Join host Justin Vacula as he discusses the upcoming ZorkFest 2025 event with special guest Michael Trager.

Learn how to maximize your travel experiences using credit card points, miles, benefits, and loyalty programs.

Discover the unique aspects of ZorkFest, including the variety of educational sessions, labs, and social activities tailored for both beginners and experts in miles, points, and gambling.

Get insights on the new venue, the M Resort in Las Vegas, and tips for booking and making the most out of your trip.

Tune in for details on speakers, sessions, and the benefits of integrating casino and travel loyalty programs.

Don’t miss out on learning how to travel smarter and gamble smarter!

Find more information at www.zorkfest.com.

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction to Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast

00:54 Special Guest: Michael Trager and ZorkFest 2025

03:12 ZorkFest Venue and Logistics

07:07 ZorkFest Activities and Sessions

10:06 Speakers and Sessions at ZorkFest

18:42 Gambling and Casino Loyalty Insights

28:30 Understanding Low-Risk Gambling

28:51 ZorkFest: A Passion Project

30:07 Booking Early for ZorkFest

32:33 Maximizing Comp and Discounted Rooms

36:32 Listener Questions: Gambling in Texas

41:00 Leveraging Casino and Travel Loyalty

48:40 Masterclasses and Schedule Details

51:44 Closing Announcements and Future Events

Rough Transcript:

Theme Song: [00:00:00] Travel at low cost with points and miles. Credit card rewards bring the smiles. Many adventures tells to be told, make and save money, the world will unfold.
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Justin Vacula: You’re listening to the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast. I’m your host, Justin Vacula, here to help you travel the world at next to no cost with credit card points, miles, benefits, and loyalty programs. Make money, save money, and take advantage of great deals. Thanks for joining me for today’s episode, ZorkFest 2025 with Michael Trager. special guest, Michael Trager joins me to talk about the upcoming Miles points and gambling event, [00:01:00] ZorkFest, which takes place December 5th through the seventh in Las Vegas. Visit meetup.com/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 June 22nd and July 13th, 2025. Find a link in the show notes for more content between podcast episodes.
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Welcome back to the show, Michael Traeger. Thank you for having me back to the show.
I’m really glad to be here. Returning guest, Zork Fest continues, and if you could tell us about. Zork [00:02:00] Fest 2025. A yearly tradition
Michael Trager: been the last
Justin Vacula: couple
Michael Trager: of years for sure. What I like to say with Zork Fest is our tagline is travel smarter and gamble smarter. Essentially we are a travel loyalty conference, which is focused heavily on consumers or regular individuals, so it’s not corporate.
We also integrate into that casino loyalty. I’m sure most people who listen to what travel loyalty is, but when we talk about travel loyalty, we talk about using loyalty programs to maximize and make our travel experiences better, and those could be the airline loyalty programs like. American Airlines Advantage, or Delta Sky Miles, and also hotel loyalty programs and all of the wonderful currencies that we use through travel loyalty, like Ultimate Rewards and American Express membership rewards.
So we go pretty deep [00:03:00] into all of those things at Zor Fest, but I think we do it. A little bit differently than most other conferences, and I think we’ll discuss some of that today.
Justin Vacula: This year we’re at a new venue. Can you talk about the new venue?
Michael Trager: Yeah, the new venue is awesome. It is the M resort. It is not a venue that’s on the Las Vegas strip.
It is. We still consider it very much in Las Vegas. Why is this such a good venue for the conference? Because it is a very nice four star resort, great room product, as well as all of the features you would expect at a resort, great spa, et cetera. And they also have a free airport shuttle for anybody staying at the hotel, which is great, and they’ve given us a reduced resort fee.
But on top of that, they’ve become a very good partner with us because they allow us to do some of the casino events and casino instructional. Things that we [00:04:00] plan at Zor Fest. So it’s really good. It, it’s a little bit of a distance from the strip, but for most people, that doesn’t make much of a difference for the trip because the days of Zor Fest, they’re pretty much so involved with the Resort hotel.
And I know a number of people coming to Zor Fest are, they extend their Vegas trip. So a lot of people that do come to Zork Fest stay in Vegas for. Anywhere from three to five days. So what a lot of people are doing is they’re starting off their trip at Sorg Fest with Friday and Saturday night at M Resort, and then they’re continuing the rest of their trip at a second property, often using their comp offers or their FHR offers.
So it works out. It works out pretty well.
Justin Vacula: Yes, and many, I’m sure we’ll be staying at Rio. So the ride share from Rio to M won’t be too long either.
Michael Trager: No, that’s not bad. And that’s true. Those staying at Rio because of Hyatt, one of the things that we’ve always done with Sorg Fest is we’ve never required you to stay at the host hotel or to stay here because of a [00:05:00] room stay at the hotel because of a room block.
Because of course, since we’re very much into travel loyalty, we want people to be able to use their best option for the hotel and not have to be roped into staying at the host hotel for the conference. So that’s become a really good thing for some people. ’cause some people like they, they just have a particular property that they like in Las Vegas.
And the important differentiator for Zor Fest, especially for those who b bring a P one or P two to the trip is we are, we’re doing this in Las Vegas and we’re consistently now doing it in Las Vegas because we want you to get all of the goodness of a wonderful learning experience weekend. A wonderful social weekend, but we also really want you to be able to have a great weekend in Vegas, whatever that means to, if that means to you a great foodie weekend or going to shows or gambling.
So the way that we set up Zork is that the main meet [00:06:00] of the conference, pretty much so runs all day on Saturday. Other than the cocktail reception on Friday night, which is of course optional, you have time to do what you wanna do in Vegas on Friday night. You actually have time to do what you wanna do in Vegas on Saturday night, and you could have Sunday completely free.
So you can do Zor Fest and still have a really fun weekend in Las Vegas. That’s especially good for people who bring a spouse or friends who are not interested in coming to the conference, so you’re not stuck in conference rooms all weekend. We do have a number of optional activities that go on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, which would allow you to participate in all of those activities if you wanted to do more things, more educational things, I.
More social things, so that’s good to keep in mind for people. Number one is, yes, we’re very into the educational stuff. We really want you to get a lot out of the conference, but [00:07:00] we also value it’s your weekend away and you deserve to have a great weekend in Vegas the way that you would like to have a weekend.
This year, we are doing something really cool on Friday. On Friday afternoon before the cocktail reception, we’re doing what we call pre-sessions. That’s basically, we like to say first time at Zog Fest, new to miles and points or new to casino loyalty. These sessions prior to the cocktail reception on Friday night allow you to review terminology, catch up, and get in the learning zone for an epic weekend.
So if you’ve never come, one of the biggest things we always hear, we’ve never gone to a conference like this. I’m not sure I understand all the terminology or I really am ready for it. I’m a little bit nervous about that. We are solving that problem with these pre-sessions, and what’s really cool is we have a pre-session for travel loyalty and a pre-session for casino loyalty.
So if you are a travel loyalty person who’s new to casino loyalty and just wants to brush [00:08:00] up on some things with casino loyalty, you could do that. Or vice versa. If you’re a real person who’s always been into casinos. Casino loyalty programs, but now you’re really trying to get yourself into travel loyalty.
You could do that. So we’ve decided to do that on Friday. We’ve also, last year we introduced labs for some of the games, which include craps in blackjack, and that’s small group instructional sessions on two of the most popular casino games. We hear it a lot with craps ’cause people are very intimidated by craps in dice in general.
So we have these hands-on sessions teaching craps in blackjack with some experts in the field, which is awesome. But this year we decided to introduce something called Miles and Points Labs, where you’re gonna work with experts on the best strategies for aspirational points, redemptions and achieving status and perks.
So we’re gonna have these little sessions where you can get one-on-one assistance. So there might be like a lab that’s, I [00:09:00] want to aspirational, like first in business class, long haul travel. So we might have a little lab on that where you can ask questions and strategies. So that’s another thing that we’ve added.
So not only. Do you have the choice at Zor Fest to go to all of these great sessions where you can ask questions and listen to great speakers who are experts in their field? And we also offer on Sunday master classes, which are an additional cost in our in-depth sessions, which we’ll get to a little bit later.
Now we’ve got these labs where you can get like more like one-on-one kind of assistance and also meet some of the experts who are the speakers. So we think that’s a really neat idea. So we’re always trying to do things a little bit differently, and we’re also always trying to give you a little bit more of a custom experience so you can focus a little bit on the things that are really important to you, as well as being inspired by all of these talks and learning a lot.
Justin Vacula: Thanks for [00:10:00] the invitation. Happy to be a speaker once again. Can you talk about some of the other speakers who will be at the event?
Michael Trager: We will be adding probably a few more speakers if you go to zor fest.com. That brings you to the main Zor Fest website. It’s a really great website ’cause we put a lot of time into lots of features of the website and one of them on the top, there’s a menu bar that brings you to all of the speakers and everybody involved.
So Anthony Curtis is returning once again this year. He has been operating Las Vegas advisor for a number of years. He’s one of the five best blackjack players in the world. He talks a lot about casino strategy, comp strategy. Dia Adams, who is one of the foremost experts in the world on family travel and also Disney hacks and trips will be speaking.
We have John and Christina of Vegas Advantage. Who will be talking a lot about casino loyalty, but also specifics with regard to table games and video poker. [00:11:00] We have Dave Grossman, the founder of Miles Talk, who talks a lot about, pretty much so coined the status merry-go-round, and talks a lot about.
Integrating travel loyalty and casino loyalty, and why you should. We have Julia of Geo Breeze travel. She does a ton of content and expert content on miles and points and also optimizing your miles and is, I would say, very focused on people who don’t have, don’t necessarily have the time to. Figure out what is the, what are their best strategies, so helping them with that.
She also has a really good podcast for Geo Breeze, which I suggest you check out. We have Justin once again who is going to discuss a number of things with regard to casino loyalty. I can let you go into a little bit more of what you’re discussing. We’ve got Ronnie this year from living the High Life Secrets of Jet setting around the globe, and we’ve got [00:12:00] Maria of Family Travel Asia, Angie of award travel 1 0 1.
We also have Joe of Joseph of award travel 1 0 1, but that pretty much so rounds out. All of the speakers who are basically doing sessions. We also have Josh Duffy of Crap Vegas, as well as a number of other basically casino influencers such as Mark Duval and Dr. Mike from You can bet on that. And they’re mostly going to be running the labs for craps and blackjack and also involved in some of our other recreational gaming activities.
Justin Vacula: Sounds good. Lots for beginners, lots for intermediate and advanced people in points and miles and gambling.
Michael Trager: We don’t know a couple of people. Last year, Gary left, came and did a really good talk. I’m not sure his schedule, he never knows his schedule till much closer before. So there are still a couple of people who have not confirmed yet.
They should confirm pretty much so by this summer. [00:13:00] The thing. That’s good. Also, we do have a schedule. We won’t have the exact sessions up until a little bit later this summer, but if you go to the Zork Fest website, you will see there is the actual schedule for when things occur. So on Friday, you’ll see when the pre-sessions are, you’ll see when the labs are, when the cocktail reception is.
And then on Saturday, that will also give you an idea of all of the sessions at Sorg Fest, telling you when we have labs early in the morning, our breakfast reception and all of that. There is a schedule up that allows you to plan your weekend. And this is especially true if you decide that you want to leave on Sunday, you might want to look over the schedule because we have some master classes on Sunday.
Which have not been announced yet. And we also have some gaming experiences as well as a foodie and dinner experience, which we usually do. So we do some additional optional things for people. Last year we [00:14:00] did a dinner incorporating the food that Frank Sinatra would’ve eaten in Las Vegas and also. Jack Daniels, Jack Daniels tasting with it.
And that’s an optional, that’s another optional add-on. And actually, if you go to the travel or YouTube page, we have a video up there of the dinner we did last year. I think, as I’ve said already, we really want people to be able to get as much out of the weekend as they possibly want, so we fill a schedule where you could choose to do optional things or you can go off and have your entire Sunday for free.
Or Friday night for free and do whatever you wanna do in Vegas or even leave early on Sunday if that was your choice. So there’s a lot of flexibility here. I would say that our social and food and beverage is really great. Our cocktail reception is wonderful. The fact that we’re having miles and points labs before that and Casino Labs is gonna make it even more fun.
And we also do have other afternoon, like an afternoon social break. [00:15:00] During Zork Fest. So if you look on the schedule, there is a, like a beverage and network mingle on Saturday afternoon, which we find it works really well. There is an optional Podcasters After Dark, which is basically a podcast panel I.
Kind of show that we put on Saturday night, and once again, something that’s optional, it’s included podcasters after dark is included in your ticket. We usually have some travel and other influencers. This is going to be a live this year. It’s gonna be a live episode of 360 Vegas, which is one of the top Vegas podcasts out there.
It’s interesting. Once again, it’s another social circumstance that you have a chance to mingle. And that’s at eight 30 at night on Saturday. And of course that’s, as I said, that’s included with your Zork Fest ticket, but of course it’s optional, so you have a lot of flexibility for your weekend, and we’ve done that on purpose.
Justin Vacula: I’ll be arriving December 2nd and leaving on the eighth, so I’m going to give myself some time before the event. And. After the event, so [00:16:00] hopefully listeners will be able to do that instead of being rushing and they’ll be able to get more out of their Vegas experience.
Michael Trager: I think it’s a, it’s great to be able to integrate a weekend where you can have a great weekend in Vegas and also have the time to do all of this networking and educational stuff, which is wonderful because it’s so different when you do it in person and when you can ask questions.
You can get lots of ideas from people and ideas about what you’re doing or ideas about what you should be doing, possibly a little bit differently, or maybe clarifying that maybe some of the things that you’re doing is right with travel loyalty or casino loyalty. But you should expand or do a few other things to optimize your behavior because it is a very, I always like to say it’s a very personal thing, and you can take everything.
Casino loyalty, travel, loyalty as far as you want to take it. Some people. Get very obsessive and everything in their life. RESO revolves around how many points they’re going to earn and how they’re going to earn points. For other [00:17:00] people, it’s just trying to make their travel a little bit better and do some things in their normal day to day, which help them earn more points and also help them to redeem points in.
A better way, possibly ways that they’ve never even thought of before. So that’s, it’s very personal and I always like to say our number one goal is to get people. To do things a little better than they’ve been doing it before. We’re not looking to turn you into an obsessive travel loyalty person or casino loyalty person.
We’re just looking to improve on what you’re currently doing. I think that’s the most important thing.
Justin Vacula: I’m definitely here to encourage people. It’s to level up and that’s what the conference will be about, or at least presenting ideas to accelerate your points earning. To earn statuses with casinos. We hear all these rumors.
Oh, Vegas is too expensive. Oh, Vegas is dead. Nobody’s going anymore. Oh, it’s all falling down. But year after year, even though there are some devaluations, there’s [00:18:00] still lots and lots of opportunity and I find Vegas is one of the best value destinations as there’s a lot of intersection with points and miles to stay at low cost in Vegas and have a great experience.
Michael Trager: Absolutely and more and more in travel loyalty. Everything is about figuring out. It’s not always like figuring out the sweet spots, but understanding what are the good uses for points. How to find the best uses, when to use your points, when it doesn’t make sense, when it does make sense. Other questions like status, when status makes sense.
It doesn’t make sense. So many things out there are tools, right? You’ve got tools. You’ve got lots of apps that can be tools. You’ve got things like manufactured spending, which can be a tool, and you even have things like gambling that can be a tool for a lot of people. They’re interested in casino loyalty.
Because for relatively low cost and low risk, [00:19:00] they can often trigger things like free cruises. So that’s, that can be very valuable to people. So they’re not, they don’t, maybe they don’t love gambling that much, but if they can learn a little bit about. How to gamble well or how to gamble in a relatively low risk fashion that might allow them to use their travel loyalty to parse some casino loyalty, to then trigger some offers that they can use that are for travel.
It’s not about turning them into
Justin Vacula: a big gambler. I play lots and lots of blackjack and I don’t come into it thinking, oh, I’m here looking for a rush. Oh, I’m here. Looking to get rich quick or I’m gonna make all these like really bad bets and try to run it up. I’m looking at it as, okay, if I can use this MG M credit card, for example, to fund BET MGM play through the funds one time, I’m getting progress towards status.
I’m getting at least 1% back free play and in the long run I’m giving up about a half percent. So it’s a [00:20:00] great value proposition. Of course, America loves math and. Okay, we have an edge, and not every day is going to be a winning day or a break even day. There are going to be some ups and downs, but the math works out in the long run.
Michael Trager: Right? And these programs have changed so much. Like the best example of what I always talk about is like American Airlines, what they’ve done with loyalty points and so many ways to get loyalty points without. Flying. There’s a lot of benefits to getting loyalty points because of American airline status can be very beneficial for a number of people, and I think that’s similar to what you’re saying about MGM.
It, there’s a lot of reasons why having MGM status might be beneficial. So you’re doing a lot of things to be able to earn tier credits with MGM because the value of that status, and it’s not, it’s less about the gambling, but a means to be able to get those tier points, which. [00:21:00] Similar with American Airlines and loyalty points, finding different ways that are a means to get those or to get those loyalty points, and then you and you are far more expert than me.
Then there are other things like trying to use. And use credit cards when you need to do a signup bonus and you have a spend amount that you need to do. And using credit cards by different means to be able to cover those signup bonuses. And that’s also another interesting category. So there’s a lot, there’s just a lot of tools out there and people don’t necessarily think about it.
I think sometimes people get triggered a little bit. When you mention gambling, because they go back to the, everyone loses every, you should never gamble gambling’s bad, which is, which is funny to me because there’s like a casino like within two hours of everyone in the United States. So no matter how GA bad you think gambling is, it’s probably one of the number one activities out there in the United States that adults enjoy doing.
And that gets to our second set of it. That is if you do [00:22:00] gamble. Especially with casino loyalty, there are probably a number of things that you’re not doing to optimize. I don’t wanna say that you’re doing wrong, but I think things that you can do, which you can optimize the play that you have, whether you are in very simplistic terms, coming with a bank roll of $500 a weekend or a hundred thousand dollars a weekend.
There are things you should be doing when you play and how you play and how you approach it. Some of it is the games you play, potentially. Some of it is how you play. Some of it is dealing with your ratings. There’s a way you can approach it so that you can do better in the comp game.
Justin Vacula: So that’s another side of it also.
Yes, we’re not talking about gambling on the square a term from Anthony Curtis, as you mentioned earlier, and some others, like I have some convenience stores and gas stations near me, and I see people going in there. And sitting at these slot machines, or they call them skill machines, and maybe they’re giving up about five to 10% to the house or the gas station, whatever [00:23:00] happens to be the case.
We’re not talking about doing that. We’re talking about gambling intelligently, finding different ways to have an advantage. And leverage these programs for our benefit, not just going in and dropping money in, ha Oh, I had a rush. I had a good time. Oh, I only ended up a thousand dollars down. And a person consistently losing.
We’re not talking about that. We’re not talking about gambling problem or gambling addictions, as some people saying, we’re encouraging people to use credit responsibly and gamble intelligently. Exactly,
Michael Trager: and even if you don’t, are not interested in recreational gambling, there are certain things that you will learn that might still be useful for you for travel loyalty, which might involve some kind of gambling, just as an as a tool to be able to get something, a low, a low risk tool to be able to achieve something in a casino loyalty program.
That kicks off a really good travel benefit. I think you’ve discussed this many times on the [00:24:00] podcast before because we love to joke about Dave Ramsey and none of this stuff is black and white. It’s like when Dave Ramsey tries to say, credit cards are bad, you should never use a credit card. This is a so parallel to people and they say, gambling is bad.
You should never gamble. No, it’s not. That black and white, right? Credit cards are amazing. Credit card awards are amazing. But yeah, you should get a bunch of credit cards and pay 27% interest on them. Yeah, that’s bad. But part of that, and it’s the same with gambling. Gambling, especially if you’re gambling to, I.
Get tier points or to reach a promotion, or even if you enjoy gambling recreationally. Yeah, you shouldn’t gamble beyond what you can afford to gamble. You shouldn’t gamble. You should, you should have limitations and restrictions on what you’re doing. Of course, that’s a personal responsibility thing, but.
You don’t throw out the concept of using credit cards because people can’t be personally responsible for the fact that they should [00:25:00] pay their balances in full and not ru up interest. That isn’t a reason to get rid of it. That’s more of a personal responsibility thing, and I believe that people need to learn from their mistakes, but also learn how to use things.
But you know, like vilify. Concepts like credit cards or concepts like gambling, just because some people out there are completely undisciplined or do things wrong, that doesn’t mean you get rid of the tool. It’s the personal issue. It’s how the tool’s being used, right? And we don’t solve personal issues by making those kind of blanket statements, right.
We assume people are intelligent and they can make their own decisions about what makes the most sense for them. Isn’t that everything in life, right? That’s even help, right? Eating fast food every once in a while is fine, but eating fast food three times a day isn’t fine. But saying that you should never eat fast food is probably not.
Really a great idea because that’s not really the truth of it and saying you should never eat fast [00:26:00] food because you believe if somebody eats it once, they don’t have the discipline to not eat it. Every day is silly and that’s where. A lot of it does become into personal responsibility and risk, but also one of the things that we learn from a lot of people from, especially from casino loyalty, is understanding risk.
And I think understanding risk is really important. And I think the funny part about it is a lot of times people who are gamblers and involved in casino loyalty have a better understanding. Then miles and points people with regard to actually analyzing risk. A lot of times, ’cause I’ve seen a lot of miles and points, people get into a lot of trouble with some advanced manufactured spend techniques and other things.
Which as somebody who always is analyzing casino loyalty programs, a lot of those kind of things are like, seem way riskier to me than a lot of the things with gambling. Because a lot of the things like you were talking about Justin, with playing blackjack and the stuff that you do online with MGMI.
That’s very [00:27:00] math based. That’s like really not risky by the math. I mean there’s long-term short-term variants and all of that, but it’s not risky. But a lot of things that people do with manufactured spending with trying to resell gift cards and do that, I find a lot of that is far more risky than the gambling.
What do you think about that?
Justin Vacula: Yes, definitely have to evaluate. Deals not get in over your head. And with a lot of these advanced techniques, I typically recommend starting small and building up over time. But sometimes people maybe get too excited and know I’m gonna go. Five staples today, and I bought 10,000 in cards, but I don’t know how to liquidate these cards or convert them to cash, and that’s a problem.
So usually I recommend people exactly. Starting small and building up
Michael Trager: from there. And then sometimes find a method to liquidate that’s like too good to be true. Oh my God, I just send them all to this per company and they’re gonna give me this money and they’re gonna pay me within 60 days. Hope it all works out right.
Justin Vacula: I have [00:28:00] had some trusted sellers or buyers on the show before, and they have a good reputation in the community. But yes, there’s always some kind of risk, and there’s also organization that’s a part of it as well. So yes, there’s always going to be some risk or cost in most circumstances anyway. So whether it’s gambling, whether it’s miles and points, it’s appropriate to evaluate those risk and costs.
And very often things don’t come free time. Is also a consideration as well. No, absolutely.
Michael Trager: So I guess my main point here is when people get a little bit triggered or get, when they hear about gambling, that a lot of the things that you do when it comes to gambling and that I do when we comes to gambling are what we would consider in, in the big picture, relatively low risk.
So that’s a, that’s something good for people to understand. I’m really proud of Zork Fest. I have been, it’s been a passion project for years. I keep doing it because I keep hearing from people how much they get out of it. [00:29:00] That’s always been very important to me. I’ve been doing miles and points in travel loyalty since the beginning of time and maybe a little later than that for casino loyalty stuff.
And I love seeing people get inspired and also do a little bit more, learn more and do more than they’ve been able to do before. And I think this kind of what we’ve done here, especially the mix of people is really good. So there’s a very much. Very limited. I think, and you can speak to this Justin, it’s not a very intimidating conference, even for experts and beginners, but the expert sort of still like it too, because there is a lot, a decent amount of high level talk, and that’s always the, I.
Catch 22 in a conference, like you wanna be able to attract beginners. And that’s why we’re doing things like the pre-sessions, but we don’t wanna necessarily dumb it down because one of the ways to really enhance what you do is to be around people doing things at a higher level. So I think we’ve really found a really good, happy medium and mix there.
And then we are also coming up [00:30:00] with some great ideas for people who wanna go really deep into some optional master classes for Sunday.
Justin Vacula: We’re hoping that people book early. I know the NFL schedule was recently released. There’s a chance that a Raiders game might be on or around that time. I think a rodeo will be around the time, other events, so I think as it gets closer to the date.
The costs get higher with the flights, with the hotels, and more so hopefully people can book early.
Michael Trager: There is actually going to be a Raiders game, but it’s going to be Denver, which isn’t one of the most popular teams. It is going to be a busy weekend in Vegas because there’s the rodeo. There’s an NFL game, which makes it a fun time to be in Vegas, but also makes it a time where you need to strategize about booking and what I’ve told people.
Is the early bird for Zork Fest is going to, we have two things. We have a super early bird and an early bird. The super, actually we had a presale before we [00:31:00] announced the property where we gave a super duper price not telling you what the property was. That ended a while ago. Right now there’s a super early bird, I think they’re about 24 tickets left.
’cause that’s only 50 tickets. And then when that sells out, we do the regular early bird. Through the end probably, it’s either gonna be through the end of August or through the middle of September. So the buying your Zork Fest ticket shouldn’t be a problem other than the super early bird. But basically reserving.
We do encourage people, even with our room block or with your other comp offers or other things, to reserve a room early because the, our rooms with our room block are refundable 48 hours. Most hotels that you book in Las Vegas are refundable 48 to 72 hours, and we also tell people to book your airfare.
Because the most airfare is refundable, or at least refundable to voucher. And obviously now because there is an NFL game that’s Sunday. Airfare on Monday will be more difficult because it’s always busier after that. But if you’re not flying home on Monday, that won’t be impacted. [00:32:00] But you could always just firm up all those refundable things even before you buy your Zork Fest ticket.
As a reminder, Zork Fest tickets, even though they’re non-refundable. They are transferable for a fee. That’s very good to keep in mind. I know it sounds like December’s so far away, but even if you’re not totally sure about getting your Zork Fest ticket yet, we encourage you to book your rooms or book your air just so that you’ll be covered so that when you’re ready to buy your Zork Fest ticket, say in July or August, you don’t get shocked by our room block being sold out or something like that.
In addition. For those who do have offers, because this is a Penn gaming property for those who don’t have offers from Penn Gaming, but are still do plan to gamble that weekend, we are operating with a host and we’re trying our best to get people comp and discounted rooms. If they qualify based on having weekend comp rooms at other properties in Las Vegas or Atlantic City.
[00:33:00] So we encourage you to look at that section on the website also, and that could be a possibility. I’m really proud to say that we’re probably one of the only I. Loyalty conferences out there that really tries hard to get people a free room if they qualify. Of course, this is only for people who will be doing their normal recreational gambling that weekend.
Obviously, if people try to trick us and get a free room and hurt, I. Conference if they’re not gambling and we’re not, yeah, we’re not, and we’re not asking anyone to do anything different than what they regularly do. So if they’re getting free room offers from Bellagio on the weekend, then we would just, people always say to me, how much do I have to gamble?
I’d say, well do whatever you would regularly do on your weekend. That Bellagio, that’s fine and that’s, but at least we’ve given you an avenue to get a comp room, especially if you’re not part of Penn play, which is a very large. Casino loyalty program, but it’s not that large in Las Vegas because it’s only ever resort.
Justin Vacula: And you do have some social gambling [00:34:00] schedule. Do you have reserve tables for different games? So maybe those people that do the offer matches for rooms at m. Could do the gambling with the people from Zork Fest.
Michael Trager: Absolutely. And one of the great things this year is we have three reserved craps tables and they’re $10 and $15 tables, and we do what we love to call coffee dice on Sunday mornings, where I know for a fact you can bet on that is going to be there.
And I know for a fact that crap Vegas is going to be there as well as a few others, but it’s all starting to come together. 360 Vegas people will also be there, but this year one of the tables is a $10 table and the other one’s a 15, which is awesome. I also need to say one of the things we’re so proud of at M Resort this year is they have all good gambling.
All of their blackjack is 3.2. Even their double deck is three two, and their blackjack gain are as low as $10 gains. They have [00:35:00] squeeze Bacara all day long for as low as $25 regular mini bacara for $10 and they have nine six jacks or better for as low as 25. Oh nice. As low as 25 cent denomination. Oh, good.
So people can
Justin Vacula: definitely get the better house. Rules at M.
Michael Trager: Yeah. So if you do wanna gamble, especially for table games, having all three, two blackjack and be being able to play a 10 or $15. Three, two Blackjack game, $10 mini Bacara. Also craps is mostly $10 at M Resort, and this is a great place to gamble.
It’s a great place to use your recreational gambling. And another thing that’s really cool about m. Is you can use your accumulated com points not only for food and beverage, but you can use it for the salon. The barbershop as well as the spa, which I thought is pretty cool, and they can discretionary comp those things also, so that I think is cool.
On top of it, they were nice enough to give us a reduced res. We have a [00:36:00] reduced resort fee for those who book a room on our room block. Also, really important to understand that all rooms at M include a free airport shuttle. Which is another wonderful cost savings and for those who book who do have an offer to match.
And if we can match it and offer you a complimentary room, there will be no resort fee on the complimentary rooms. The room block though, has a reduced resort fee.
Justin Vacula: Nice. Let’s move on to listener questions, subscribers on my subscribe star.com page. Have listener questions. So the first listener question, do you think gambling will be legal in Texas?
And this comes from a listener from Texas who wonders, will I get a lot out of Zork Fest if I can’t gamble in Texas?
Michael Trager: I would say more than 60% of what we talk about is travel loyalty. So that’s a very important thing to remember. And you are doing things with casino loyalty, which help you with your travel loyalty, and that’s one of, [00:37:00] one of the areas on top of the fact many people do vacation in gambling destinations like Vegas, Atlantic City, Biloxi.
That’s a big part of it. So I don’t think it necessarily. Has as much to do with the fact of whether you can gamble in Texas or not, which would make a big difference. Like obviously if you were able to gamble in Texas, there are skills and things you could learn that you could use locally. I don’t think that’s as big of a deal, especially because you have casinos.
Within a couple hours drive of many people in Texas, if I’m not mistaken, am I correct about that, is in Oklahoma, right? And other properties that people drive to as far as gambling becoming legal in Texas. I don’t really have a lot of thoughts about that. How about you, Justin? Have you looked
Justin Vacula: into that at all?
Has it been a yes? Yes. I have played poker in Texas, so there is indeed Texas, Holden in Texas. Although there they have to get around some rules in a way, or be [00:38:00] creative. Instead of taking a rake, a certain amount of money from the pot, for those unfamiliar, they charge an hourly fee, which is like a seat fee, and then they have a membership fee of being in the club.
So when I was there a few years ago, it was actually a very good deal. I think the charge was maybe around $7 an hour, and then the membership fee was very minimal to have a weekly membership for when I was there. So unfortunately, no online blackjack, no sports betting. As far as I know, online, like stateside regulated online gambling.
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, I think is really the promised land for online gambling and in-person gambling between all the Philly casinos, Atlantic City, and many other options.
Michael Trager: My fear is that if they ever legalize gambling in Texas, which it’s gonna happen eventually. My, my fear is that a lot of times they.
They have to give the state so much money to convince them out of it that [00:39:00] it tends not to be so great for customers with regard to casino loyalty because the more the state pays a jurisdiction, the less they can tend to offer players and comps. But that’s shifting a little bit because that’s, that used to always be the example of why you got more from casinos in Atlantic City than in Pennsylvania.
I. And not only considering the competitive nature of it, the casinos pay a lot more money in taxes. To the state of Pennsylvania than they do in Atlantic City to the state of New Jersey. And fundamentally, the more that a casino has to pay of their profits in taxes to a jurisdiction, the less they can give back to players with regard to promotions.
But Pennsylvania, the online game has changed some of that with the brick and mortar. I think that’s definitely. True. That’s shifting a little bit, but that’s always [00:40:00] been one of the metrics that I use. That’s why some jurisdictions like Illinois, they casino companies like Caesars Entertainment or Caesars Rewards would give.
Players really good offers to go to Caesars in New Orleans. And you would say, why are you doing that? When I have my local casino here, my local casino here in Illinois, and the reason why is because they, they pay so much less in taxes there that it’s actually cheaper. If you have someone who’s a very big gambler, it’s actually better for them to bring them to a jurisdiction like Norlands or Vegas and give them rooms and comps and get them to gamble there because they’re gonna be paying less to the state.
So that’s a little interesting nuance, and that’s why your offers are often different in different markets because different markets are taxing the casinos differently. So that’s interesting to look at. It’s not always exactly like that now, so it’s hard to follow, but it used to be much, much closer [00:41:00] to that.
And it’s also one reason why fundamentally casinos in Las Vegas. Provide better comps because they’re paying less to the state and they can give that back in marketing to players. So that’s one reason why Las Vegas is better for players.
Justin Vacula: Yeah, the war on happiness in Texas, also in California, I hear many people from California.
I don’t have the gambling online sports betting not a thing online. It’s really a mess, unfortunately. So hopefully the political situation improves and more people have access to gambling to get more out of points and Miles Casino loyalty. But I still think a lot of reasons to go to Zork Fest. You do have the miles and points content that’s nationwide.
You have the social experiences. You have a lot of one-on-one opportunities with speakers. Hallway conversations, the networking. So lots of reasons to go.
Michael Trager: There’s a lot.
Justin Vacula: There’s a
Michael Trager: lot to learn. And California is another really interesting one because Palm Springs has some of the [00:42:00] most interesting competitive casino loyalty areas, and it’s an area where they also do a lot of loss back promotions, which I absolutely adore.
A lot of it is shifting. A lot of it is by market. It’s good to be aware of these kind of things because a lot of people can take advantage of. Situations that they didn’t realize that they could take advantage of. Like you don’t have to be a big gambler if you happen to live in a Palm Springs area.
Fantasy Springs does a loss back promotion twice a year. They do it once around Easter and once around Thanksgiving, and it’s pretty much so a free roll up to $1,500 loss back. Now they give you the loss back. You have to read the terms and conditions ’cause they give you that loss back over three weeks in January.
So obviously you need to be local. But if you are local, it’s, if you lose $1,500, they’re going to give you that $1,500 back in free play. So now you pretty much so have a free roll to go a gavel if you’re willing to. And I’ve done it. I’ve done it when I was living [00:43:00] in that area and it’s. Pretty darn amazing, right?
To have an opportunity. I mean, you could play slots and lose the 1500 recreational, but you’re gonna be given that back. So then, but then you need to figure out how you’re going to deal with the money that’s given back to you because they’re hoping you’re just going to lose that.
Justin Vacula: It’s a callback to the Gambling With An Edge podcast as a classic promotion that was at Revel.
Now Ocean in Atlantic City, not Oceans Ocean. They had a promotion called You Can’t Lose, I believe was the name of it. So many people were going in there and betting really high on slot machines with very high variance initially, and they figured, okay, if I lose the initial amount for the terms of the promotion, so say, okay, you can lose up to 10,000 and they’ll reimburse you in 10,000 in free play.
So they’ll play high variance games with the potential of a big payoff at the start, and then with the loss back free play. Then they would play, some jacks are better video poker, like lesser [00:44:00] variants, and. Not as much house edge.
Michael Trager: Yeah. And this year we’re really leaning into having you level up your video poker.
So we’re gonna have a lot more talk about video poker this year and using video poker as a tool because video poker’s great. Even bad quote, bad video poker, not the best pay tables is so much better than slot machines. It’s such a good opportunity for you to earn your points, especially if there’s value in something like having Caesar’s Diamond, because I know it’s hard to get Caesar’s Diamond now because you’re not, you don’t have the Windham matches anymore.
You don’t have a lot of other avenues. But there are ways to do it with a 10 times tier multiplier with video poker. And if you play a low variance game, a low variance video poker game, it’s really not that risky and fun. So it’s, and you could get your diamond or diamond plus status, especially during five times and 10 times tier.
These are things and techniques that we’re going to be going to be talking about. So I, I think it could be relevant to people, and especially [00:45:00] if you trigger diamond or diamond plus from that day of clay, even if it’s a 10 times multiplier day, you’re probably gonna wind up with some cruise offers and some hotel room offers.
So there’s a lot of things that can kick off from there. So it’s pretty, it’s good stuff to, it’s good stuff to consider.
Justin Vacula: Yes, the winds continue and even though some status matching has gotten more difficult, there’s still many pathways, so I’ll definitely be talking about that as Zork Fest. A little bit of effort is needed, but we can’t have it all for free.
But
Michael Trager: then there’s effort for a lot of things. A lot of things that people have to do to cover their signup bonuses for travel credit cards. Those things take effort. Manufactured spend takes effort. There are things that you need to do, and sometimes you just need that little bit of effort because you need to learn how to cover.
Maybe you have a sign on, sign up bonus for a new credit card that requires 5,000 in spend, and maybe you just don’t spend that much money. So you need to find mechanisms or. To [00:46:00] do that, and that’s just things that we need to talk about. You need to understand all of those different tools. So it’s good, it’s good stuff and things.
People have never. Things people have never thought about with regard to how they, how they earn points or how they handle signup bonuses. I know you, Justin, on a daily basis probably pay a lot of attention to that, but there are other people who aren’t and you don’t even have to pay a lot of attention.
Like the best example I give to people is sometimes just the category bonuses for things like dining. Or grocery stores. Just changing a little bit about the way you, like what credit card you use and stuff like that can kick off thousands of more points a year without
Justin Vacula: really a lot more effort. Lots of ways to win, and maybe we got spoiled a little bit because some things were a lot easier.
Now they’re a little bit more difficult, but still work.
Michael Trager: The
Justin Vacula: effort,
Michael Trager: things are more difficult, but certain things become, I wouldn’t say necessarily become easier, but they become different. [00:47:00] Who would’ve thought five years ago? Or 10 years ago that you could make executive platinum with American Airlines without flying, you would’ve never
Justin Vacula: dream.
Buying, buying meal kits, sim cards, little cost, hotel rooms, and all these other strange mechanisms.
Michael Trager: Exactly. And maybe when sometimes those mechanisms, it’s not as black and white. I love to say that example. You don’t eat the fly and you could get executive platinum, but maybe the example is that you would’ve regularly qualified for platinum through your flying.
But now you’re gonna do a couple other things and you’re gonna get executive platinum. So think how much better that’s going to make your flying when you requalify. But you do the same thing through Delta. And for Delta. You do that through Delta. Think how much better. It makes the effort that you take, maybe you would’ve organically been Delta Gold, but the effort that you make to make you diamond or platinum at Delta, think how much better it makes your experiences when you
Justin Vacula: fly on Delta.
Yeah, that’s right. I do a lot of staple spend buying the fee free MasterCard, buying the [00:48:00] FanDuel gift cards and much more. So even at 1.5 x delta. I’m also getting progress towards status and many other benefits from the program. So. Not the biggest one in the world, but I’m just looking for more cards. Of course, the answer to everything is more credit cards.
I’m just looking for volume. I max, my chase in cash is for five x that are really popular, so I’m looking for other cards. That bonus office supply as well. Yeah.
Michael Trager: So it’s great stuff and it’s not always just so black and white, like just doing this to get status, but sometimes to get a higher status level or to level up and do it a little bit better since you’re doing it.
So this is all stuff that we discuss. It’s great social group, lots of things going on. The only thing that we haven’t really announced yet on Sunday is we know the time of when the masterclasses are going to be and when we do the masterclasses, it’s a really intense. Class from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM with a really nice, last year we did a really nice Asian buffet lunch ’cause we wanna make it a good experience for people and also [00:49:00] it makes it a really nice social lunch.
And that’s from 10 to three on Sunday. So the only thing I would say is if you’re thinking about doing masterclasses and we’re gonna have travel and casino masterclasses, then you’re going to want to definitely leave. Sunday at the end of the day, or if you’re going back to the East Coast Sunday on the red eye or leave the next week.
So that’s just as far as schedule, but that’s one of the reasons why we’ve put this entire outline of the schedule on the Zork Fest website so that you can really see, really get an idea about those kind of things. All right, and one more time for the website, zork fest.com. That’s zero rrk FES
Justin Vacula: t.com. And how do people find you and travel zork on?
Oh, it’s really
Michael Trager: easy ’cause it’s at Travel Zork. That’s T-R-A-V-E-L-Z-O-R-K on all social platforms. We also have a Travel Zork Facebook group, which I think is a really great group. It’s got a couple thousand people, but it answers a lot of questions for people. We encourage you to join the travel [00:50:00] Zork.
Facebook group, but otherwise you can find me. I’m often on X quite a bit, but on all the platforms. Travel you can find us relatively easily, is super, super easy. Everything is travel Zork. I also wanna tell you that, so we have two websites. We have travel zork.com. That’s our main content website, that’s our travel and casino loyalty website.
We’ve been running that website since 2013. Justin does a wonderful loyalty corner article a couple times a month, almost weekly, which is fabulous. People have been loving that. Yep. Mark Meza also does a lot of Vegas Roundup, and we talk about other casino, a lot of Vegas oriented casino loyalty, some travel loyalty, and what’s really cool is we’re relaunching the.com because that.com is the same theme that we’ve had since 2013.
Just a lot of work ’cause we have thousands of articles, but we are relaunching that within the next month and it’s going to be absolutely [00:51:00] fabulous. We also have a website that’s travel or travel, which basically has to do with our luxury travel advisory and has a whole bunch of things about the different services that we provide and the different bookings.
And I also encourage people to check out the Travel Zork YouTube page, all kinds of interesting content, hotel reviews. Also my podcast with Vetro. That’s mostly about casino loyalty, travel loyalty, and Vegas. So lots out there, but pretty much so using travel Zork will help you find everything.
Justin Vacula: All right.
Thanks for coming on.
Michael Trager: Thank you so much for having me, and I’m looking forward to having a blast at Zork
Justin Vacula: Fest 2025 with you. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for future episodes closing announcements. Ticket sales for Zork Fest 2025 a Miles Points and gambling event we discussed in this episode are live@zorkfest.travel zork.com.
I hope to see you in Las Vegas from December 5th through the seventh at the M Resort [00:52:00] Casino Hotel. I’ll also be speaking at Chicago Seminars event Hyatt Regency O’Hare, November 7th through the ninth, 2025. Use promo code. Hurdy Gurdy one word when buying a ticket to support me. Also, join me from October 24th through the 26th 2025 for Chicago Seminars at Holiday Inn Chicago Oakbrook.
Use promo code I must have a promo code 20 for $20 off tickets. Visit meetup.com/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 June 22nd and July 13th, 2025. Find a link in the show notes for more content between podcast episodes.
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