The Great Players Club Card Trade-up

Hands down, the fastest and easiest way to move up in a players club is to simply trade up. Trading cards is not new. I once traded a Kirby Puckett base card for a sweet sweet Mark Grace rookie. Sometimes casinos as just as dumb as my cousin Tony was on that deal.

Well, maybe they aren't as dumb as Tony, but you would be surprised at just how many casinos are willing to give up all of the perks, that their higher club members actually earned, just to find some fresh meat. They figure if you earned a better tier elsewhere, you might be baller enough to risk some decent dough at their joint.

And they are usually right. I have earned a high end club status card just twice in my life. Actually played, lost, spent time chasing and earned that damn level. I play big enough, but my life now being what it is, I just don't play often enough to climb with every club I want to play at. So how did I con nearly a dozen high level cards without actually earning a single one?

I know enough to ask if there is a "Match" going on, and I troll message boards or casino websites directly. But if I'm hopping around in a casino town anyway, I'll just ask at the club booth.

Below is the game that I have played over the past 5 years. Some luck, some planning and a whole lot of asking. I stumbled upon this "game" back in 2012, the year I actually earned Diamond status within Total Rewards. My kid brother had earned Diamond with them the year prior. So I had plenty of joint trips with him, skipping lines, eating for free in the Diamond club and pretty much just being a groupy.

Getting a taste of the good life, I stepped up my game the following year. I mostly played/stayed at a Total Rewards property and by the skin of my teeth, I made Diamond by the end of the year, reaping those rewards for the following year to come. Alright I'm babbling, I earned Diamond once, now you know that.

So we visit Atlantic City, and stop by the Borgata, and they have a sign up saying they will match players clubs. I hand them that Diamond card, that doesn't expire until March of 2014, and they had me a Borgata Black Label card AND $100 in free slot play AND a food comp AND a room for 2 nights for "reaching" Black!

Rewards and Accolades for nothing? I'm in! That Black Label card was good until April of 2014. So I spend a year reaping the rewards of that Diamond card locally, and in Vegas, as well as being a Black Label big shot with the Borgata in Atlantic City.

2014 comes around, and my Diamond with Total Rewards is set to expire. I cant go back to the commoners line at check-in. I cant go about my life without free shitty crackers, a watered down drink and some dry chicken wings that normally are left out in the Diamond Lounges. So I contact a host at the Tropicana in AC.

I had walked through their property, and loved it, but the boothling at their club desk said they don't match players club cards. So piss on them, well, at that time anyway. I find a host's email, and shoot off a note to my new buddy "John" at the Trop and let him know I was both a Diamond card holder AND a Black Label card member. I tell him how I want to take my action to his casino, but wont, since I'd have to start at the bottom.

He tells me to send him a picture of my cards, and my best offer in town, and he will match everything. He doesn't know me from Adam, and yet I'm now Platinum at his casino through Dec 2015, staying comped and gambling $300 in free play out of the sky! So I lost Diamond, that expired, my Black Label card was dead, I live in Chicago and only get to AC 2 maybe 3 times a year. I just couldn't earn enough fast enough to stay active.

But I do love me some Borgata, so even though that next trip sees me staying with the Tropicana, I swing by the Borg for some action. Hands down one of the nicest casinos I have ever seen and a slot players wet dream. I don't play for free, so I grab a copy of my card at the booth. I ask her for a new card and I pull out my Platinum Trop card and ask "Are you still matching?" "Yes Mr. Grid, one moment please". Boom. Platinum at Trop & Black Label again through next year. Just for showing up! So i used my Black Label to get Trop Platinum, and my Trop Platinum to get Black Label. If I was local, I could run this cycle forever.

Now it is 2015, I'm Black Label for 4 more months, and Platinum for the rest of the year. I take my scam on the road. That Trop card was matched by Hollywood casino in Indiana. I guess there is a Tropicana in state as well, who knew? So now I'm a "Producer Level" in Marquee Rewards, whatever the fuck that is. But that card also works at the Tropicana in Las Vegas, which ironically enough is not affiliated with the Trop in AC. So I'm a "Producer" there as well.

I asked at the Cosmopolitan if they will match my awesome "Producer" card that I *Ahem* earned at the Trop down the block, and they say sure. Now I'm Gold there. Staying on Fremont street, and the Plaza is matching as well. I say "Pick a card" and now I'm matched to Ace. I walk into Downtown Grand a nobody and walk out with some Black card of theirs after chatting up a host and showing him my collection of cards.

I will say, that I did actually earn Platinum within Mlife all on my own as well. But that still makes one earned card and half a dozen thrown in for free that season. But the scam is running out of steam by the end of 2016. I had cards for casinos that I never returned to, and the ones I do still play at wont match these random still current cards from smaller regional places.

Then I get lucky, with no fancy level cards past 2016, MGM buys out the other half of the Borgata and plans to kill off their Black Label program, and run with Mlife like all of their other properties. And they are matching any current BL members with a free Mlife Gold card. Score! Back to the Trop to extend me out till the end of 2017 and we are back in business.

That brings us to current, and as life so often does, the Great Players Club Trade-up comes full circle. Total Rewards announces that they are matching to Diamond. That Trop card gets matched locally, due to the Tropicana in Evansville Indiana that I never knew existed. That's twice they got me hooked up, not bad for a place I have never been to.

Walk into my local Horseshoe, and after my second try those dipshits figured out how to match a Tropicana card. No more resort fees, free line cuts, free Diamond lounge ETC. "Oh, and don't forget your free $100 Diamond Celebration dinner for "earning" Diamond Mr. Grid."

So that is/was my ruse. I just keep trading and trading. I get to enjoy all the perks of being a higher card holder, and I get to do so at all sorts of different places I wanted to visit. And now I have a Diamond card, that gets matched at nearly any casinos anywhere that is matching. And I'll keep kicking this can down the road for as long as I can.

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