I flew from LA to Las Vegas for a half day visit to match my Hyatt temporary Explorist status (provided as part of the Bilt challenge) to MGM Gold.

First, I went to Planet Hollywood (Caesar’s) to try to match my Wyndham Diamond. I received a 3-month temporary Wyndham by status matching a Hilton Gold. I thought if MGM doesn’t accept my temporary Hyatt, maybe with some luck they would match a Caesar’s status? (Officially, MGM doesn’t match Caesar’s anymore, but I thought maybe some reps could be out of the loop and just match me carelessly.)

I went to the Caesar’s Rewards/Cashier section, and the rep there told me that they don’t do in-person matches, and that it can only be done online. They did agree however to create a Caesar’s account for me, and entered my name, address, date of birth from my ID, and, phone and email on what I assume is their website. And strangely, they gave me a plastic Caesar’s rewards card that has my new member ID, no expiration, and reads “Gold”. So did they match me to Gold? So confusing.

Then I walked to the Aria Casino across the street, which is a MGM property. I went to the MGM Rewards desk, with 15 other people in the line. A MGM staff approaches the line. His mission is to clear the line. He asks each person, one by one: “do you just need your MGM card? I can print your card on the spot” “Do you just need a MGM card?”. He comes to me: “do you need your card to go gamble?”. “No, I came to ask for a hotel status match for Hyatt..” “Do you have a MGM account?” “Yeah, I made one online.” I pull up my MGM app, but I can’t remember where to go to see my MGM ID. As I fumble, he grows impatient. “Are you sure it’s a casino ID? Online might just give you a hotel ID, which is different from a casino ID”. So as I can’t find my MGM ID, I enter my information on his tablet. He goes to the back to create my MGM plastic ID card, and THEN I find where to tap on the app to show my MGM ID. “I have my ID! See”. “Oh. You do have a casino ID.” He then goes back again, discards the old one, and gives me a new plastic card for my existing MGM ID (Sapphire tier). He then tries to wave me off to the gambling area, but I stay in the line.

Then I asked the desk staff to status match me for Hyatt. She grabs my driver’s license, gets my MGM Sapphire plastic card (with the correct ID number), and asks for my Hyatt number and asks my Hyatt status. She handwrites over the MGM Sapphire plastic card “replace for Gold” and gives it to another staff, and shortly after hands me a MGM Gold plastic card with no expiration date. “Do you want both cards?” she asks. “No, just one is good, thanks”, I say, thinking that she’s offering a second card for my spouse (who is at home back in LA). As I was heading out, I looked at the card and noticed that the ID in there is not my current ID number. This is the new, duplicate ID number that the Casino staff created mistakenly for me a few minutes ago.

Shit. I went back and forth between calling a taxi to go back to the airport and standing in the long line again to try to ask for a match to the correct ID, wondering whether just walking off with this card could cause this whole trip to be for naught. I tried to log out of my old ID and try to do a password recover for the new ID number. It made the app glitch, and now the app was not even showing me the Sapphire status. After a lot of hesitation, I hoped a phone call in the future could sort the situation and just took off to the airport because I was risking having to switch to a later Southwest flight.

I came back home, opened the MGM app while retelling this to others, and noticed that my old ID number (the one that I want to keep) is also showing Gold status. Then I went to the MGM website and matched the Gold to Hyatt. It works! My Hyatt Explorist no longer expires in July 2023, it expires in February 2025 now! Excellent.

I think the late checkout (which is not always guaranteed, but anyways) perk will be helpful in our future trips and maybe they’ll give me priority over non-status holders for early check-in requests. And some upgrades every once in a while can’t hurt.

Costs involved in this crazyness:

  • 9k Southwest points to fly LAX-LAS roundtrip
  • $40 Lyft in Vegas
  • $12 Ground transportation in LA
  • $5 Bagel
  • 10 hours of travel time and a shitload of hours reading anecdotal information in online forums

In the future I’m gonna try calling Caesar’s because I can’t activate the account. Caesar’s online activation is saying that my birthday or ZIP code is incorrect and does not match my ID. That’s a lower priority for another day.