I got an e-mail from the Bellagio this morning, offering to upgrade my comped room to a Salone suite for $65/night. Mrs. Tesla and I have stayed in a Salone suite before and liked it, so I'm tempted.

My question is, since I'm Mlife Gold, is the smarter move to pass on this offer and hope to score a complimentary (or $20 trick) upgrade, or maybe get it for less (say $50/night) when I check in? This is for the week of Jan 9th, right after the CES. Since room rates were low for that week I'm assuming the hotel will be fairly empty.

 

1. If you want the upgrade, do it. Don't wait. It expires.
2. If you're on a comp, you're unlikely to get upgraded simply because the casino is paying for your room and they're paying for the room that you rate.

Just my two-cents.

 

Also when you are in a higher class room you get hit with that cost for your comps reducing any Room charges they will eat unless you really play higher than your Room. That suite isn't really worth over the regular rooms for that cost.

 

Oh well, we went ahead and sprang for it. An extra $290 (upgrade charges plus taxes) seems pretty small when you consider that's one bet won or lost at blackjack. But let me run this math by everyone to see if I'm thinking about this right.

The B is "fronting" me $600 worth of comp value ($150/night for a regular room x 4 nights). For them to break even, they need me to generate $600 / 0.3 = $2,000 in theoretical loss. That's $2,000 / $52 = ~38 hours of $100 blackjack. Since I'm spreading $100-$500 let's say it's somewhere around 32 hours. No way am I going to play blackjack for 8 hours a day, even over 4 days. Based on past trips, I might get in 15-20 hours of blackjack. I'm not counting $25 pai gow tiles (great way to preserve bankroll if blackjack runs bad) or any live poker sessions as meaningful contributions to my trip theo.

If my thinking is correct, it appears that I will be overcomped with just the room being covered. I've already assumed that I'm paying my own way for everything else we do (of course we're eating at MGM properties and charging everything to the room so we can max out our Mlife tier points etc.). Therefore, my plan is to flee the scene at the end of the trip without even talking to my host. Unless I lose my ass, in which case I'll see if I can get the "10% of losses slaughter rule" invoked.

 

I would have done the upgrade as well. I need to understand the comp system better for sure.

 

You aren't gonna get 10%. Have a great trip!!

 

Yeah, when you know you can get it at a fairly low sunk cost, go for it. Especially when you know you love the room. But I'm a room whore ... I really like nice rooms!