I recently wrote about the links between many strip casinos and various hotel chains, which could make it easier to earn hotel comps if you haven’t visited Vegas.
But what if you’re a gambler who has racked up comps with the casinos and would rather use them for other purposes? In some cases, you can get value where you’re looking for it by transferring the points to other programs.
Here’s a couple of examples of how that works, and what you can leverage your casinos comps outside of the casino.
The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas
The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas is linked to Marriott as part of their Autograph Collection, but they take it a step further by allowing you to convert your Identity Points to Marriott Bonvoy points, or you can go the other direction.
There is a 100,000 point conversion cap per year, per type.
The one drawback is there’s a conversion penalty in either direction – it’s not one for one, but instead gets reduced in either direction, so you’ll spend a bit to make them available in a different format. Here’s the basic conversion rate:
- Marriott to Identity: 5,000 Marriott points can be converted to 2,000 Identity points.
- Identity to Marriott: 500 Identity points can be converted to 400 Marriott points.
Those ratios are maintained all the way to the 100,000 point cap, so there’s no bonuses for converting larger amounts.
So, if you’re sitting on a ton of Identity points, and would benefit from a larger array of redemption options, you can bring them over to Marriott for use for hotels, other travel (Marriott points can be used for booking flights, for instance), or even purchasing gift cards. You could also convert them from Marriott to other programs, such as airline miles.
Just keep in mind the penalty for converting out of Identity to begin with, and then it helps to understand what the conversion value will be for whatever you plan on using it for.
Caesars Rewards
Caesars Rewards has long been linked to Wyndham Rewards, which not only allows for status matches between the two programs, but also allows for point conversions from one point to another.
The redemption value is more straight forward – 1 Caesars Rewards Credit is 1 Wyndham Rewards Point, going in either direction. So there is no penalty for transferring to one or the other, a nice bonus.
Wyndham, like Marriott, has a variety of redemption options, including for hotel rooms, airline points, gift cards, or even gas station discounts for Marathon and Arco stations, among other options.
What to Look For
If you’re trying to figure out if your casino offers other ways to transfer or redeem points outside the standard casino ecosystem, look for:
- Partnerships with other travel companies (hotels, airlines, etc.) that allow point transfers
- Online gift shops that let you use your points to buy merchandise
- Connections to other organizations that allow spending in different scenarios
Sometimes, the information may be spotty; I saw a number of dated references to the Venetian’s partnership with IHG and the potential for points to be transferred, but nothing concrete, so I didn’t include it here.
You can always reach out to the casinos to ask, but sometimes some employees won’t know, so even that’s not necessarily definitive unless they give you a positive confirmation of a program that’s actively in place.
