Join host Justin Vacula on the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast as he reviews the recently released Hard Rock MasterCard.
Learn how to earn and redeem Unity points or comps at over 200 Hard Rock locations, including casinos and cafes worldwide. Discover the benefits of the card, such as earning points on non-gaming spend, no annual fee, and exclusive perks for Hard Rock Unity members.
Justin provides in-depth insights on the value of these points, the signup process, and the card’s utility, particularly in Atlantic City. Tune in for additional travel tips, upcoming meetup details, and a sneak peek into future podcast episodes.
00:00 Introduction to Low-Cost Travel with Points and Miles
00:50 Hard Rock MasterCard Credit Card Review
01:09 Meetups and Social Media Connections
01:51 Deep Dive into Hard Rock MasterCard Benefits
04:41 Earning and Using Unity Points
06:30 Status Matching and Tier Benefits
11:05 Exploring Hard Rock Locations and Buffets
21:02 Cruise Experience and Future Plans
21:50 Closing Announcements and Upcoming Events
Show notes:
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Rough Transcript:
Theme Song: [00:00:00] Travel at low cost with points and miles. Credit card rewards bring the smiles. Many adventures, tales to be told. Make and save money, the world will unfold.
Fight the war on happiness, pick up the gold. Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast breaks the mold.
Justin Vacula: You’re listening to the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast. I’m your host, Justin Bakula, here to help you travel the world and next to no cost with credit card points, miles, benefits, and rewards. Make money, save money, and take advantage of great deals. Thanks for joining me for today’s episode. Hard Rock MasterCard credit card review.
I review the recently released Hard Rock MasterCard that debuted in December, 2024. [00:01:00] Use the credit card to earn unity points or comps that you can redeem at hard rock casinos, including hard rock Atlantic city. Visit meetup. com slash Philly miles and points to RSVP for monthly greater Philadelphia travel credit miles and points meetups.
I host in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. The next meetups are January 26th and February 23rd, 2025. Find a link in the show notes for more content between podcast episodes. Follow Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast on Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter. Subscribe to Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast on YouTube for daily content, including travel videos, clips, community content, and other bonus videos.
Also, follow Justin Vekula on Instagram. On with today’s episode. Welcome back to the show! Mandy,
Mandi: fun to be here.
Justin Vacula: Maybe the third episode of previous MSC [00:02:00] Mediterranean shipping company, general episode about miles and points, the double birthday extravaganza in Las Vegas, but we’re here to talk about the Hard Rock MasterCard.
Mandi: That’s right. It was a must apply for it.
Justin Vacula: Yes. New year, new credit cards. Fan of the podcast, Louis sent me a link to the hard rock mastercard. He said he received an email on January 1st. Before that, I didn’t hear of any news of this new credit card, but doing some digging, I found a December 5th, 2024 press release by bread financial slash Comenity bank use the credit card to earn unity points or comps and redeem them in the Maldives, everyone’s favorite.
What they call City Hotels in Atlanta, New York City, and Hard Rock Cafes around the world. Hard Rock Casinos in Florida, Atlantic City, and other locations. This press release claims more than 200 [00:03:00] Hard Rock locations. So lots of places to use the comps.
Mandi: Yes, I’m looking forward to finding this. 110 Hollywood Square, North of Hollywood.
Justin Vacula: Yes, and potentially coming to Las Vegas in 2027, allegedly.
Mandi: Yeah, that’s where the Mirage used to be at.
Justin Vacula: Yes, the Hard Rock Casino and Guitar Hotel, which is quite an acronym. Alright, continuing with the press release. The card promises that you can earn Unity points through gaming, food purchases, merchandise purchases.
The card has no annual fee. It’s available to U. S. Hard Rock Unity members. So you must have a unity account or sign up for one before applying and you recently signed up for this. So how was that sign up process?
Mandi: Oh, it was very easy. I had forgotten my password. Actually had the unity membership. I think we matched it a couple of years ago, but since that I don’t.
So yeah, it was very easy to go in and reset your password.
Justin Vacula: Yeah. A little bit quirky in that. [00:04:00] I think we did the in person sign up. So you never had an online account. I’m not sure that I had an online account either, but it identified your account. You’re able to reset the password and get in to apply. So I suppose that’s a nice thing for them as I’ve seen this with other co branded cards in a way where if you were to sign up for a Hilton card, it asks you, it asks you for your Hilton Honors member number at time of application.
And if you left it blank or you entered the wrong number, then you would have to merge the accounts at a later time. So with the Hard Rock MasterCard, it’s nice that you have to log into your account so everything is going in the same place. And we’re in Miami, Florida, so this was a sudden thing of you applying for that before we went on this cruise.
Alright, to continue about the card, you can earn 5x unity points on spend at Hard Rock non casino properties. So I assume that would be Hard Rock cafes, other destinations. 4x on non gaming spend at Hard Rock casinos. So if you were to go to [00:05:00] restaurants, hotel stays, other activities at Hard Rock casinos.
And you’re earning two X unity points at restaurant and grocery stores. So restaurant, not such an interesting one as we have many other cards, bonusing restaurant, but we both do a lot of grocery store spend with prepaid cards and gift cards. This could be another card to use at grocery stores.
Mandi: Absolutely. I’ve actually run into not having enough cards with that bonus I’m not as savvy as Justin with these cards. He has many more to choose from than I do. So I was very thankful this morning.
Justin Vacula: Yes. But even when I go on a world tour, I don’t want to use the same American express gold card, the same MGM mastercard again and again on the same day, and eventually I run up into credit limits.
So having another card to use can be useful. And we’ll talk more about the utility of these comps where we’re probably getting more than one cent per point on our redemptions. So 2x unity points at restaurant and [00:06:00] grocery stores, 1x everywhere else. I don’t anticipate using this card for 1x everywhere else.
That’s pretty lame, especially when we have other cards earning at least 2 percent cash back, or 2x points everywhere else. So some utility there. The earning categories aren’t so competitive, but the unity points can be valuable for use with status. To have discounted buffet visits and lounge visits in Atlantic City.
We’ll get into that a little bit later. Back to the press release, for those who are gaming, star members, this is the base tier with hard rock, they automatically upgrade to legend status and legend icon and x tier members get 3, 000 tier points when opening the card. 3, 000 tier doesn’t seem to do much as the base level for everyone is star and then legend at 4, 000 to 14, 999 points.
An icon is at 15, 000, so if [00:07:00] you have icon, they’re giving you a boost of 3, 000. Potentially, you can spend or game your way to X level, but personally, I don’t know about that. And personally, we’re status matching, so we’ve been gaining this icon status again and again in Atlantic City.
Mandi: That’s a good thing, Jim, I think.
They were the ones that were, we were able to match with that pretty easily.
Justin Vacula: Yes, I have the MGM Platinum. You have the MGM Gold status. You can just bring the MGM Gold card right to Hard Rock and get the Icon status. The first time we did the status match in Atlantic City, at least I got two free hotel nights, lounger buffet passes, some free play, and dining credits.
Rematching, I don’t remember getting any of the benefits, but you do get the Icon status.
Mandi: I did not get any of those benefits.
Justin Vacula: Okay. So rematching, you get the icon status
Mandi: with the match to ocean.
Justin Vacula: Yes, that’s right. We were taking the icon status [00:08:00] to ocean casino. Of course, not oceans, casino, ocean, apostrophe S or an S at the end, just to clear that up for listeners.
And some people are still making that mistake somehow back to the credit card. The signup bonus on the card. Isn’t too big. It’s 10, 000 unity points. Which is a hundred dollars in comps for spending a thousand dollars in 90 days. Outside Hard Rock properties. So a thousand spend in 90 days, pretty easy.
Yeah. If we’re really anyone, I would think a thousand spend in 90 days, very easy to do the card also offers an additional 5, 000 tier after spending 5, 000 in a calendar year up to one time per year. So some tier benefits, but they might not matter as long as the rematching to the icon status continues in Atlantic city.
And from the looks of it, they seem happy to do it. They’re just not giving the extra benefits after the first year.
Mandi: Which is fine with us. We just want the status. We want that to match the other, [00:09:00] uh, the feels.
Justin Vacula: Right. And let’s talk about it. You got instantly approved for this card. You have the Caesars Rewards Visa that’s issued by the same bank, Comenity or Bread Financial.
I think they gave you something like 20, on the Caesars Rewards.
Mandi: And I only got like a 1, 000.
Justin Vacula: Okay, so we don’t need a massive credit limit as I think we could put some grocery spend on the Hard Rock card so that we can accumulate some comps. Maybe you can call in and reallocate the credit limits. Hey, community, I don’t need 20, 000 on the Caesars rewards visa.
So maybe you can put 10, 000 on each card somewhere around there. Hopefully allow it. And this was the Caesars rewards visa was your first and only. Bread slash community card, and then you got the hard rock card. So that was your second. I have several with bread slash community. So my hard rock application unfortunately went to pending, but I have the [00:10:00] triple a travel advantage visa and that one, I have a massive credit limit on around 25, 000.
So it seems like the first card you get with them is really big. The Caesars rewards visa. They gave me about 5, 000. And then I have the Bread Rewards card, which
Mandi: That’s a funny name. I don’t understand.
Justin Vacula: So, lots of cards with them. And for those in the know, you can also pay these cards and get additional rewards with debit cards.
So, the 2x grocery with this card turns out to be something like 3. 5. Or 4%. So it’s nice that it’s issued by bread slash community, although it’s unfortunate in some way, because the credit limit may be low if you have other cards with them. I haven’t tried just yet, but when I get the new bread cards, I also applied on January 1st, so I haven’t received them yet and we’re on a cruise right now, so I’ll call in afterwards, but I don’t anticipate [00:11:00] needing much on the Caesar’s rewards visa either.
A few thousand is okay. So let’s talk about. Using this credit card with the Hard Rock Icon status, as we mentioned, we’ve been able to match back to Icon using Caesar’s Diamond or even MGM Gold and MGM Platinum status. You can use the Unity Points or Comps or Gas with the Icon status, a hundred unity points is worth 1 for gas.
One cent per point worth about the same that you would use in restaurants or for hotel spend. Icon status also gives you a free carwash once per month, and you could use unity points after that for more car washes, although their website did not indicate how much the carwash is. Icon status gives you noon at checkout at hard rock Atlantic city.
And you can also use unity points for stays. And when you stay at hard rock Atlantic city, you have [00:12:00] no resort fees with the icon status. Yeah. The no resort fee is really nice. There’s also free parking, complimentary valet. This used to be the rock royalty status, but they revamped it to icon. You get access to the fresh harvest buffet for just 1, 000 unity points for you and a guest.
So a total of 2000, that’s some pretty easy math there. That’d be 20 for two people at the buffet. So you can use the credit card to earn the unity points and then for only 10 per person, go to the buffet.
Mandi: That’s wonderful. Yeah, absolutely. And gain the points by doing the spend anyway. Yeah. You might as well use that while you’re there.
Yes. And I think the
Justin Vacula: buffet, normally they would charge somewhere around 30 for that. So here you might be getting 3 cents per point if you would place a good value on the buffet. And at MGM, we’ve gone to the. Borgata buffet. Many times we’ve gone to the Borgata Amphora lounge and they also [00:13:00] discount their buffet.
So lots of competition, lots of good value in Atlantic city.
Mandi: I think it’s how that compares to the Amphora lounges. I’m a huge advocate of the, that’s really good. And it’s 12 and 50 cents.
Justin Vacula: It’s even cheaper at Hard Rock, 10 and that’s the buffets. The buffet doesn’t come with alcohol. The Amphora lounge does come with the alcohol.
But Hard Rock also has the Icon Lounge, which is their player’s lounge for icon status and above. You and a guest spend 1000 points each for 2000 points or 20 in cups. So they have food service there. They have a bar and the alcohol is included. So it’s very similar to the Amphora Lounge. So this is nice as another option because sometimes the Amphora Lounge line can be very long.
Sometimes you’re on the boardwalk for whatever reason. So if you’re near the boardwalk. You can go to Hard Rock rather than going all the way to the Marina District, or if you wanted just to mix things up and go to Hard Rock, you can do that with the unity points from the credit [00:14:00] card. Because we’re not gaming at Hard Rock, we’ve just gone there for the status and left, basically.
So now this is a way to earn the comps using the credit card, rather than playing negative expectation games, and then getting a sort of rebate to go in the lounge or the buffet. The buffet, according to the website, also has a seafood buffet, but they raise the price. The Fresh Harvest Buffet Seafood Buffet is on Thursdays, it’s 25 in Unity Points per person.
And Icon Status is also giving you priority line access at the buffet, so that’s pretty nice. One weakness of the Borgata Amphora Lounge is there can be a big line, and there’s only one line unless you’re No War Status, which almost no one is. Although the MGM Borgata buffet has priority line, although it’s usually not policed very well.
But the buffet isn’t open every day, especially on the off months. It’s only open maybe four days, three days a week, but during the summer, it’s usually open every day. [00:15:00] I’m not sure about the hard rock buffet hours, but that could be another benefit. If the Borgata buffet is closed, you can go over to the hard rock and eat there at that.
Mandi: Yeah. And I think 25 for a seafood buffet is pretty cheap.
Justin Vacula: That’s for Thursday. So if people wanted the crab legs, those are usually popular. Maybe some other items they have there. Otherwise only a thousand points or 10 in comps for the regular non seafood buffet, which might have seafood for all we know, just not as much seafood, or maybe the quality isn’t as good.
So lots of benefits for hard rock Atlantic city. I think it’ll be interesting to see how the points will be used in Las Vegas. 2027, potentially the guitar hotel and casino is opening. It could be interesting to see if they introduce a lounge or a buffet, as there’s a lot of competition from other casinos, that could be something cool that they can do, and then we could use our unity points there.
Mandi: Yeah, we were talking about how there’s not really buffets.
Justin Vacula: Yes, [00:16:00] we’ve been using the MyVegas rewards with MGM, but a lot of the restaurants on the list Open later in the day, around 4 p. m., 5 p. m. So it could be a good use of UnityPoints during the day or maybe an earlier lunchtime if the MGM restaurants aren’t yet open.
Mandi: Hopefully they’ll listen to the Atlantic City location and open a buffet in Las Vegas as well.
Justin Vacula: Yeah, we’ll see what happens. And there’s the potential, as you mentioned, to use the UnityPoints in Florida as well.
Mandi: Do they have a buffet there or not? Haven’t been there to eat. And
Justin Vacula: which location is that?
Mandi: Seminole. It’s the Hard Rock Seminole. It’s just North of Hollywood, Florida.
Justin Vacula: Okay. And I think other ones through Florida as well.
Mandi: Yeah. I’ll watch it.
Justin Vacula: So lots of options to use the comps from the credit card, Atlantic city, potentially Las Vegas, Florida, Hard Rock cafes, and other options.
Mandi: Yeah. We’ll see where this card takes us.
Justin Vacula: I’ve gone [00:17:00] to the Hard Rock cafe in Las Vegas. I thought it was overpriced. But the time I went there was for a birthday reward. I believe there was a buy one, get one free birthday reward. So that’s a potential stack at hard rock cafes. Or if you’re getting the emails from the hard rock cafe, you could use the comps there and stack birthday rewards, loyalty rewards, and more.
Mandi: Oh, yeah. We’ll see what they offer.
Justin Vacula: And in Atlantic city, I guess it’s not a far drive. Usually I’m staying at Harrah’s Atlantic city and driving to Borgata to play poker. So I could see instead of driving to Borgata, perhaps driving to Hard Rock and parking there with the icon status that we have through the status matching.
And this is new with the tier, perhaps that we earn tier from the credit card and get other offers.
Mandi: I didn’t see any promotions or I didn’t really get many emails from Hard Rock with icon status. Maybe it was because of the match. It wasn’t really gaming there, but it’ll be neat to see if the credit card gives us [00:18:00] some more promotions.
Justin Vacula: Yes, I’m willing to experiment, and this is something new, so perhaps they haven’t updated the system in a way to devalue, to say, the tier that’s earned. Because I know with MGM, when I’m earning tier on the credit card, I haven’t received free play, hotel room offers, anything like that with MGM. But maybe with Hard Rock, the system will see you as earning tier, and perhaps show the offers based on that.
It’s certainly not a guarantee, but we would do some of the spend anyway to accumulate. The comps. Maybe this card isn’t for someone just getting into Miles and Points or someone who’s maybe been in it a few months, but with us, we’ve gone through our share of Chase cards, we’ve gone through our share of American Express, Citi, U.
S. Bank, and some more of the popular issuers, so at this point, we’re looking for new cards from new issuers, new banks, So this is quite appealing.
Mandi: Yes. And we’ve had many casino matches with the Wyndham and that’s not no longer [00:19:00] there, but even the Caesar’s diamond status and MGM gold through credit card spend.
That’s how I got the MGM gold status this year was through credit card spend. I didn’t end the two X on the grocery rewards. So I am very hopeful that I’ll be able to do the same for rock this year.
Justin Vacula: Yes. Hopefully the icon matching continues. And if it doesn’t, then we’ll have to run the math again, because America loves math.
Maybe we’d have to play some video poker at Hard Rock as well, as I’ve already been playing video poker at Caesars. I now have the Diamond Plus status. I’ve been playing online blackjack on the various Caesars sites. So this is the year, I think, for seven stars and the Mandy companion card So excited about that.
Mandi: I sent him running horses to run.
Justin Vacula: Yes, we will have the drink vouchers in Las Vegas and we’ll be back in Las Vegas.
Mandi: Actually next month. Yeah, we go in February for several days.
Justin Vacula: So we’ll be on the lookout with the Caesars and [00:20:00] MGM offers. And then looking forward to the guitar hotel. In Las Vegas.
Mandi: The other thing that’s changed strategy I was thinking about is I’m actually looking at the tier multiplier days.
So I will look at the Caesars rewards. I’ve been looking at one thing that’s changed is I have been pooping out the Caesar rewards multiplier days. I actually changed a few travel dates because they were offering seven X at Caesars one day. And I, Oh, I could change that for a couple of days. I wouldn’t really make that much of a difference in my.
Travel plans. So we want to hit that Caesar’s diamond status with the game.
Justin Vacula: Yes. I’m on my way to seven stars. I’m already about 1500 tier in mainly from the online blackjack play. So when we play video poker in person in 2025, then we’ll see where we can get. At least you’ll go for diamond. I’ll be in casinos a lot more than you.
Mandi: I don’t live in a state where there is a online gambling [00:21:00] or.
Justin Vacula: All right. Very good. Alright, and how’s the cruise shaping up as we’re on, I believe, day three now of the cruise?
Mandi: We are on our day three of the Virgin Voyage. I knew this was going to be a fantastic ship. I took my first free casino match in August with a best friend of mine.
And we were only able to do the four day cruise. So when I found out Justin was getting the seven day, I begged. To be his player two on this cruise because it’s been wonderful and it has been wonderful so far. I’m looking forward to the rest of the cruise.
Justin Vacula: All right. And in a few days we’ll record a cruise trip report, but we don’t want to do that only a few days in.
Mandi: It’ll be good. Lots of pictures, lots of videos.
Justin Vacula: All right. Thanks for coming on.
Mandi: Thank you.
Justin Vacula: Thanks for listening and stay tuned for future episodes. Some closing announcements. Early bird ticket sales for Zorkfest 2025, a miles points and gambling event are now live at zorkfest. [00:22:00] travelzork. com. I hope to see you at Zorkfest 2025 in Las Vegas from December 5th through December 7th, 2025.
I’m also looking forward to other events in 2025 and have a successful 2024 speaking at events with award travel 101. Travels Work, Frequent Traveler University, and both Chicago Seminars events. If you’re an event organizer and would like to have me speak at your 2025 event, please contact me. Visit meetup.
com slash philly, miles and points, to RSVP for monthly Greater Philadelphia Travel. Credit miles and points meetups I host in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. The next meetups are January 26th and February 23rd, 2025. Find a link in the show notes. For more content between podcast episodes, follow Herty Gerty Travel Podcast on Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter.
Subscribe to Herty Gerty Travel Podcast on YouTube for daily [00:23:00] content, including travel videos, clips, community content, and other bonus videos. Also, follow Justin Bacula on Instagram. Search Herty Gerty Travel on Subscribestar. com. Or become a channel member on YouTube to financially support my efforts, starting at the 5 a month tip jar level.
Receive special perks to higher subscriber levels, including private one on one conversations. Find links and more at hurdygurdytravel. com. The website udio, U D I O dot com created the podcast intro and outro music. The AI features of the website Descript helped me edit and improve audio quality. Thanks for listening, have a great day.
Theme Song: Travel at low cost with points and miles. Credit card rewards bring the smiles. Many adventures, tales to be told. Make and save money, the world [00:24:00] will unfold.
Fight the war on happiness, pick up the gold. Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast breaks the mold.