Exciting MGM Rewards Updates: Cruise Enhancements and Strategy Insights

Join host Justin Vacula on the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast for an in-depth discussion with co-host Darren Remsberg on the latest enhancements to MGM Rewards and cruises.

Discover how you can now earn MGM rewards points, tier credits, and slot dollars while cruising on Royal Caribbean and Celebrity ships.

The episode dives into the strategy behind leveraging these new benefits and maximizing your MGM Rewards credit card usage.

Additionally, gain insights into upcoming events, including ZorkFest 2025 and Chicago Seminars, as well as a sneak peek into our upcoming travel plans.

Don’t miss this exciting episode packed with expert advice on making the most of MGM Rewards and travel perks!

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction to Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast

00:47 MGM Rewards and Cruise Enhancements

02:16 Detailed MGM Rewards Benefits

03:43 Strategies for Maximizing MGM Rewards

05:44 Booking and Utilizing MGM Cruises

08:54 Gambling Strategies on Cruises

11:44 Future Plans

25:10 MGM and Cruise Line Rewards Programs

25:51 Comparing MGM and Caesars Rewards

29:24 FNBO MGM Credit Cards and Strategies

41:09 Gift Card Market and Deals

44:22 Upcoming Events and Announcements

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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 tells 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 Vacula, here to help you travel the world at next to no cost with credit card points, miles, benefits, and loyalty programs. Thanks for joining me for today’s episode. More MGM Cruise enhancements Co-host Darren Remsberg joins me to discuss MGM Rewards.
New announcement. You can now earn MGM reward points or [00:01:00] comps, tier credits and slot dollars onboard Royal Caribbean and Celebrity cruises when booked with MGM Status benefits. 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. Follow Hurdy Gurdy Travel podcast on Facebook and x. Follow Justin Vacula on Instagram. Subscribe to Hurdy Gurdy Travel podcast on YouTube for daily content, including travel videos, podcast clips, community, and posts on with today’s episode recorded, June 10th, 2025.
Welcome back to the show, Darren. Thank you Justin. We’re not gonna talk about Amex today. Ooh. The plan was to talk [00:02:00] about American Express, but we had breaking news June 10th this afternoon from MGM Rewards just keeps getting more rewarding. Justin. Yes, they improve while other programs devalue. So kudos to MGM Rewards.
A few weeks ago we recorded, or I recorded an episode with Mark Kosinski. We talked about MGM rewards, adding a cruise for earned gold status, not status matched gold status. And different benefits for platinum, but now we have even more benefits on top of benefits. MGM has doubled down.
Darren Remsburg: It sounds like FNBO has given Amex a run for their money in World’s funnest bank.
Justin, what do you think?
Justin Vacula: Yes, I’ve been recommending the MGM credit card for a while now. We have two MGM credit cards and I think if you were still on the fence. After this episode, you’ll be even more excited about applying for credit cards with MGM. Do you think the F and [00:03:00] FNBO
Darren Remsburg: stands for
Justin Vacula: fun? What do you think?
Fantastic,
Darren Remsburg: fun, fabulous.
Justin Vacula: Feisty fi could be
Darren Remsburg: feisty.
Justin Vacula: Yeah.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah. Seems like MGM is here to stay.
Justin Vacula: They wanna play fuego on fire. These are great announcements. We’ll get into them. I think this is important because Cruise Casino play was previously isolated or isolated for the most part. He’d play on board.
Maybe you get some future cruise offers. Maybe some meals, massages on board. But when you leave the ship, that was about it, except for mailers that would come. But now your MGM Rewards account is linked with the gambling on cruises, at least that you book with MGM. We’ll get into that later, what that might mean.
So your play on Royal Caribbean and celebrity ships booked with MGM offers or status benefits will earn you MGM rewards points. Those are comps tier credits and slot dollars, just like Vegas, Borgata, online gambling or other MGM properties. [00:04:00] A lot of us already play video poker or other games on board.
We know that we’re giving up a little bit of EV on the face of it. Expected value on these games. We’re getting rebates in the form of credit card rewards. But now if it wasn’t as appealing, okay, I’m giving up maybe 3%, I’m getting 3% back. Now you’re earning additional benefits with MGM rewards on top of the casino manufactured spend or creative spend.
So this is going to help some people get to the next level of MGM status. It’s going to generate future offers, and you’re getting something more back than you did previously. It’s a triple stack casino earnings, loyalty earnings, credit card rewards, and maybe a quadruple stack with even more MGM benefits.
So like Triple
Darren Remsburg: H, that’s a different triple right?
Justin Vacula: Ooh, a different triple.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah. So I know that there was a update and enhancement, if you will, with MGM, what, three, about three months [00:05:00] ago that we covered on a podcast and yeah, it sounds like MGM wants to extend their casinos onto the cruise ships. They’re already offering the opportunity for gold platinum and no r free cruises.
Do we know if you book a free cruise with status, does the gambling count? Do you qualify for the onboard free play? The onboard credit, I. The welcome amenity, Justin, the mystery welcome amenity. Who? What can it be? Bottle of water, maybe. Who knows? A five. A $5 bottle of champagne. I think
Justin Vacula: I’d rather have the, we’ll take what we can get.
I think I’d rather have the $5 bottle of water than the $5 bottle of champagne. We have some standards, but free is free. Although maybe with caution. Yeah, so it seems the terms indicate that if you get an offer from MGM. The most obvious are the offers with gold status and platinum status. They’ll send you your annual cruise benefit, and we also confirmed that if you hit platinum status, you [00:06:00] get two comp cruises, one at the gold level and one at the platinum level.
This email or update or article that they post to suggest that they’re going to give you other invitations to cruise. So if you book it through MGM, it seems you would contact celebrity or Royal Caribbean. Tell them you have this promotional code or offer through MGM and that should sync your MGM rewards account and you should earn these additional benefits.
At what benefit,
Darren Remsburg: Do these kick in Justin? So I wanted to book a cruise anyway. I was planning to cruise the Caribbean, for example, and I wanted to take advantage of some of these benefits. Maybe I’m chasing MGM Gold status this year. Can I still book even at the sapphire or pearl level before I get to gold and get a free cruise?
Justin Vacula: I. That’s a good question. They had an infographic saying that pearl status, you automatically get that with an MGM credit card. Pearl status gives you $50 in free play. So that [00:07:00] indicates, I would think that it’s not only the gold and platinum benefits, since you’re getting free play if you have pearl, so perhaps as a pearl lowly cardholder.
Lowly status, you would still get $50 in free play if you happen to accept some kind of offer from MGM, even if it was something like 10% off a generic email that was the same rate as what royal or celebrity was offering. That’s 50 in free Play with Pearl Gold is giving now $75 in free play and $125 onboard credit according to the infographic.
Then it goes up to platinum, which seems to have the most value here, especially since no war status is the most elusive. And you probably have to lose a lot of money, and almost no one listening is going to be no war anyway. Platinum is going to give a hundred dollars in onboard free play, $200 in onboard credit.
And I think that onboard credit was already there, or at least was a few [00:08:00] months ago because I used it against internet charges, a welcome amenity. It doesn’t say what that welcome amenity is. It also says that Platinum has CPA, cashless, wagering waived. So I suppose there might be some games where you would buy in on some ships and they would want to charge you a fee.
I think some blackjack tables or other games might want to charge you a 3% fee if you were to buy in at tables on some ships anyway. So this would be nice to play blackjack and not have to pay a fee. If that’s the case, that might be a better play. Rather than playing video poker if there is a fee and now the fee is waived.
So I think this is putting MGM above other cruise offers, giving a key edge that it combines with MGM rewards, you’re getting these extra benefits and you’re getting some tier comps and possibly other rewards in the future. It
Darren Remsburg: certainly seems like if you’re interested in cruising and you enjoy gambling while you’re on your cruise.
It would be [00:09:00] worthwhile. Certainly comparing the options here between booking through the MGM portal, it’s, I guess it’s not clear to me, you said there’s, there you get an invite code to do, right? I
Justin Vacula: don’t believe there is any portal. You would have to contact a host or respond to an email or maybe you’d get a communication from MGM in some way.
Maybe a Telegram, the Pony Express, I don’t know. But some offer, ’cause there’s no way, I don’t think there is a way to just log into an online portal like. The Chase Travel portal or the Amex travel portal. Oh, there we go. We mentioned amex. You would have to go with an MGM offer of sorts in order for this to be linked.
If you were to just book directly through Celebrity or Royal Caribbean, I don’t think you’re going to get these benefits.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah, that makes sense. And you’ll need to be some level of status then it sounds, in order to enjoy these benefits. Is that correct? Do you believe?
Justin Vacula: Yes, the base level sapphire, you get nothing.
Pearl is the second level up, which is the [00:10:00] 50 in free play gold, 75 in free play, 125 onboard credit and platinum. Once again, a hundred dollars onboard, onboard free play, $200 onboard credit. Welcome amenities. C pass, cashless, wagering. So if you are brand new to MGM, you go to the players club. Sign up on the app or online or however you sign up.
No status whatsoever. You’re not gonna get any benefit. It doesn’t seem to sync with the program at all unless they’re going to give a provision for Sapphire. If they could potentially get an email somehow, maybe it would earn some tier, but so far it doesn’t seem that’s the case. But this is all brand new and commenters are welcome to weigh in the comment section or contact if they know anything, if Sapphire is gonna get any benefits.
Yeah, good invitation there, Justin. Remind us you’ve taken your gold MGM cruise
Darren Remsburg: this year, is that
Justin Vacula: correct? I got the platinum cruise from last year that I took in January. [00:11:00] So it’s a little bit complicated because you earn the status during 2024. For example, you have to January, 2025 to book the cruise, and then you get a few months to actually take the cruise.
So I had a spring break cruise actually. And that was based on the last year. So it wasn’t possible for me to take the Gold Cruise at that time. So the Gold Cruise is a new benefit that came into play a few months ago. Ah, thanks for reminding me there. Remind us what status you are with MGM Currently have platinum status.
I’m on the road towards requalifying for platinum. I’m currently around 120,000 tier credits and I need 200 K, so I’m very confident. I’m going to get it through continued use of the MGM credit card, the no annual fee card, and at the end of the month, at the end of June, 2025, I’m planning on applying for the iconic card, so I’ll have both [00:12:00] MGM credit cards, so it’s going to be even easier to earn status and leverage play on bed.
MGM sounds like we’re gonna have an aara episode coming up here, Justin, so we’ll have to,
Darren Remsburg: ooh, have to get ready for
Justin Vacula: that. I did take a screen captured video of my last aara, so perhaps I’ll do that again for this next one.
Darren Remsburg: Just make sure you black out your sensitive information and don’t dox yourselves like some of our other YouTube friends.
Justin Vacula: Yes, I definitely make sure to view the file and cut out the parts where I’m typing my address and I have three monitors of course, because of our wonderful Dell credits. So we’re looking forward to an AARA for more guarantees on the cruises. Easier status earning. I think iconic is mandatory for me to apply for.
So how are you gonna back
Darren Remsburg: to MGM cruising here. How are you gonna approach this? What’s your strategy to take advantage of this new opportunity with MGM and cruising? Two things I know you
Justin Vacula: [00:13:00] love. Yes, I’ll have the Gold cruise and the Platinum cruise to book. So I will take both cruises as planned, and this is now even more appealing.
I do receive some mail offers for interior rooms, and I can cruise with my Vegas loyalty points, but I’m not as interested in those anymore because I have better offers from MGM potentially Caesars when I hit seven Star status and many of the matching that I’ve done cruise offers to different cruise offers.
So this gives me a lot more incentive to cruise. Although I was already going to take these cruises. I’m going to try to find different itineraries rather than taking the same Caribbean cruises again and again. If I were to go to the same destinations, I wouldn’t find as much value. So I’m looking for different destinations, maybe different cruise ports.
Maybe if I go to somewhere like New Orleans. I can explore the area beforehand, so I want to go to different places. I don’t just want to take the same cruise again and again just [00:14:00] to Ms at sea.
Darren Remsburg: I think that makes a lot of sense. And we’ve often talked about how the vacation begins in the airport lounge, and certainly that could continue to your port city opportunity to explore that.
I know you’ve had the chance to do that recently in your Mediterranean cruise out of Rome and seeing things out there, makes sense that you’d follow that strategy again here, once you’re on the boat what are you gonna do differently, if anything? As far as your
Justin Vacula: gambling activities? Yes. Always charging play to the room and playing through new money.
It wouldn’t make sense to just keep playing, to try to chase the tier in comps. And from what I see, there’s no indication of what that actually might be. Is the earn rate on board the same as the earn rate on land? So if it were something like for every $10 that you play in video poker, you get one tier point, is that the same at C?
Is there an MGM rewards desk on the ship? Maybe there’ll be a popup one. [00:15:00] What do you think? I’m gonna
Darren Remsburg: say no, but it would it would be cooler if there was. So my question would be, if you are charged room and everything is booked through MGM, do the charges. Like you said, do the charges show up as MGM charges then, or are they princess celebrity royal charges?
Ooh,
Justin Vacula: so So could we use the iconic credit card that I’m kicking then and get six x six x charged to the room? That would be really game changing, but it probably would still show up as a Royal Caribbean. Although it’s an interesting thought. Maybe you can go to the pop-up rewards desk and be like, Hey, what.
I got this credit card. We brought in a special MGM liaison and Mavis from concierge, which we knew Yes. Prior to COVID. Came back, bring back Mavis. We brought her back for this one
Darren Remsburg: and the 500 gift cards,
Justin Vacula: I, I think at least we have the Chase Sapphire Reserve, the Outs, tutor reserve, many cards that give three x [00:16:00] on travel.
Some cards might give even better. We might have an Amex offer or a Chase offer in play where it’s spend X with celebrities. Spend X with Royal Caribbean and get. A statement credit. So I think I’m gonna do a lot of the same of what I’ve already been doing. This is just a bonus. We don’t want to overplay our room charges or loads because at that point we’re just straight up gambling and giving up ev and that’s not what we’re about on the show.
We want to as the iconic podcast, gambling with an edge suggests, play with an advantage and only play with an advantage. If we’re going to go towards status, this is gonna give us a little bit of a boost, but I’m very confident that we don’t need any real world play in-person casino play to actually get status when we could just use the MGM credit cards and BET MGM to get status.
I, I think most people, if they have friendly gas stations, grocery stores, other creative spending they [00:17:00] can do to get some bonus spending on the credit cards. That it should be trivial for most people to get gold status, A little bit of effort to get platinum, but I wouldn’t suggest just overplaying on the cruise just for these extra benefits.
I think that’s what they’re trying to get some people to do. Oh, you’re getting a little bit of an extra bonus and people, oh, let’s keep on gambling. And another a thousand dollars and our $2,000, and then they hit the triple zero on the roulette wheel, lost everything, and then just blamed it on, oh, I should have quit while I was ahead, even though they just made poor decisions.
Darren Remsburg: That’s absolutely an important thing to discuss and talk about each and every time we talk about gambling, that we’re looking for advantage plays just, it’s like arbitrage, right? Like we are with points and miles. There’s a small cost we believe, but the expectation is that we come out positive. So in this instance, yeah, the, maybe the game that we’re playing is entertaining and by having some sort of discount or rebate on [00:18:00] the money that we’re putting in, I.
We have at maybe at minimum, expectation to break even in the long term. And that’s why I know you don’t load a thousand dollars on the first day and keep playing through it. You load a thousand dollars the first day and the second day and the third day and the fourth day, and play through each one of those each time because that’s new money in.
Instead of applying through that same money and losing the war of attrition to the mathematics gods, you’re loading in new money and applying through that. And using that to your advantage.
Justin Vacula: That’s right. And I’ve even seen a little bit of math on the screen that you’ll see your points earning on the screen, at least with the cruise ship.
I don’t think it’ll show MGM rewards, but it would be interesting if it would show that as well as you were playing. So what I’ve seen before is video poker along that rate of $10 equals a tier point. So if you make a $1,000 deposit, you do the math because America loves math. And then once you get. The [00:19:00] tier points.
So if it were what quick math here? One tier point per $10 played, you deposited a thousand at a hundred tier points. You would stop playing and then you would deposit more money or room charge to add another a thousand dollars. You spread this out across the trip. And ideally I think going under $10,000, I think going over $10,000 got me some adverse action, but I can’t be certain about that.
We’re never going to get a real explanation, of course, but I kept it under 10 K on celebrity. I came back and they let me gamble again. So hopefully that’ll be the case on this next one. So it’s similar to the ideas we have with online gaming, is that our initial deposit is bonused and we’re only going to play that initial deposit, not keep playing through the same money.
Chasing status, chasing a jackpot, chasing whatever. We’re looking at gambling as a tool to accomplish these goals of earning status. And in doing so, playing with an [00:20:00] advantage rather than giving up money. Absolutely.
Darren Remsburg: And the $10,000 mark, of course, is also important if you’re traveling internationally on your cruise.
’cause you have to declare cash over $10,000 when you bring it back into the country. You certainly don’t wanna run afoul of the customs agents with that issue. Hopefully you’re winning.
Justin Vacula: Yes. The nice thing about the lower d om video poker is that we’re very likely not going to go above that threshold, especially if we’re playing a Multiplay game where the royal flush isn’t going to be as impactful.
We’ve talked about that in the past. Whereas if we’re to play $5 a hand single line video poker, while the royal’s gonna be paying out a lot more. Rather than if we were playing a Multiplay game that was something like 5 cents, 25 cents, five credit. So more math, but you get the idea without going into all of the numbers, but America loves math.
Justin, are you sure you don’t wanna talk about that? Yes, we get the idea here. Sorry. Listeners, if you really wanted more of the math breakdown, you know [00:21:00] the situation, come to Zork Fest if you really want the rest of the math breakdown, I’m sure in detail. Yes, Zork Fest 2025 December in Las Vegas. There you go.
And of course, our other happy sponsor card pointers, maybe card pointers can activate your Chase, Amex, and other bank offers that might trigger statement credit on these Royal Caribbean and Celebrity voyages offers that you may have otherwise missed. Happy surprises when you get an email saying that you got a rebate.
Absolutely some
Darren Remsburg: combination
Justin Vacula: of
Darren Remsburg: an Amex or Chase offer to book the cruise. And then once you’re on board, you have the option to load at the popup MGM kiosk. Man, that would be the ideal world
Justin Vacula: I’m looking to live in. Dustin, all the stacking card pointers.com/her gerdy travel for discounts on card pointers membership.
It’d be nice to run some gift cards through as well if we were to find discounted celebrity gift cards and those can offset the room charges. That could be nice. Or what if we could just use MGM [00:22:00] Resorts gift cards to pay for the room charges. I think that’s an optimistic ask. But you never know.
Darren Remsburg: You never know that.
That
Justin Vacula: would
Darren Remsburg: be interesting. Or even we could take those gift cards and turning ’em into free play at the online casino that once upon a time, that was a thing in land-based Atlantic City. Yeah. Land-based casinos.
Justin Vacula: So maybe that’s, maybe they’re gonna bring it back. Oh, run it back dead deals. MGM, you want me as a consultant, I have some ideas to get more people on the ship.
Marketing brilliance.
Darren Remsburg: Never sail a empty ship again. Alright, so sounds like there’s still a few questions that we don’t know about. You talked about the, what kind of earn rates will there be and talked about what they are on in land-based casinos trying to figure out, we don’t know which itineraries or ships this will.
Apply to yet? Are they gonna apply it to the lower tier, pun intended, ships, or will they make it across all? What other things do you think the restrictions on the type of games that will help will be eligible for something like [00:23:00] this?
Justin Vacula: Oh yes. Will it be all games? Will it be table games and video poker?
Will it just be slots? I would hope. I would think that it would be. All games, but probably they won’t earn at the same rate. Classically, slots happen to have a better tier and comp return compared to video poker, Baer, other games like that, usually the higher theoretical house edge will give you more comps and status.
But of course that comes at cost. So I’m almost never recommending slots on this show because we’re giving up five to 10% usually compared to other games like Blackjack, B Rock craps that have. A lower house edge video poker, of course making sense if we’re able to do that room charge to offset the house edge.
So there are a lot of considerations here. And the table games are more mysterious compared to the video poker because you’re getting a rating. And does that report back to MGM rewards? Are the pit bosses [00:24:00] reporting that back to MGM rewards? How is that going to work? I didn’t see anything in there.
Announcement about table games, specifically explaining how this works. Whereas I would think with a computer it would be better integrated into games like video poker or other electronic games. So time will tell on how that works out. How will they display your onboard tier credit and points earnings?
Is it going to be on the final statement for the cruise? Can you request it through the loyalty program? Are they reporting it back after? I have a lot of questions.
Darren Remsburg: There’s only one way to find out, Justin. You need to book that cruise and you need to book it Pronto so we know bigger these things.
Justin Vacula: First, first world problem.
Too many cruises. I’ll be going to Amsterdam later this month, and then I have an Alaska cruise following in July, so maybe a little bit later if you need, or we get a. MGM representative on the show. There you go. If you listening, mgm. I like that. I knew that to come
Darren Remsburg: on
Justin Vacula: or answer our unanswered questions.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah. Or if you need me to go on the cruise for [00:25:00] you, I mean for the show Justin, it would be for the show.
Justin Vacula: Yeah. It was like the classic YouTuber, Tourette guy. He would come on dressed as the guy from Unsolved Mystery. Update. Update. That’s what we need. We need the update. There we go. Unsolved mysteries with MGM,
Darren Remsburg: do you think that.
You’re gonna earn tier credits for both MGM and the whatever cruise line you’re working with. Because they offer a separate rewards program usually, right?
Justin Vacula: Yes. Yes. The cruise line has its own loyalty program, so if you’re already earning what their loyalty program, MGM is pitching this as an addition or benefit.
So you would get earned in both programs. It would be lame if you only had to pick one. It seems like they’re going with this as an addition, but if you. Did have to just pick one. It would
Darren Remsburg: be MGM.
Justin Vacula: Oh, it’s gotta be MGM. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Rather than speculative cruise offers, when we understand that the status is going to, giving us benefits at the certain tier levels that apply year [00:26:00] round and even the next year, versus the cruises where I said earlier, okay, you get a massage, you get a meal upgrade, or a voucher or whatever.
That’s only onboard. But the MGM benefits are year round. It’s gonna add more comps to your balance. And typically the free play return on cruises is pretty lousy. I think after about nine K coin in, I maybe got 30 to $50 free play and that was just the one time on the ship. But with MGM, I’d like to get more action reported to them to receive potential hotel room offers, show tickets, and much more.
That’s going to be more impactful, I imagine. Yeah, that makes sense. Unless you are cruising almost every month, which I’m not at that point yet. I don’t think that’s going to happen. But eight cruises this year? Yeah. For the plan, not 12. Yeah,
Darren Remsburg: that’s pretty close every six weeks.
Justin Vacula: And it’s not all with celebrity or row Caribbean
Darren Remsburg: either.
Yeah. I know you like to spread out your action across casinos and across cruises, so that [00:27:00] makes sense.
Justin Vacula: Yes, good to be diversified and take advantage of lots of offers rather than just being overly loyal to one program. Although MGM Rewards has to be at the top of my casino list at this time as I’m still pursuing seven Star status with Caesars, but I see benefits being devalued like Diamond Plus, for instance, it was four drinks a day, even at Starbucks locations, they took that away.
And now it seems to be mostly alcohol. There may be some other drink options available, but Caesar’s Rewards devaluing the program, unfortunately. MGM adding value to the program, adding a new credit card. So Caesar’s, it’s time to step up. MGM is really outperforming you. Getting the game. Get in the game.
Caesars? Yes. Let’s see that New Caesars credit card that’s going to give tier on spend, that’d be great. That would be great.
Darren Remsburg: So wrapping up on this topic, Justin, what’s your take on message here? What do you think listeners should be thinking [00:28:00] about and what are you gonna be thinking about?
Justin Vacula: Yeah, I think it’s one of the better MGM enhancements we’ve seen in a while, other than a few weeks ago, the additional crews at gold and the enhanced crews at platinum.
Having the land-based and online play mixed with the cruise play, I think is really awesome. It’s going to give you extra incentives to cruise. If you were on the fence about playing on the cruise, I think this should push you on the other side of that fence, more appeal for the credit card, especially the no annual fee one that you’re just getting all these benefits that you not only get the complimentary cruise at platinum, but now a hundred dollars in free.
Play a mystery welcome, amenity, onboard credit, and much more so for a no annual fee credit card, especially with MGM or the no annual fee credit card with them. Getting a complimentary cruise at platinum and all these benefits. Another cruise at gold. I hear all these rumors. [00:29:00] Oh, the status matching non TM is dead.
No, it’s not. It’s just a little bit more effort to get different credit cards and put spending on them. And now MGM is giving you even more reason to get their credit cards to spend and to take advantage of the benefits in crews. You were considering getting one of the MGM credit cards. You haven’t yet, as you’re not near casinos as much.
You’re not going to Atlantic City and Vegas as much, but now you’re looking at doing that more often. So maybe a December MGM credit card application could make sense. I think
Darren Remsburg: that’s where I’m at. I did get Diamond plus Caesar’s reward status and was able to earn a number of comp nights and of course a celebration dinner and that sort of thing.
Looking forward to using some of that this summer in Atlantic City we’ve talked about in the past, my family and a couple of my kids really enjoy the beach, so maybe trying to get down there for a couple days this [00:30:00] summer and let them enjoy the beach, the pool, just to sum the summer vibe, if you will, and seeing how that goes based on that and what the what maybe the world’s second funnest bank.
The F stands for fun. Will approve me for, so that’s the other big question. If I’m thinking about other FMBO cards, what does that look like? How do I, what’s their equivalent 5 24 rule, if there is any? Both within how much credit will they lay out per person and so forth and so on. I had an FBBO card, geez, a number of years ago, five years ago maybe, or more.
That was like the travel rewards card, and it was, I can’t even remember why I got it. It was early on in my travel hacking career, but it seemed like a good idea at the time, and maybe it provided some sort of cash back type rewards, but I closed that after a bit because it wasn’t really doing anything for me.
So we’ll see what FNBO thinks about that. Now, [00:31:00] how about you? How many FNBO cards do you have now, Justin, and what you expect your approval odds would be To get more.
Justin Vacula: I have the no annual fee, MGM card at the moment. I had the Ford Pass credit card, but I had canceled that because they sent an email saying the card was going to be converted out of that reward structure, and they were slashing the benefits.
The main appeal, that card was a $200 annual statement credit for spending on the card, so on a no annual fee card. Also giving some rewards, getting an extra 200 is appealing with. A lot of the spend that we do, the creative spend, getting an extra rebate at the end of the rainbow on top of the rewards is pretty nice.
But I canceled that card, so I only have one card at the moment with F and BO. So that positions me to get the iconic, because I think at some point banks are going to say, we’re only going to issue you a certain amount of credit, a certain amount of cards, as you alluded to, and then recent account opening can interfere with getting a new [00:32:00] card with FNBO.
So I’m spacing it. My applications by six months, usually, at least on the personal side, since I applied for cards in early January, I’ll be good for an AARA at the end of June before I fly out to Amsterdam. I don’t want to apply overseas and applications getting flagged as being outside of a geographical location like I had an issue with in the past.
There’s also some competition with the FNBO Amtrak card, but it might be possible to apply for both and see what happens. If the first one gets approved, especially with the iconic application, then go for the Amtrak next, even though there’s not an increased signup bonus at the moment with the Amtrak card.
It could be interesting to aara into that as well.
Darren Remsburg: I just don’t
Justin Vacula: know
Darren Remsburg: about FNBO. Is it like BOA where you just keep applying until they say stop? If anyone has a particular expertise in FNBO cards, reach out. We’d love to learn more,
Justin Vacula: but I think canceling and freeing up a slot can definitely be good, especially if you have a card that’s [00:33:00] not doing much for you.
They have an evergreen card that’s just 2% cash back everywhere. I don’t think that’s too appealing in this current climate. The current meta of credit cards is we have cards giving more than that. And we have different creative ways to pay our cards to get additional rewards as well. So FNBO, a lot of people ask, can I pay FNBO with a rewarding debit card or some creative payments?
And that seems not to be the case unless someone knows something I don’t. And even the PayPal bill pay service got slashed recently, so you can’t even try something with that. They’re not on there. And I think that just got discontinued paying credit cards in any way with PayPal Bill pay.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah, we need the Phoenix to rise from the ashes again.
It seems every couple years there’s some new FinTech or new something that wants to allow us to pay with debit cards and I’m here for it. So yes, whatever. Give us something. Whatever it is.
Justin Vacula: I’m interested. Yes, just please be FDIC insured and [00:34:00] not blame another program for taking our money like Juno and Synapse.
Darren Remsburg: Oof. Yeah. Not good there.
Justin Vacula: So lots of opportunity here and for you. I think that can be interesting. If you have comp nights with Caesars in Atlantic City, then you could stay one night with Caesar’s Properties. Harris I think is one of the better options, especially since it’s close to Borg Gata and there’s a nice indoor pool, and I mentioned December is applying for these MGM credit cards.
We’re now recording mid-June 2025. If you get approved for an MGM credit card tomorrow by FNBO. Then you only have a few statements before the end of the year for your tier credits to report. So 70 5K tier, especially with the lower credit limit, maybe not attainable in just a handful of months or statements.
So ideally, people get the credit card in December, a statement closes in January and you start the year with a healthy amount of tier, and then you have the whole calendar [00:35:00] year. So earn that tier, the 70 5K tier for gold, or 200 K for platinum.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah. Good reminder on the strategy there of when to sign up for the cards.
And that fits pretty nicely into the sort aama approach that you’re taking for every six months. That would be six months later, so it would fit nicely.
Justin Vacula: And now the cruise strategy might be a little bit different if you’re going to be close to platinum, close to requalifying for gold, close for requalifying, for platinum.
You might wanna cruise in early December. Hopefully that tier earned from play on the cruise would report to your tier score for that calendar year, and maybe you’d want to cruise in January so that you start the year with even more tier rather than having to rush at the end and giving up more. Ev.
Darren Remsburg: Ooh.
Yes. I like that. And for those that are in the northeast, certainly cruising in. January’s a nice break from the cold weather. Unless you’re going to Alaska, which it’ll be cold anyway, but probably
Justin Vacula: [00:36:00] yes, avoid Alaska in January and December. So a lot of considerations. This is changing the strategy, it’s adding more incentive to cruise.
I, I really like it. And maybe you could even in a play two situation where maybe if your wife applied for an MGM credit card. Maybe you book on the same ship with your wife and then you could take a daughter each and have four people on the same cruise ship.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah, we’ve
Justin Vacula: talked
Darren Remsburg: about that in the past, and I think that’s exactly right.
That would be our strategy. We would both try to earn status and maybe that’s something, yeah. To consider this end of this year, move it into next year. We’ll see what new enhancements MGM has for us by the end of the year. They’ve been coming fast and furious here as of late. Might be even better by the end of the year.
Justin Vacula: Yeah, they might. The ante even more. And with these cruise offers, at least with the status benefits, you get one free guest per booking. So that could be interesting in a two player mode of having four [00:37:00] people on one ship, two separate rooms. It looks like the My Vegas cruises have gone in the direction of only one person, where in the past it was one guest and then you would just have to pay the taxes and fees on the guest.
Even more phone Army to be deployed. If you’re looking at the My Vegas cruises, I know you’re,
Darren Remsburg: you’re a general of the phone Army, Justin, so again, something else to talk to listeners about when they’re interested in how you’ve been able to manage all the online games. I don’t even know about the phone Army.
I’m not even enlisted in that army yet, so one of these days FOMO
Justin Vacula: on the
Darren Remsburg: FOMO Army. FOMO on the phone. Army for sure.
Justin Vacula: As you get closer to Atlantic City, the reasons to spin
Darren Remsburg: will increase. That absolutely could be the case. Again, we’re gonna try it out this summer. I have this summer and next as a diamond plus a few benefits there, some cop nights, and we’ll see how that goes.
Justin Vacula: We said the answer to everything is more credit cards. That remains true. More phones can [00:38:00] often be answers to problems and more. Casino loyalty
Darren Remsburg: accounts is not a bad
Justin Vacula: addition either. Yes, more gambling, more cruising. It’s gonna fix all the issues. It’s not a bad idea, I’m just saying. Yeah. Maybe Speedway will form a partnership with MGM and we get outta these Speedway Hus.
Oh my gosh. You can buy more gift cards as Speedway. Yeah. I want Speedway and
Darren Remsburg: Amex to get together. I think that’s the kind of
Justin Vacula: relationship I’m looking for there. Maybe a giant and MGM partnership get even more gas points now. Even more gas points. I like it. Yes. Better than
Darren Remsburg: even more space on Jeff is. I think Justin, you and I have some great marketing ideas here for these companies.
They just need to listen to the podcast and reach out. I think we can make a boatload of money.
Justin Vacula: Yes, and I did appeal to MBTA to reference a past podcast guest Purple Princess Perry, and she will be on their podcast. So they’re listening and they’re seeing that she can be a great influencer, a great ambassador.
For the program, so hopefully these companies [00:39:00] will see the light. Yeah, we’re all hoping for that. And I
Darren Remsburg: wish Princess Perry good luck. I don’t know.
Justin Vacula: More. More terrific
Darren Remsburg: journeys. More terrific journeys. That’s the thing to say. The light at the end of the tunnel, in this case, I think she actually wants it to be a train, so that’s different.
Justin Vacula: Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. And maybe some train rides on these cruise adventures, but we will find out about that where we’re. What I’ll see in Amsterdam, see in Norway. See at these difficult to pronounce fjords. Good luck with those buddy. You’re gonna need, you’re gonna need
Darren Remsburg: a pronunciation guide. You can ask Chachi PT how to pronounce cha.
You go PT. Yeah. Yeah. How do I pronounce this? What does this mean? I’m glad we got to talk about this Amex. We’ll have to wait and we’ll talk about that at another time. Still some interesting things going on with strategies there and how to continue to accumulate membership rewards. That’s something I’ve been thinking about and focused on here as of late as we’re planning a Southeast [00:40:00] Asia trip for summer 2026, and so we’ll likely be using some of those miles in addition to some that I’ve already had transferred out to book flights there and back for my family.
So looking forward to that and looking forward to, again, playing within the MX rules, but maximizing our returns just like on the cruise in the MGM popup tent.
Justin Vacula: I guess the rewards desk. It actually said on the release that if you had questions go to the MGM Rewards desk, which is silly. It’s like they just copy pasted that from something else and then they realize that there’s no MGM rewards desk on the cruise ship.
But if there is, that would be really funny, especially if there was a cardboard popup that had the My Vegas characters on it. That’d be wonderful. I’ll get a photo op with that. I’m looking forward to seeing that on your next YouTube video, Justin. Yes, wind Creek in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania has the mascot for the casino verse mobile app, and you could take a photo with that.
So I did indeed get that photo. A [00:41:00] security guard helped me with that, so that was good. They were a good sport about it. Very nice. It’s always good to see the mascots get involved and engaged, so
Darren Remsburg: it’s always a good time
Justin Vacula: and I’m also happy to see the gift card market rebounding a lot of deals in the past week or two on Amazon.
Best buy many of our local grocery stores. I think for a while a lot of the deals were not so interesting. Oh, a discount on fanatics. Oh, 5% off on DoorDash. Not interesting, but we’ve seen some fantastic deals for Amazon gift cards, Uber many personal use cards, and even the bigger brands that are good for reselling like Lowe’s.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah, I think with the, I dunno, demise is the correct term, but slow down of the. Pepper roll here and we’re starting to see a little rebound in prices and other things it’s Father’s Day, it’s gone into summer, so there’s some seasonal opportunities as well, but it’s nice to see the prices are [00:42:00] a little better than they once were and makes these deals worthwhile.
The dads and grads, promotions. Happy dads. Justin, just bring it back. Happy Dads. There are those. Oh,
Justin Vacula: happy Guy, I think was the particular card for use at Home Depot. I know is I would be a happy dad
Darren Remsburg: if
Justin Vacula: they brought the Happy cards back at six x 10 x eight x. Any of the Xs. We just need the physical ones, not the online convertible ones.
That’s That is actually correct, yes. They’ll get you back into physical GameStop locations. If they give 10 x on those. Ooh,
Darren Remsburg: would they? It’s possible
Justin Vacula: We had some friendly cashiers. That’s what we needed. My kids are outta school. I could deploy the Kid Army. You have the phone Army. Justin. I’m gonna deploy the Kid Army.
Yes. Yes. Yes, and of course we do have the upcoming Final Fantasy Tactics remake that’s releasing in September, so I’m very excited for that. One of my favorite games of all time is being remade for Nintendo Switch. So maybe you’ll be able to use your Dell credits for a Switch two, maybe you’ll be able to [00:43:00] buy it through Dell, who knows?
But I ordered mine on Amazon, so I’m already locked in, although perhaps that can be canceled. That would be good.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah.
Justin Vacula: Yeah. It’s interesting. We haven’t played much with Switch, so I don’t have much experience there, but the game that was so originally challenging, especially to new players, that the remake includes what they call a squire difficulty.
That’s an easier mode of play. So it was quite hardcore when it came out and people didn’t know what they were doing, or they weren’t very tactical in final fantasy tactics. So now they’re introducing a story mode for easier play, but. A lot of the other updates, a better user interface, potentially additional content voiceovers throughout the game.
It’ll be really fun. That
Darren Remsburg: sounds great.
Justin Vacula: I want some optional challenges. Hopefully we’ll see those.
Darren Remsburg: Look forward to hearing your updates about it.
Justin Vacula: And I think always good on a cruise ship or flight, especially when you don’t have wifi or the internet isn’t good, having extra things to do on these cruises would be nice.
Oh,
Darren Remsburg: for [00:44:00] sure. I know you said even on an airplane, right? When you float back from. Poland on your recent lot trip there was no wifi, so making sure you had something downloaded or something to do was critical to keeping entertained on that long flight. Alright, thanks for coming
Justin Vacula: on today. My pleasure. Look forward to catching up with everybody again.
Thanks for listening and stay tuned for future episodes, some closing announcements. Ticket sales for Zork Fest 2025 a Miles points and gambling event are live@zorkfest.travel zork.com. I hope to see you at Zork Fest 2025 in Las Vegas, December 5th through the seventh at the M Resort Casino Hotel. I’ll also be speaking at Chicago Seminars Hyatt Regency O’Hare, November 7th through the ninth, 2025.
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