Now Deal Mommy Tested!
When the email came around last August informing Platinum and Noir Mlife members that had recently visited Las Vegas and matched via Hyatt Gold Passport inviting them on a free Royal Caribbean Cruise, it seemed too good to be true. In fact, when I tried to give credit to a fellow blogger in my first post, she asked me to remove her name in fear of losing the deal!
However, I was afraid that someone might delete the email thinking it was junk (I almost did) and lose a real opportunity, so I blogged about it, and more importantly, I called, booked, and recently went on the free cruise. And (besides $200 in tips and port taxes) the 3 night cruise was indeed free.
I’m writing about it again for 2 reasons:
- The 2014 email came this weekend! This one was almost identical to last year’s and is titled: “Take Advantage of Your Mlife Benefit With Royal Caribbean International”.
- I’m just back from the 2013 cruise wanted to report to the skeptics that the cruise benefit IS real and has now been tested!
Since I chose to maximize the deal (I AM The Deal Mommy, after all) I carefully read the fine print and noticed the lack of blackout dates and used that to pick the most expensive trip possible: the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Doing that, Deal Dad and I got over $1400 in value out of this freebie.
Even better, the cruise is in an outside cabin and includes 10 free drinks at the casino bar (again, no restrictions on WHAT we drank so by taking care of our bartender quite nice pours of Zacapa 23 rum) and a dinner at Chops Grille, their $30/person steakhouse. The meal was grand, but what was more so was the service. The main dining room was fine also, but Chops is worth the upgrade (even if you have to pay for it).
Of course, you are there as a guest of the casino. As such, we “danced with the ones who brought us” by playing blackjack and roulette for a few hours on the cruise and had a great time doing so. Rating by the pit boss starts at $25 a hand for those of you who track such info. It felt to me like the Casino is definitely a sideline (particularly on the Enchantment, the ship we sailed on), so I certainly didn’t feel any pressure to gamble for a set amount of time in return for our cruise and the hosts and dealers were all very low key and friendly. At Chops Grille (our reservation time was set for us) we seemed to have the “Casino time slot” as the other two couples in there we learned were also Mlife guests.
When you register for the cruise, you are also status matched to Royal Caribbean’s Gold Level in their Crown and Anchor loyalty program. This got us a bunch of other coupons and discounts in their gift shops and services on board. More importantly, it got us express check in and last check out so we could linger over breakfast and not get kicked off the ship when it docked.
Now here’s the bad news: Getting the Platinum Mlife Card with a status match isn’t enough to get you a free cruise! You won’t be targeted if you don’t gamble. That much I can pretty much guarantee you.
I don’t think anyone outside of the Mlife Data Modelers could tell you exactly what you have to do to be targeted for the cruise program. However, I know what I did, so I do have some ideas.
Want more info? I’m doing a session about Mlife and Hyatt in Seattle! How’s that for a secret, Pickles;)
Do you have a guess as to how much gambling spend or time is required?
Hi Kathy, It’s definitely an art and not a science. I have some guesses as to what got me there (my actual gambling is no where that level), but am uncomfortable advising as I can’t tell you if they will work for you. In general: time spent+ money per hand= your value to a casino. Think about what games give you the longest play at the lowest risk. It’s $25+ a hand to be rated as most MGM.