Atlantic City Status Match Guide – Make $$$ Visiting Atlantic City!
There have been quite a few Atlantic City status match posts but most (all?) of them are now out of date. Having recently done the match go round this past weekend I figured I would share my experience with it. Atlantic City is unique in this way that it offers people with status a way to get free betting, comps, food and show tickets. These same tips and tricks DO NOT work in Las Vegas. But the status earned can add value to your next Vegas trip. I hope you enjoy my Atlantic City status match guide.
Update 8/21/21:
Miles to Memories team member Ryan Flanigan just went to Atlantic City and did the Atlantic City status match merry go round and shares his results. Some locations have come out with better offers and others not so much.
I have added his experience in under mine for each casino and will notate it is from his trip in August of 2021.
Start With Status
The first thing you need to do the Atlantic City status match go around is actual status with a casino. The best and easiest one to get status with is Caesars Rewards. You can accomplish this without gambling a dollar, but more on that later.
Wyndham is Our Friend
Earlier this year I told you that you should status match Wyndham to Caesars Rewards. They have a partnership that allows you to match status between the programs. The status years have different ending dates too (Wyndham is 12/31 but Caesars is 1/31). That means you can status match back and forth the first few months of the year. So once you have status with the programs it is easy to keep it active each year. But what if you don’t already have Wyndham Rewards Diamond status or Caesars Rewards Diamond status?
Wyndham Matches Hotel Program Status Too
Wyndham has paused their status match program during the pandemic.
Have no fear if you don’t already have Wyndham status, it is easy to get if you have another hotel status. You can match from the following hotel statuses to Wyndham Rewards Diamond:
Main Programs
- Marriott Bonvoy Gold Elite or higher
- Hilton Honors Gold or higher
- IHG Platinum Elite or higher
- Hyatt Globalist
Secondary Programs
- Radisson Rewards Gold or higher
- Best Western Diamond Select
- Choice Privileges Diamond
- Omni Select Guest Black
A few of these statuses can be had by simply carrying a credit card:
- Hilton Gold – Amex Surpass Card (Learn More), American Express Platinum
- Hilton Diamond – Amex Aspire Card
- IHG Platinum – Chase IHG Premier Card
- Marriott Gold – American Express Platinum
Once you gain one of these status levels you submit a match to Wyndham Rewards to gain Diamond Status. When you get the Wyndham Rewards status you match that to Caesars Rewards Diamond status and you are now ready to rock and roll.
Current Atlantic City Status Match Offers
Here is an up to date list of the offers you can grab.
Hard Rock Casino
Let’s start with the Hard Rock Atlantic City since it offers the best status match. With the match you get the following:
- Wild Card Rewards Rock Royalty status
$100 in slot or table game free play (always take slot play since it is easier to walk away with money)The offer is currently only $50 in slot play 1/11/20.- Two nights at the hotel for any day of the week – this is active right away so you could use it that night if there is space. You only have 90 days to use it though.
- Two tickets to Howie Mandel’s Comedy Club
- Access for two to Legends Lounge or two free Fresh Harvest Buffet passes
- There are a lot of perks for Rock Royalty status and here is a link to the status match offer.
That is a lot of value right there, especially if you can use the two free nights. The hotel was sold out when we were there but if you go during the week or during the shoulder season you would have a better chance of using it right away.
Ryan’s Experience August 2021
I was able to match my Caesars Diamond status to Wild Card Rewards Rock Royalty status. I was offered 2 comp nights that were available for immediate use within the next 90 days, subject to room availability. Since I had accommodations already, and knew I wouldn’t be able to return within that time frame, I was not able to use those. I was also given $50 of free play, which I turned into about $25.
Borgota Casino
The next most valuable match is at Borgota casino who is a part of Mlife. My wife did the status match here but I could not since I already have Gold status with them. If you remember I did a status match between Mlife and Hyatt to get 4 more lounge certs earlier this year. The current offer for the status match is as follows:
- $100 in free play
- 1 free night in the hotel (must be used within 90 days)
- $25 in comps which gets you two free entries to the buffet or entry into the lounge for two.
- You get MLife Gold status which comes with the following perks (scroll down when you click through)
- Here is the link for the status match offer
Ocean Casino Resort
Ocean has updated their status match and it is now the least valuable offer. It could be the most valuable to some depending on how you look at it. They used to offer two free nights and $75 in slot play. Now they offer the following:
- They will cover your slot play losses on your first day of gambling up to $500.
- The losses will be returned to you in the form of free play 4-6 weeks later
- Here is the link to the status match chart and Ocean Premier’s status perks
This is not an easy one to make worthwhile unless you plan on going back to Atlantic City. You could pair it up with your Borgota or Hard Rock free nights (Hard Rock is right next door). If you wanted to try to rack up comps or go for a big win this would cover most of your losses.
You should be able to turn $500 in free play into at least $350 in cash. That means you would get $1,000 in bankroll for a realized loss of $100-$200. Assuming that you gamble with discipline at least. This would allow you to play some higher denomination machines than you normally would and go for a big time win. This plan only works if you could make the return trip and stop as soon as you hit $500 in losses.
Ryan’s Experience August 2021
My final stop was at the Ocean Casino, a beautiful property. It’s worth noting that Caesars Diamond would not match there, but my newly acquired Wild Card Rock Royalty status was able to be matched to Ocean Prime status. So be sure to hit Hard Rock first then come here.
They gave me all sorts of great stuff for use in the casino: a free t-shirt, a placard for free priority parking and complimentary valet service, 2 comp nights valid any night but Saturday for use within 60 days, and a one time pass for myself and a guest to the Avila lounge. The Avila lounge had a very good buffet spread and was not too crowded at 7 pm on a Saturday night, although I think I beat the rush, as there was a line to be seated when I left. Only prime or higher status are allowed in the lounge on Saturdays. It is also worth noting that you have to call in to book the comp nights.
The best part of Ocean’s offer was an offer for a free 7 night Caribbean cruise with an ocean view cabin for myself and a guest on MSC. I haven’t found any fine print about needing to pay extra port fees or blackout dates or anything like that. I will need to match Ocean Prime status with MSC first, and then call to book. The rewards load to new accounts on the 15th of every month, so I will need to wait a bit before booking still.
They also offered a free 2 night stay at Wynn Las Vegas, with a $50 dining credit. Living in Las Vegas, I will definitely put that to use. Both offers must be completed by June 30, 2022.
Bally’s Atlantic City
Bally’s has split from Caesars Rewards since my trip and is its own unique hotel and program now. Ryan stopped by there first to see if they were offering a match at all. He was not offered anything, as they said they base matching solely off of levels of gambling play, of which he had absolutely zero. That was a big strikeout.
Atlantic City Status Match Guide – My Results
I had my wife with me for the trip so we were able to double dip half the time. We hit Hard Rock first and turned our $200 in free play into $161.79 in cash. After playing through our free play we both ended up with over $80 in winnings.
Then we headed to Ocean thinking it would be the $75 in free play offer. Since we did not have a return trip to Atlantic City planned in the near future we decided to pass on their offer.
On our way back to Philadelphia we stopped by Borgota and I had my wife do the status match. We turned her $100 freeplay into $73.92.
Those total up to a profit of $235.71. We also had a nice brunch in the Borgota lounge (lounge pictured above) after completing the slot play. We didn’t have time to check out the lounge at Hard Rock but I am sure they have a nice spread in there as well. You should be able to get a couple of free meals and some drinks out of this deal if you play it right.
I was sad the $75 free play offer was no longer available at Ocean. That would have netted us another $100+ between the two of us. Just remember to constantly cash out as you hit good pots so that you don’t spend any money earned at the slots. You can also pick how much you want to put into each machine so you don’t have to use the entire $100 at one machine.
Atlantic City Status Match Guide – Final Thoughts
Atlantic City wasn’t our favorite place on earth but getting free food, drinks and being paid a few hundred dollars to show up made it a lot more enticing. If you have an upcoming trip or just want to take a weekend away for very little out of pocket cost then try the status matches. I think our trip was worth it overall and it was fun to check out a new place without spending any money. If we had been more prudent we could have covered a lot more of our food and drink while we were there too.
Hopefully you found my Atlantic City status match guide useful and it will help you on your next trip there.
Ryan’s Final Thoughts
All in all, it was a very successful effort. Most of the offers for free food have gone away for now, but I think a free cruise more than makes up for that. I also didn’t have a chance to leave the boardwalk to try to hit up Borgata. But I also already have Mlife Gold from my Hyatt status match with Mlife so I am not sure I would get anything anyway.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is the old king of travel rewards cards. Right now
bonus_miles_full
Learn more about this card and its features!
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
I will be visiting Las Vegas in June for the WSOP and staying (comped) at the Hard (Mirage) Rock. While there I plan to status match my MGM gold status with the Hard Rock Icon card.
I am also going to Atlantic City on July 7th for a comped stay at the Trop. In your status match article you mention that Ocean Casino has a status match program with the Hard Rock Icon card that ends on June 30th 2023. Is there any available information on line that mentions if Ocean Casino will extend the status match promotion.
PS I was told that Caesars will only status match new accounts… Is that true?
TIA Joe
hard rock only lets you status match one time 🙁
anyone know of any other way to get ocean to status match other than caesar diamond?
I matched my Caesar’s Diamond Plus in 2022 and again in Feb 2023 in AC. Both times they gave be their Rock Royalty card
So wife is a new Amex platinum card holder
What should she do on ac trip this October to get all the perks?
Amex Platinum doesn’t really get you anything at casinos etc. Could use her FHR credit to book a hotel (not sure if AC has hotels in the program or not) to use the $200 credit and get a property credit / free breakfast.
This is awesome, thank you! I very rarely go to Casinos but ironically, I do need to book a two night stay at Oceans later in October. I have matched Hyatt Globalist to MLife Gold but can’t seem to figure out how to match that to either Oceans and/or Hard Rock. Do you guys just do it on the property? What if you want to try and use the free nights/parking benefits/etc. on that particular stay? Thanks again!
Yeah you have to do it on property. Match to Rock Royalty first and then match that to Oceans.
How do you match Ocean Prime to MSC to get the free cruise? I do not see Ocean Casino Resort in the drop down list on the MSC status match page of the MSC website. I see MGM on the list, will you get anything for Mlife gold.
Without the initial Wyndham match this will not work and as noted on the article the Wyndham match has stopped since last year. So nobody can do this article unless they get the $95 annual fee Wyndham business car which has a high annual fee and makes the entire thing pointless.
$95 is a high annual fee? You also get 90,000 points worth $900+ for signing up and the perks from Caesars Diamond more than offset the $95. Then you could get all of this stuff if you go to AC. If you were going to AC it would absolutely make sense to get that card and pay the $95 annual fee. Unless you think free play, free nights in AC and at the Wynn plus lounge access isn’t worth it. Not sure why so angry Steve – it makes a ton of sense to me.
Thanks for this article….u read my mind lol. I did listen in to Ryan’s podcast last week to AC and I booked my flight there from CA next month! I’m so excited 🙂
[…] you want a much better explanation of how to do all of these matches and the benefits of each one, please go and check out this post on Miles to Memories, as it’s how I found most of the info for this […]
Hard Rock is down to $50 in slot play (no table option) as of 1/10/20.
Thanks Kevin
Will the free nights in Ocean Resort be offered when I go to match the tier? I had a Casears Diamond and Mlife Gold. I had heard that there was only T-shirt and slot offered there.
They do change their offer more often then anyone so I would check their site for the most updated info.
Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas shuts down permanently Feb 2, 2020.
I am curious to see what Virgin does with it.
Can you explain a bit more about the Ocean/$500 deal? They refund you the $500 in LOSSES, not what you play, right? So if you put in $500 to a slot machine, you have to (net) get to zero in order to get a $500 free play voucher? So if on average playing $500 returns $350, aren’t you still losing $150 on this deal? Doesn’t seem like a good deal at all to me, unless I’m missing something?
You are forgetting about the potential upside. You get a chance to gamble $1000 of bankroll with a locked in downside of around $150-$200. That is a lot of money through the machine and a chance at a big hit. You may win with the first $500 in the machine and walk away. But you have that safety net if you don’t. If you are normally a quarter player maybe you go to a $1 machine (which has way better odds) because the risk is minimized. That would give you better odds to win etc. It is swaying the odds in your favor so to speak.
Did you status match last year as well? I did and I’m unsure if they’ll let me re up this year as well. That hard rock one is especially tempting.
I haaaate AC but I love some of the nearby towns like stone harbor and cape May. Last year I used the status match nights to have a home base for exploring those places.
No this was my first time – pretty sure there is a once per lifetime limit which usually means several years before you fall out of their system again.
You never fall out of a casinos system. Once you have an account you always have an account (I am a host for CET). And if you hit and run you will most likely not get any return offers.
I have fallen out of a few players card systems in the past.
Potentially if they switch systems or get bought out/combine programs. (ie: Borgata/MGM). But that is an exception not a rule. You can get around it ‘sometimes’ with a new address but not so much nowadays.
I am sure it will be less and less likely as technology gets better. I know they like to keep a long history of their players 🙂
Since casinos track players by SSN and DOB, as well by name and contact info, casinos are unlikely to lose track of any player who ever registered with them unless, as Dawn noted, a casino switches systems or gets bought out/combines programs. Plus, those of us who status/tier match among casinos and their partners (such as cruise lines and hotels) make ourselves (and our spending/traveling/eating/gaming) even easier to track.