ZorkFest 2025 is coming to Las Vegas Dec 5th-7th, 2025 and we have the inside scoop with Michael Trager (TravelZork).
We cover how ZorkFest blends casino loyalty + travel loyalty, what’s new this year (pre-sessions, interactive labs, masterclasses), and practical plays for MGM Rewards, tier status, and credit-card miles and points strategy.
🎟 Tickets & details: https://ZorkFest.TravelZork.com
🎧 Host: Justin Vacula — Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast
What you’ll learn:
How casino comps + airline/hotel points work together
Fresh ZorkFest 2025 features (pre-sessions & labs)
MGM Rewards tips, status shortcuts, and pitfalls to avoid
Credit-card tactics for gamblers & frequent travelers
Itineraries, venue basics, and on-site logistics
Timestamps:
00:00 Welcome & show intro
00:44 What is ZorkFest? Why it’s unique
01:43 Casino & travel loyalty—how they stack
05:23 ZorkFest 2025 highlights (what’s new)
07:33 Pre-sessions & interactive labs explained
18:56 Venue, schedule & logistics
23:29 Announcements & upcoming events
24:54 Why gamblers should care about miles & points
27:58 Maximizing travel credit-card benefits
31:08 Casino loyalty programs: perks & status plays
35:34 Masterclasses: who they’re for & what you get
44:51 Listener Q&A: practical tips & edge cases
50:38 Where to learn more + ticket info
Links & Resources ZorkFest 2025: https://ZorkFest.TravelZork.com
TravelZork: https://travelzork.com
About our guest: Michael Trager is the founder of TravelZork, specializing in casino loyalty, comps strategy, and how to merge those with airline/hotel programs for outsized value.
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Rough Transcript:
Theme Song: [00:00:00] Travel at low cost with points and miles. Credit card rewards bring the smiles. Many adventures tales to be told, make and save money, the world will unfold.
Fight the war on happiness. Pick up the gold. Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast breaks the mold.
justin: You’re listening to the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast, I’m your host, Justin Vacula, here to help you save money, make money, and travel the world a next to no cost with credit card points, miles, benefits, and loyalty programs. Thanks for joining me for today’s episode, Zork Fest 2025 with Michael Traeger. We talk about the upcoming gambling miles and points conference taking place December 5th through the seventh in Las Vegas.
Visit [00:01:00] meetup.com/PhillyMilesAndPoints to RSVP for monthly Greater Philadelphia Travel Credit Miles and Points meetups I host in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. The next monthly meetings are September 28th and October 19th, 2025. Find a link in the show notes. For more content between 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, and posts. Find more information at HurdyGurdyTravel.com. On with today’s episode recorded, September 22nd, 2025. Welcome back to the podcast, Michael Traeger.
michael trager: Thank you for having
justin: and nice to see you as we met quite recently, maybe a week or two ago in Chicago at the loyalty summit.
michael trager: Yeah, that was great. Is that the first loyalty summit you’ve been to or the second one? The [00:02:00] first one for me. Did you enjoy it?
justin: Yeah. It was really nice and it was cool. You got to go on stage with the representative from MGM Rewards,
michael trager: and Neil is pretty much so the head of their loyalty program, and if I recall the history correctly, he’s the one who did the transition from M Life to MGM Rewards.
So his team has been. Involved with that and MGM is, oh, I guess we could argue it, but I still think in the big picture of big loyalty casino loyalty programs or in ca comparison to all the casino loyalty programs, MGM Rewards is probably the best casino loyalty program, best in quotations because best means different things to different people and they actually, I think they won an award for best.
Program from the Frequent Traveler awards that they did. That’s in conjunction with the loyalty summit. So it was pretty cool. And we spoke a little bit about emotional connections [00:03:00] and recognition and benefits and VIP experiences and things like that. So I thought it was a pretty good conversation.
justin: Yes, and I’ve been extremely happy with MGM Rewards, adding another cruise with the gold status, increasing benefits for the cruises, having reciprocal tier earning.
So I think they’ve done a lot of great things in 2025, especially compared to Caesar’s Rewards that always seems to be devaluing and that’s a good point. It’s not M Life, so please stop calling it M Life. It’s MGM Rewards. And of course Caesar’s does not have an apostrophe. RIP to Darryl, our a former friend.
michael trager: Yeah, it’s actually the apostrophe comment. I had a funny conversation with a couple things, which are interesting. So it was always C, it was Harris’s Total Rewards. And then it became Caesar’s Rewards. And then when MGM went from Mlife to MGM Re, then they went to M from Mlife to MGM Rewards, which was, it’s actually funny if you think about it, ’cause it parallels right now you have Caesar’s Rewards [00:04:00] and MGM rewards, right?
The names are the same. I never personally, I never liked the M Life name. Maybe it’s a little bit of the Darryl in me. But I could never understand if you’re gonna do, if you’re supposed to do capital M and then lowercase life. Ooh, capital m lo uppercase L or M dash life. I also never, like when you were writing articles, it’s, is this one word or is it two words?
And then you would see it just, it drove me. I was like, this name is just driving me crazy. If you’re like slightly like specific with things and you wanna do it the right way. So I was so happy when they renamed it. MGM Rewards. Regarded apostrophe for Caesars, and there’s an article on travel Zork about that.
There is no apostrophe in Caesars. And I’m about to actually to edit. I was just editing that week article this weekend a little bit, and I’m gonna republish it on travel Zork, but it’s an interesting story. But Jay Sarno, it’s like everyone is a Caesar, so it’s not like Caesar’s like his palace, but it’s like everyone is a [00:05:00] Caesar kind of thing.
Ah, Caesar’s Palace. But that’s. Really why that’s there. So the apostrophe is like totally wrong. ’cause it’s not meant Yes. That was never meant to be the way percent wrong. Yeah, exactly. And it’s, and it is what some people get so mad at me when I like correct that. I’m like, I know, but that’s just, there is no apostrophe
justin: one thing’s for sure.
Zork Fest does not have an apostrophe. So let’s get to that. Can you give us a quick elevator pitch for Zork Fest 2025.
michael trager: The quick elevator pitch for Zork Fest 2025. Is that, in my personal opinion, I think it’s the best combination of miles and points and travel loyalty conference that’s out there, mostly because it integrates travel loyalty and casino loyalty.
Our big like bullet points are learn more about using points, how to redeem points for amazing vacations and flights, and also learn and understand more about casino comps. One of the things that [00:06:00] I think we do a really good job with is that the CON Conference is totally applicable for beginners, intermediate, advanced.
I think a lot of different people get different things out of it that’s relatively hard to do. Another thing that’s really good is I think our social events are the best social events out there. I think they’re just extremely well put together social events, so that’s great. And also we are super respectful of your time.
So like for Zork Fest, there are things that go on Friday. Most of Zork Fest is all day Saturday, and then we have optional things on Sunday that include master classes as well as optional gaming. But what’s really cool is you could pretty much so come to the cocktail reception on Friday night. Dozo Fest stuff all day on Saturday, but really have your Friday night free.
Have your Sunday free, that kind of thing. And you could even if you didn’t wanna come to our podcasters after dark, which is included in your ticket, [00:07:00] have your Saturday night free so you can still have a really great weekend in Vegas and not have to be in conference rooms all the time. And of course, it’s a conference that’s in Vegas and everyone wants to go to Vegas as far as location.
And if you bring AP two, if you bring a significant other or friend with you. You can do the Zork Fest stuff and still do a lot of other stuff over the weekend. So I think that’s extremely compelling. And I know you’ve been at a couple of Zork fests and probably attest to the fact kind of format works well.
justin: Oh, absolutely. I’m here endorsing it as we’re hosting the episode and looking forward to speaking. Can you tell us what’s new for 2025?
michael trager: So for 2025, last year we decided to do a something called Labs, which are. So most Ofor Fest, similar to like Chicago Seminars or Frequent Traveler University are sessions that you sit in.
So they’re more like a one way kind of thing where you sit and you learn in the sessions, which is great. And we’ve got a lot of really great sessions and the all of the sessions and that [00:08:00] schedule will be up by the end of the month. But what I came up with a new idea last year is that I wanted to have some moments in Zork Fest.
Where you could get some hands-on experience on things. So we tested it last year with what we called casino labs, and we did a lab for craps and for blackjack in which we have tables and we’re gonna have really great tables this year. And we’ve got experts there. And you could crowd around the table and those experts talk about the game, talk about the gameplay, talk about how to approach the games.
We’re also doing a similar thing in the Casino Masterclass with video poker. And I thought that was a great idea and I said, why don’t we do it for miles and points? So we’re also doing it for miles and points. The miles and points labs are sponsored by our, one of our sponsors, which is Rome and they are not the city.
The tool and it’s listed if you go on zork [00:09:00] fest.com on the Zork Fest website. You can see the Rome as one of our sponsors, which is a great tool for helping you find award flights. R-O-A-M-E. Exactly. And you’ll see we’ve listed them on the Zork Fest website and what’s really great is we’re gonna have what I call miles and points labs.
So we’re gonna have these small like table set up for like labs where someone’s an expert on helping you find international business class redemptions or just something like that. And you can have more of a one-on-one. Or a small group kind of thing about things that you specifically want to learn about.
So it’s like interactive, like a lab. So I think that’s like a great idea and I think it’s extremely complimentary to the sessions. And I would, and if you look at the schedule, you’ll see when we have the labs gone, so available. So if you go to the top of work fest.com. You will see that there are a bunch of tabs and one of them is scheduled.
Just to give you an idea about the way Zork [00:10:00] Fest is started, registration opens on Friday at 12 noon. Then we have something new. The other new thing for this year is pre-sessions. What are pre-sessions? Pre-sessions are totally optional. Sessions ring you up to speed a little bit. If you’ve never done Sorg Fest before.
Or if you’re not familiar with one of the main topic areas, so say you’re like a super well-versed or quite a bit about travel loyalty, but you don’t know much about casino loyalty and there’s always like a lot of lingo. Stuff that you, that will be talked about in some of the sessions. So we decided, let’s give you some pre-sessions on Friday so we can discuss some of that lingo and get you ready for it.
So at one o’clock we have a pre-session for travel loyalty, and then at two o’clock on Friday we have a pre-session for casino loyalty. Now this is totally optional. What’s cool about it is if you felt like you wanted to just [00:11:00] run through a couple of the couple of things on travel loyalty to get yourself up to speed, that would be great for you to go to the travel loyalty one.
If you’re a travel loyalty person, miles and points, you know all that, but you don’t know as much about the terminology with casino loyalty, you wanna be brought up to speed a little bit, come to the one at two o’clock, or you’re welcome to come to both of them. So that’s a cool idea. I had to help embrace the beginners or first time Zork Fest people.
But of course, we’ve got many people who are miles and points experts who are not casino loyalty experts and vice versa. So this really can be useful for a number of people. Then at three o’clock on Friday, we have the miles and points labs. Which is sponsored by Rome and also the casino labs, and that’s also optional.
We also have lab sessions early on Saturday morning, and then at five o’clock is our traditional cocktail reception and meet and greet. So in theory, if you didn’t wanna do the pre-sessions [00:12:00] or you didn’t wanna do the labs, you could just show up for the cocktail reception on Friday. But if you want to do the pre-sessions and labs, those are options for you.
I know there are some people who are very interested in the labs and they don’t wanna do the pre-sessions, so the million dollar question, people say to me, what time do I have to arrive at Zor Fest? It really is up to you. If you wanna do all the pre-sessions and miles and Points labs, or you wanna poke into them, then you know it starts at one o’clock on Friday.
If you just wanna come to the labs, then it starts at three o’clock on Friday. If you just want to come to the cocktail reception, it starts at five o’clock. So I think this is, I think this is a unique concept for miles and points. And of course I’m gonna probably rope you into some things too.
justin: Oh yes, I’d be happy to talk about online blackjack, video poker in person.
So lots of things. I can be the jack of all trades for sure.
michael trager: So the goal was to make it. Not just sitting and listening to sessions and going to session after session like [00:13:00] you’re in university. The goal is to have more interactive things, which are also slightly social, right? Because a lab is really social because you’ve got experts there like you who are talking about specific topics.
So really, I’m really happy with the idea and I think it’s really good because. I don’t think everyone wants to necessarily be in a classroom setting all the time when they come to things and people learn much better sometimes in small group kind of lab sessions out to me in my brain. That’s to me always what the purpose of labs was, right?
Like you would go to the lectures, but when you went to the labs, you get to really try things and test things. I really like that we’ve integrated that idea into Zoar Fest
justin: and talk about the Saturday sessions. We’re going to have several speakers, including people on the gambling side and the miles and point side.
michael trager: The schedule is going to be up by the end of the month. The [00:14:00] only thing changing this year is that we’ve got more sessions. We’re running a little bit later on Saturday, so we actually, our sessions run until seven o’clock, so in theory. Zor Fest runs from 8:00 AM to seven o’clock, and there are a couple of slots where there are two sessions running simultaneously.
We tried to avoid that in previous years, but we wanted to just give more options on sessions. But we did not want to run Zor Fest sessions as a two day kind of thing because we really felt that’s too much for a lot of people and they wanna enjoy their Vegas weekend. So there, the longer the short of it is, there will be, some of the sessions will be the same as the ones last year, but there will be more.
There’s basically more this year. So on top of what you got for Zork Fest last year, you’re getting Miles and Points labs and you’re getting even more sessions in last year. And once again, the schedule will be up at the end of the month. I almost have it [00:15:00] done, so it’s being tweaked a little bit, which is great.
Because you basically have the schedule up by around September 30th for an event that’s in December, which I think is pretty darn good. But we did make sure that we got at least the timing of everything onto the website back in January so you could plan your airline tickets and that’s all there. So I really do encourage people to look at each tab for each day to see what’s happening.
justin: And can you list some of the confirmed speakers? Again, we’re recording September 22nd, 2025. There could be more. Come on or some changes, but who are the current speakers?
michael trager: I hear this guy, Justin is one of them, but we have, Gary Leff is returning and I got word I think, but it’s not a hundred percent confirmed yet that Ed and Pella will be joining him.
And I think many people in the travel miles and points world know who Ed Pizza is. That’s just being confirmed now. Anthony Curtis from Las Vegas [00:16:00] advisor is returning, DIA Adams is joining us this year. She does a lot of great content with family travel. One of her focuses is family travel. We have John and Christina Mahaffey this year from Vegas Advantage.
This husband and wife team knows everything about comp, optimizing your comps, table games, video poker. They’re an incredible addition. I’ve been wanting to get them for a couple of years, so that’s going, we’re gonna have even more of the casino stuff this year. Dave Grossman of Miles Talk is returning Julia of re travel.
Carissa. Is also returning and we’ve got Justin. Ronnie is, Ronnie Dunston is new. He’s from living the High Life Secrets of Jet setting around the globe for free. Maria is new and she has a site called Maria Points the way. Angie from Award Travel 1 0 1. We’ll also be [00:17:00] speaking and she is new. The person who is in charge of podcasters after dark this year will be Josh Duffy of Crap Vegas.
He is returning, so I think it’s a pretty good lineup improving on what we’ve done before and I’m really pretty excited about it.
justin: Nice. Any chance for Bob Dancer or Richard Munchkin? They got me very much involved with the video poker about a decade ago.
michael trager: That’s an interesting one. I should talk to Anthony Curtis about that.
Bug me about that. Bug me about that next week, because we might be able to get it, I don’t know if you realize this, but if you go on travels work.com and you search on dancer, Bob Dancer used to write a bunch of series for travels work.
justin: Oh, nice. Yes, and I know they’ve both showed their faces on Anthony Curtis’s Las Vegas advisor show.
There are definitely more public facing at this moment, and Bob, of course, used to teach video poker classes at South Point, so he’s [00:18:00] definitely much in that.
michael trager: And that’s a little bit of my inspiration of the masterclass we’re doing on Sundays. So just to say, we do have masterclasses this year. We tested this idea last year.
This year we have three masterclasses. The first time Zork Fest will ever have a masterclass for casino comps and gambling. We’re going to do a little bit of that with regard to video poker because I feel that’s a really important area to look at. On top of that, our host Hotel M Resort has excellent gambling.
Not only do they have excellent, not only do they have all pretty much, so all three to two blackjack, they have great table limits, and they also have really good video poker. So that’s, it’s really nice having a host property this year where we could be really proud about the gambling options from a table limit perspective and also from the quality of the games, for lack of a better way to say it.
So that’s also really nice.
justin: And how far is the new venue M Resort from the Las [00:19:00] Vegas airport? I wouldn’t recommend anyone walk from the airport to M Resort. I did hear some things that people wanted to walk from the airport to venues to see if it could be done to look for a data point. I wouldn’t recommend that, but if people were to Uber, Lyft, or use some other ride share to get to M Resort, how close is it to the airport?
michael trager: It’s pretty close. It’s a pretty short trip. But one of the great things about M Resort. Is anyone who is staying at M Resort, they have a free shuttle to the airport.
justin: Oh, okay. Nice.
michael trager: And once again, that is listed on the Travel Zork website on the Zork Fest website under the hotel information. So they have a free shuttle.
The only caveat is that shuttle only runs till seven o’clock at night, but they do have a free shuttle for anyone who’s using comp rooms or part of our room block or any, pretty much. So any way you book your room at m. You can use their free shuttle to the airport and it’s one of the few, it’s one of the few properties that actually, if you wanna say like you’re at least getting a little bit [00:20:00] of benefit for your resort fee.
At least they have an airport shuttle. So I think that’s super, I think it’s super cool that they actually give back on something like that. So that’s really great for people to know. Emma’s not a horrible trip to the strip. It’s about, it’s a couple miles. You can see the strip. From M Resort, so it’s a great location.
We love a lot of people. We’ve always tried to keep Zork Fest on the strip, but the challenges there are that the room rates are much higher for people who do not have comp and discount offers. The other thing is the gambling isn’t as good, and it’s just really, since you’re, since this is a small event, you’re competing with all of these large events and it’s just really hard.
To get the casinos interested. Like they’re really for our like private gaming and reserve tables. They’re really great. So for people who wanna join us on a reserve craps table and all of this is on the schedule [00:21:00] or Bacara, you are not gonna find on the strip a $10 craps game. And they’re allowing us to do, we’ve got 10 and $15 games and things like that.
And you’re also not gonna find gambling. So a lot of the stuff that we’re. Trying to do, and we’re trying to talk to people who are miles and points people of, hey, learn to use play video poker as a tool to get comps. It’s just really nice to have a property where there’s good video poker and we can teach you things based off of the good pay table.
So even if that doesn’t pan out for when you’re trying to do a 10 times to your multiplier, at least you understand. What the difference between good and bad video poker is and that kind of thing. And also, they’re wonderful, proper. They’re a wonderful partner for us, pretty much so on the side of people who do gamble a little bit, and if you’re planning to gamble a little bit that weekend, we are being very gracious about providing comp rooms to casino players as long as you’re getting offers from other ca casino properties.[00:22:00]
And all of that’s also listed on the Zork Fest website. There’s a tab about hotel information and under the hotel information, if you go to it, Justin, I think it’s pretty easy to see. There’s an area that talks about getting comp rooms and that, and we’re really trying to, obviously if you don’t get casino offers now, we can’t.
It’s tough for, unless you’re planning to gamble and you wanna talk to me, we might be able to do something. So it’s not meant to be like. Somebody tricking us and matching us to get a casino comp room because obviously the property’s being really nice about that. On top of the fact, the hotel room product at the M Resort at M Resort is beautiful.
It is an incredible resort with an incredible pool, incredible spa. It’s great if you bring someone with you. It’s great for people who like non gamma gaming because it’s, it just is a resort with lots of great facilities. The hotel rooms are over 400 square feet. I think they’re 450 square feet. And other exciting news, they’re about to open a new hotel tower, which is gonna [00:23:00] open about a week before Zork Fest.
And we’re hoping, not promising yet, but we’re hoping that we’re gonna be able to, everyone on comp rooms and also on our revenue room block for Zork Fest will be able to be in these new hotel rooms. But even their current hotel rooms that you know and are not the brand new hotel rooms. Super nice, like way nicer than the hotel room product you would get at Horseshoe or Flamingo or something like that.
So that’s something good to keep in mind.
justin: Alright, good. We’ll take a little break for some announcements and get back to the conversation. We mentioned Zork Fest. That’s what this episode is about. You can buy your ticket at ZorkFest.TravelZork.com, December 5th through the seventh. I’ll also be speaking at Chicago Seminars
hyatt Regency O’Hare, November 7th through the ninth, 2025. Use promo code HurdyGurdy when buying a ticket to support me. Also, join me October 24th through the 26th 2025 for Chicago Seminars Holiday Inn, [00:24:00] Chicago Oak Brook. Use promo code I must have a promo code 20 for $20 off tickets. This episode is also supported by card pointers.
If you have multiple credit cards like me, card pointers helps you automatically activate. Bank offers and knows which card to use for maximum rewards. CardPointers saves me time and money. Use my link cardpointers.com/hurdygurdytravel for a discount on annual and lifetime plans. I also host monthly travel and points meetups in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania.
Our next meetups are September 28th and October 19th, 2025. If you’re local or you wanna make the trip, it’s a fun casual way to talk point strategies. Meet like-minded travelers and share ideas. RSVP at meetup.com/phillyMilesandpoints. Back to the discussion for Zork Fest 2025. We have two things here.
Why should gamblers be interested in miles and points and why should miles and [00:25:00] points be interested in gambling? So first, can you please address why gamblers should be interested in miles and points? What do they have to gain?
michael trager: Why gambler should be interested in miles and points is that it’s the why gambler should be interested in miles and points is really why anybody should be interested in miles and points because of all of the benefit you can get.
For relatively little cost, even if you don’t go super deep. Benefits. Benefits like traveling for free, you’ll travel all the time for free and always be in first class and never have to worry, which is not true as long as you understand the elements of travel loyalty, like how to re on the redemption side, and then you understand the earning side.
Especially with promotions and credit cards and how to optimize, there are a lot of things you can do for very little cost that can earn you a [00:26:00] lot of travel loyalty points, which you can use for travel. So in essence, some of those, in some instances, it really is too good to be true. You can sign up for some credit cards and if you are regularly remember, and this is all based on the fact that you’re regularly spending.
You’re regularly spending money on credit cards, especially for people for their business, and you can get some 200, a hundred thousand, 200,000 point benefits, and that’s great because then the question is, okay, I’ve got all of these points from Chase, which are ultimate reward points. What do I do with them?
And the, what do I do with them is a lot of that is covered in Zork Fest and even covered on a granular level on the mile in the Miles and Points labs. So it’s just tweaking what you do every day. Every day, which is spend money. Figuring out how to do it properly with credit cards, that’s a great tool to learn.
But then there’s also the basis of if [00:27:00] you’re just spending bonuses for certain categories like dining, where you’re getting three times, maybe you spend exorbitant amount of money on dining for yourself and for your business, you can be getting three times points for that, and that can add up really quickly.
So it’s, there’s a number of. Number of things, and then also there’s the issue of your actual travel and earning points through your travel and all the other ways you can earn your points. Now, I know someone’s going to chime in or maybe not chime in because they listen to your show and say, oh, I heard using credit cards is bad.
justin: You mean Dave? You mean Dave Ramsey isn’t the official sponsor for Zork Fest 2025. No, he is not.
michael trager: Oh, using credit cards is not bad. Paying interest is bad. Overspending is bad. Overspending, that’s right. I am never advocating. I am not advocating that you go and spend $5,000 eating out so you can get three times points on dining.
That’s not on what I’m [00:28:00] advocating. I’m advocating that you do what you regularly do in your life and you are in points from it. Then the other part of it, the other group of people who might say, ah. But I get, I’ve got a cash back card and I get 2% back or 3% back and or 1%. And my answer to that is you can get a, unless you absolutely never wanna travel or hate travel or never go, and let’s face it, everyone travel, even if they’re just traveling to their family or traveling to Vegas.
Or something like that. If you understand travel loyalty, you can get a value, which far exceeds, I don’t know what you would say Justin, but I would say it far exceeds, like even 2% or 3% cashback.
justin: Oh, yes. And one big benefit is a lot of the benefits that come out of these credit cards, like seed upgrades, room upgrades, breakfast, different food credits at hotels.
So yes, you’re generally getting more value with points compared to cash back.
michael trager: Even things like insurance, right? Yeah. Look [00:29:00] at a Chase Sapphire card, which has a primary insurance for a rental car. That’s very valuable, right? That’s, and that’s even more valuable because. Since it’s primary insurance, I’m not an expert on insurance, but since it’s primary insurance, you don’t even have to claim it on your own car insurance policy if you have a problem with your, with a car rental.
So there’s stuff like that’s there. And then also you have all the other travel benefits that people love, like lounge access and then other benefits like better boarding free seats for flights and all of that. It all works. It all works together. So I can’t find a reason. A, I cannot really find a reason that a non-travel credit card is going to provide you, in most cases, more value than a travel credit card is going to provide you or potentially a casino loyalty credit card.
But I think travel loyalty credit cards provides some of the [00:30:00] greatest amount of benefit, which can be. Absolutely phenomenal with regard to the benefits you use. And of course, as long as you use them responsibly and also as long as you use them, if you’re strategic on signing up for credit cards and also getting the bonuses, ’cause those darn bonuses are unprecedented, right?
You a retail credit card, you’re lucky if they give you a 25% off coupon or a hundred dollars bonus or something like that. Travel credit cards, they’re handing out. A hundred thousand, 200,000. This stuff is worth thousands of dollars. No, I don’t know of any retail credit card that comes close. Oh, no. In bonusing you, yes, and the travel cards do, right?
Yeah.
justin: Free night certificates on Hilton credit cards. Going to some bougie or luxury properties as I was recently in Amsterdam, and some of these hotels would’ve cost $700, $800 a night. I wouldn’t have paid seven or $800, but. If I could even value that as something like 200 or $300 and I [00:31:00] got a really good enhanced experience.
Yeah, you’re not gonna be getting that from cashing out the city. Double cash as cash back, that’s for sure. And back to the miles and points, I think there’s a lot of synergy as well between the casino loyalty, as you mentioned, the casino loyalty credit cards is you could combine your in-person gambling with the MGM iconic credit card that recently came out and you’re getting additional tier.
And other benefits through the credit card that you wouldn’t get through gambling or you’d have to gamble less, like I hear from people, I don’t play much at MGM, so I don’t stay there. What if you could spend your way to status on the credit card and then you can use free nights and benefits and you have all these comps to use and now you’re waiving resort fees and you’re using my Vegas rewards and not having to pay for resort fees at all because you’re getting two nights comped and then you can go and play somewhere else.
michael trager: No, it’s a great exact, and then you talk about the. Travel loyalty people like, why should I care about casino loyalty? The first [00:32:00] thing I always say is, fundamentally with casino loyalty, it’s not like we’re looking to turn you into a gambler. I love gambling. I love I, I love that. But that isn’t what we’re trying to do.
We’re trying to teach you to use gambling as a tool potentially to get some perks and awards that will help you on the travel side. Those kind of things like how earning casino status and if you earn that casino status then you’ll get a waiver of resort fees. That can be very valuable for people who like to travel to Las Vegas or destinations.
’cause a lot of people like to go to destinations where there are casinos but don’t really like to gamble much and that’s totally fine. And then you have that other great aspect, which Justin is like, you are way more expert than I am on this. With regard to like other perks, like getting free cruises and Yeah.
And I would [00:33:00] say that you don’t have to be a gambler to love to get free cruises and many people who are not gamblers love free cruises. What’s a tool like? The best example would people say? What do you mean using gambling as a tool? Just like in miles and points, people will use different tools to earn extra points.
Those tools might be learning about. Gift cards that might be learning about reselling things you can do, which allow you to put more spend on credit cards to get more points through bonuses. So those are tools like gift cards are a tool. Reselling is a tool. The way I simply say is that video poker is a great tool to use to earn points in casino loyalty program to get status and.
Especially because it’s much harder to just status match than it was years ago, and you’re just using it as a tool. So if you learn, and the reason why is because video poker tends to be if you play the right games, [00:34:00] rather low variance and a low house edge. So it’s a safe game to play and buy the maths.
If you learn how to play it and do it during a promotional period. There is very little monetary risk. To getting the number of points that you would need to basically accomplish the, to accomplish the tier level that you might want. And I recently tutored somebody on that with regard to the Harris and I said, Harris Caesar’s rewards, I still call it Harris.
I can’t, you just can’t, sometimes, like your brain goes faster than your mouth. And it’s interesting where your mouth goes faster than your brain, but that’s, and I literally showed this person how, because this person goes to Vegas a lot. How to basically play video poker during a 10 times multiplier with very little risk?
Get Caesar’s Diamond. And now for all of these future stays in Las Vegas, which is probably [00:35:00] close to 30, 40 room nights, he’s going to get no resort fees. Yes, and 10 times really value.
justin: You mean the 10 times tier credits? So for these promotions, they had to play a 10th of what they normally would have to play.
So very little cost of the theoretical house edge that they have in this video poker play. So maybe the house edge that they took on was something like 200 or $300 around that. And they’re paying that in the House Edge, but they’re going to get all these benefits in exchange for that.
michael trager: So that is a great entree into the fact that we have these masterclasses on Sunday.
Remember, Sunday’s an optional day and masterclasses are an additional cost for Zo Fest. But what’s brilliant about the masterclasses, they’re at additional costs. But we also have a great lunch and there’s great socialization, and we have three masterclasses. One is loyalty metrics and optimization, plus booking strategies.
One is [00:36:00] creative spend 1 0 1. That is our politically correct way of talking about what they refer to in the miles and points industry as manufactured spend. Oh, I, but some of it I use
justin: creative spend a lot on here. I try to avoid like the words hacking and MS as much. So I talk about creative spend. It’s been trending.
I don’t know, maybe I was the first, maybe not, but.
michael trager: I’ll give it to you. You were the first. I’ll give that to you. That’s good. And then also we have a masterclass on casino comp, maximization and video poker. You can do combinations of loyalty metrics and creative spend and loyalty metrics and casino comps, or you can just do.
One of them. And all of this once again, is all the descriptions and everything except the casino. By the time you’re listening to this, the casino comp maximization description should also, it’s all on the website if you go to the top at tab on sorg fest.com for ad-ons. So that’s another really great thing to keep in [00:37:00] mind.
And then we also have. In addition to this casino comp maximization and video poker, that is something that’s talked about in a few of the casino loyalty sessions on Saturday at Sorg Fest, which are not an add-on, which are part of Sorg Fest. But this really does circle through why this stuff is really important and it’s a lot of fun, I think, and it’s enjoyable.
But the other thing, which is a very broad picture, but I tend to find with casino loyalty. Because casino loyalty often requires gambling, like we were talking about with video poker and gambling is never a sure thing, right? There is that theoretical loss of what should happen based on the game, but then there is standard deviations of the variance of what can happen.
So it’s not a sure thing, but what’s great about it is it forces your brain to analyze promotions and analyze things in that way. I think that’s a great tool to use from miles and points. So if you [00:38:00] ever hear someone doing something like, I’m going to get all these gift cards and then I’m going to give them to a reseller and do this.
And I often find that people don’t always understand their risk. What’s your risk involved in this? What could possibly go wrong? What’s your ultimate downside? So how do I go into it? How do I approach it? Do should I approach? Should I go big into it? Should I go small into it? And that kind of. I think Casino.
What’s great about casino loyalty, it helps your thinking process, which will help you in travel loyalty. I don’t know a better way, but would you agree with that, Justin? Oh, yes.
justin: It’s definitely in America, loves math consideration and going with the punches as there are gonna be some ups and downs in gambling, but we’re in it for the long game, and there are also gonna be some ups and downs in miles and points.
I recently got shut down by Chase. They sent me this letter that said, oh, too many accounts opened with other issuers. Too many requests for credit with other issuers, and I called them and explained, I’m applying for cards with other issuers because I travel a lot. I’m looking for the [00:39:00] travel rewards and benefits, and they reinstated in my accounts.
So all is good. The answer to everything is probably still more credit cards, but personally I’m gonna be more cautious in opening new accounts since they seem to have soft pulled me. And in gambling, yeah, you’re gonna have those sessions where you end up down that, okay, if the math said that on the long run.
I expected to lose 300. They’re gonna be a session where you’re down like 700, 800, and they’re also gonna be sessions where you’re up seven or eight. There’s some things that you just have to accept as part of the game of gambling and miles and points.
michael trager: Exactly. And I often tell people, if you’re the type of person who can’t handle any kind of risk, then I guess you’re not going to be able to do some of the promotions with.
Casino loyalty because there’s less of a sure thing. Miles and points is more look at the recent JetBlue promotion and things like this. If you do this and you do this, and you do this, and you do this and you do this, you will get this. Casino Pro promotions are often predicated on the fact like, yes, if you play this [00:40:00] many tier points, you’ll get multiplied 10 times, but you’re still playing a game, which is a gambling game, right?
So nobody could predict for you, even though you might be playing what we call 99% video poker, what is 99? 99% in the long term means that for every a hundred dollars you bet you’ll only lose a dollar. So if you did it, you said, wow, that sounds really safe. Yes. But there’s the short term, those calculations are meant on the long term, like playing 40 thou, like probably in video poker, like at least a royal cycle playing 42,000 hands.
Yeah. Flush for
justin: listeners. Yes.
michael trager: Yeah. So chances are you’re not gonna play 42,000 hands. So you do have that. Variation of things, which you have to understand, but you need to if you understand the risk of what you’re going into. Also, not to get too into this, there are ways to protect yourself when you gamble.
Not all gambling is the same. At least with [00:41:00] video poker, playing multi hand games at lower denomination will be a much nicer variance than playing what we call a single line game at a high denomination. So those are things you have to understand, and these are some of the things that we’re going to cover in the masterclass.
You don’t get. Self in trouble. Because the person I was going to tutor about doing video poker, he was going to, he was gonna jump into playing dollar single line video poker. For people who don’t know what that means, it’s just one line of video poker, but it would be $5 per spin and that’s. I’m not gonna use the word, I don’t wanna use the word really risky, but that’s tough.
You need to be bankrolled differently than if you were playing Tencent or 25% multi hand. So there, there is nuance there that can protect you. It’s not all as simple about like how much per spin. I don’t know how better it looks. Yeah. And it’s, it might
justin: be able, it’s a good thing with miles and points as well, because you should start [00:42:00] small and scale up over time.
So maybe. In video poker, if you could play a hundred hands, a total of $5 rather than one hand, a total of $5, maybe that would be less variance, so you have options. There are also trade offs of time because if you were to play larger DNOs than you denominations, you would get through the play faster. So there’s some trade-offs, and even with the online blackjack, I could play a dollar a hand, single hand on online blackjack.
So there are trade-offs of time. There are different ways to approach it. So with both miles and points and gambling, generally I suggest starting small and scaling up over time. And when I’m talking about gambling specifically, I’m always looking to play with an advantage. I’m not straight up gambling and just playing on the square.
I think this is some misconceptions that people might have that I’m just going to a. Triple zero roulette table and firing off like a thousand dollars spins. Like I won’t be touching triple zero roulette or any roulette anytime soon. I just think it’s a terrible play. As can be the case with [00:43:00] slots, as you’ve said before, like just don’t play slots.
I stay away from that too unless there’s a very specific promotion. I stick mostly to blackjack with promotions, video poker with promotions, and Texas Holden, where I’m playing against other players and there’s a very large scale element. In the game. So lots of options for people in gambling and of course in miles and points, depending on what travel you’re looking for or if you wanna have a blended strategy of travel and cashback as some people do.
I hear from some people, I don’t travel that o often, so I’m looking for options also with cashback. So it’s a, your mileage may vary, but the nice thing with both gambling and miles and points is that there are many roads to success.
michael trager: Yes. And even for people who say they don’t travel often. Maybe that’ll fly off.
Maybe that’ll fly internationally. But they want staycations. They want thing. It’s thing is too, unless you’re going super deep into it, it’s not gonna be this like travel all the time for free. It’s gonna be optimizing certain trips a year, certain staycations a [00:44:00] year, and things like that. Unless you truly do not leave your home and ever go to a hotel or ever fly anywhere.
Chances are that you travel a little bit, you have more use for it than you realize. I also, I loved your explanation when you talk about video blackjack and things like that. You people have this such misconceptions about, oh wow, blackjack is such a low house edge. It’s such a safe game to play that whole short term versus long term standard deviation.
Variance thing. Yeah. It’s different, like you said, grinding a dollar a hand at blackjack. Is a lot different than doing a hundred dollars at hand and remember that. So the house edge is still the same. But it doesn’t really work that way. You need to understand.
justin: Alright, we’ll move on to listener questions.
First question from my co-host, Darren. He asks, what do you think about using [00:45:00] Amex Fine hotels and resorts benefits in Las Vegas? Especially now that American Express is adding more FHR credits to platinum cards. And I’ll also add that some people are signing up for Platinum and Business Platinum cards for the first time as well because they recently refreshed the cards.
So people are gonna have all of these hotel benefits.
michael trager: I think it’s a great use of FHR because one of the challenges with FHR is that it tends to be expensive hotels. Or hotels that are more expensive than the hotels that you might choose to stay at or are a higher budget than you would want. But hotels in Vegas are very, let’s just put it this way, as far as all the markets in the world, FHR hotels, which are luxury hotels in Vegas tend to be less expensive than anywhere else.
So an FHR property. In Vegas, you will be more likely to find a reasonable option than an FHR property in Paris, [00:46:00] France. And that’s really good because obviously the hotels are in your budget. And then when you consider the fact that you’re getting the credit, whatever, usually it’s a hundred dollars credit and you’re getting breakfast, which can be between 60 and a hundred dollars a night.
It’s just a great time to use your FHR credit because it’s a property that you would consider spending that much money for. On top of it, FHR comes with another benefit. Which is a contractual 4:00 PM late checkout, and that can be very valuable, especially in Las Vegas if you’re going to pop from property to property, because most properties you can’t always check in early because there is no contractual benefit.
But I mean by that is like guaranteed benefit. They have to give you early check-in is if available, but late checkout they have to give you on FHR, the 4:00 PM checkout. So you could stay at a hotel, check out at four, and then you could go to your next hotel [00:47:00] and be able to check in right away.
justin: Alright, and the second listener question from subscriber.
Eric, thanks for your question. Please ask Michael if he can foresee a time where advanced gambling techniques are taught at Zor Fest, maybe high end, small group, nuanced advantage, play info with networking.
michael trager: It’s a great question. We looked at doing something like that years ago, almost with FTU. To do it advanced.
And what’s really difficult with the high-end stuff is that, or I don’t know, high-end is not the right word. The thing is things are changing all the time, right? So there are some fundamentals. The important thing is learning the fundamentals and using those fundamentals to find opportunities. This time we’ve basically done that with our masterclass for casino comp, maximization and video poker, whereas you might know some of that stuff, but we’re talking about learning.
[00:48:00] One of the things that I do is I wander around casinos. Looking for opportunities. I’m pretty sure you do that too, Justin, looking for, how does this earn, look at this new game. This is interesting. This is a new stadium game. Does this earn tier points? Does this do that? Oh, is that single zero?
How is the earning? And that kind of thing. So learning those techniques is really important. The hard part about doing anything that’s quote, like advanced is probably the fact that things are changing all the time. They’re different in other markets. A lot of the things that people talk about who are advantage players, who use a lot of techniques to earn money from casinos, they’re really quiet about them because it’s their livelihood, so they’re less likely to share.
The best example I can give you is when there’s like a quote, there’s a. Mistake fair, but promotional fair, that’s really wrong. In other words, they’ve [00:49:00] mispriced it and it’s posted on flyer talk or it’s shared travel loyalty. People tend to share a lot of those things, and then a bunch of people try to book it, and then it goes away, of course, because they realize they made a mistake.
That’s fine and it’s travel and it’s just getting an advantage on travel. But a lot of things with advantage players, aps for casinos, like this is their livelihood. This is how they make money. Like I have friends, like this is what they do. This is their career. So it’s a little bit like we’re not necessarily going to share some of those secrets or you’re going to have to find them, or you’re going to have to become connected and network in a group of people who do those things.
And that’s a great place to do that is at Sorg Fest, and I’m always happy to introduce people to that. But things I would say, secrets are guarded. Much more carefully because obviously they don’t want promotions to end. They don’t want them to get burned out, or they’re chasing something that [00:50:00] is a progressive or something like that, and they don’t want the entire world to know about that and to be chasing it with them.
So it is a little bit of a tough thing, but I think we’re getting closer with the masterclass idea, which is pretty exciting about that. Also, Las Vegas advisor. Does dip into some of those things, but I would, I guess it would be, it’s something to consider for the future. My other problem is that I’m just not sure how many people would really be interested in that.
So it’s a great question.
justin: People can find their tickets@zorkfest.com. Z-O-R-K-F-E-S t.com. And where can people find you online and more information about travel resort?
michael trager: You can find me on all social media. All social media at Travel Zork, and if you go, you can visit travel zork.com, which is our main content website.
Lots of information there. You can also visit travel [00:51:00] zork.travel. That has to do more so with our retail travel Luxury travel advisory. But at travels org is a great place to find me on all the socials, especially I’m relatively a active in X. I’m also pretty active on Instagram and re responding to people.
And we also have a Facebook group. Which is great for Travel Zo and you can find that Facebook that joined that Facebook group. I highly suggested ask lots of questions. We love that. So there, there are a number of places to find me with. It’s just easy. It’s just at Travel Zo pretty much so everywhere.
justin: Okay. And that Facebook group, you can search for travels Zo, and you’ll find that as well.
michael trager: Yeah, it’s, I would say it’s pretty easy. We also link out to the Facebook group quite often in articles. On travel zork.com. So that’s great. And Justin I know has some great series on there, updating more content. So that’s a great place to, a great place to start.
But you can always reach out to me. You can also find there’s also a [00:52:00] contact button on the travel zork.com website. You can reach out with questions. You can also email tips@travelzo.com. And I would encourage people to also check out our Zork Cast Yo 11 podcast, where we do our best to drop an episode every week.
And that’s on all podcast platforms as well as YouTube. And you can find that quite easily by searching on Zor cast travel Zork yo 11. It should be easy, pretty easy to come up with that.
justin: Alright, thanks again for coming on. Thank you so much for having, we’ll see you in December, or maybe in the meantime in October or November.
We’ll find out. All right. Thanks for listening everyone. Stay tuned for future episodes. For more content between 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, and posts.
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