum.

A big perk as mentioned before but should be stressed is that the time requirement is per room and is cumulative for the trip. If you're 3 to a room, everyone can put in their play on Friday and not have to play Saturday or Sunday.

I know it works with 2 people but I think that's the max. At least that's how it is at V. But you're right, with a 6 hrs/day requirement, you could both play 12 hours one day and be freed up for three more.

does anybody know if you book a hotel, say bellagio at retail rate, and end up meeting the required 6 hrs on say 3 days out of a 5 day booking, does that mean you are still eligible for the poker room rate for the 3 out of 5 days?

That sounds kinda backwards. Book the poker rate initially, then they'll charge you the normal rate on the days when you didn't meet the requirement.

In 2003, my friends convinced me that we should book the poker rate at the Bellagio, despite my (correct) assumption I would lose more at poker than I would by paying full price for a room.

They gave me a half share (10 hours) of the required play. I played 4 hours of 4/8 LHE, got credit for 6 totally unsolicited (the floor asked how long I had played, I told him the truth, and he just wrote down 6), and then as my 3 roommates each played 30 hours in the first two days, did not track any other hours for the trip.

Whether it was policy or not, we got the poker rate without having to track hours ever again, through our last trip in 2009. We just called the poker room, they verified that we were "players," and they just gave us the rate without question. This even worked on personal trips where I didn't even set foot in the poker room until I needed to validate our rate.

There are many things to bitch about at the Bellagio poker room. They way they used to handle the poker rate is not one of them. As far as they knew, I played 6 hours of 4/8 in 2003 and was never dealt a hand again. And I am neither attractive enough or rich enough to warrant special treatment.

If anything, I assume that with the new automated system, my lifetime privileges are gone, which is a shame.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/10...eeded-1558432/
this is what casino called prefer gambler comp

No. $119 weekday and $159 weekend, plus taxes and resort fees

My bad was think of the B

BTW Does anyone know if the Orleans have poker room rate?