Status Matching in Las Vegas — Turning My Amex Platinum into Caesars Diamond (and Free Food)

UPDATE: Wyndham is not currently offering status matching, so this method may not work for the time being.

Previously:
I finally had a chance to try "status matching" and earn myself some nice perks on my Vegas trip! Here's how it worked.

American Express Platinum card: https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit-cards/card/platinum/
Wyndham status match portal: https://www.wyndhamhotels.com/wyndham-rewards/status-match
Caesars status match portal: https://www.caesars.com/myrewards/partners/wyndham_resorts
Caesars Celebration Dinner list: https://totalrewards.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2451/~/caesars-rewards---lv-celebration-dinner-restaurants
Caesers show tickets list: https://totalrewards.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2482/~/caesars-rewards---las-vegas-show-benefits

Status matching is something I’ve been reading about on Reddit and other forums for a few months now, but hadn’t had the chance to try it myself until this week. Sure enough, as promised, this simple process didn’t cost me anything and came with some pretty awesome perks.

So before we get to how I was able to take advantage of status matching, you may be wondering what exactly it is.

As the name implies, status matching involves taking loyalty status you may have with one brand and earning the same status from another brand. In some cases, this may be a reciprocal courtesy among partner companies or may be used as a way for businesses to lure customers away from their competition. Also notable is that, while some status matches may last for a year or more, others may take the form of a challenge where you only get the status for a short time unless you complete a series of tasks in order to keep it.

Now that you have that basic overview, let’s dive into the specific what I was able to do in order to get Caesars Diamond status.

First, a few months ago, my wife and I decided to apply for the American Express Platinum card. Among the great benefits that come with this card is automatic gold status with Hilton and Marriot.

Sadly, neither of those will help you out much with Caesars, but that’s where another hotel brand, Wyndham comes in.

By visiting the status match section of Wyndham’s site, you can enter the info for your Hilton gold status, which will actually match to Wyndham’s diamond. For me, this process took just a couple of days to be approved.

Keep in mind that Wyndham’s status match does take on that challenge form I mentioned, so you’ll only be able to hold diamond status for three months unless you stay the required number of nights to retain it. Thus timing is vitally important for this next step.

Once you obtain your Wyndham diamond status, then you can visit Caesars status match portal and enter your Wyndham info. Again, this can take a few days. Also, you’ll need to pick up your card in person, so just stop by the Caesars Rewards desk at one of their properties. Unlike Wyndham, Caesars status lasts until January 31st of the following year, so once again timing this right can be useful.

So what does Caesars diamond get you? Well, as I mentioned, one perk is a $100 celebration dinner.

This is easily the perk I was most looking forward to when researching status matching. When you’re in vegas, your status earns you a $100 credit that can be used a variety of restaurants along the Strip — a list of which you can find on Caeser’s website. Of note, despite the presence of Starbucks on the list, you must use the full $100 at once, otherwise you’ll lose any remaining balance.

We actually choose to use our celebration dinner at Ruth’s Chris, which we really enjoyed.

Aside from knowing what Ruth’s Chris had to offer and that I would like it, I also choose it because it was one of the locations where you only needed to present your card to use your discount while others require a voucher. As it turns out, the process of redeeming was super easy, barely an inconvenience and the $100 came right off of our bill — along with some extra tax.

As lucrative as this perk can be, other might be even better is you’re staying at a Caesars property.

One benefit I wasn’t able to use this time around is that Diamond members don’t have to pay resort fees when staying at Caesers properties nor do they have to pay for parking. Additionally, if shows are your thing, those with Diamond status are entitled to two tix a month to select shows. Unfortunately, Penn and Teller were dark this week, so I didn’t try this one out either. Finally, as you’ll see, there are several places where status members get priority access — even the Caesar’s Palace food court had several priority lines for platinum, diamond, and seven stars members. Thus, if you want to feel like a VIP without spending like one, this may be the way to do it.

For more travel related product reviews make sure to visit https://moneyat30.com/category/travel-tips/ and for all my travel tip videos https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFfM5Lf816al1hmN62iKjippUmiQbySGe

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