Atlantic City Merry Go Round – Quick Update

This post is largely because of the incredible volume of emails, DMs, PMs, etc I keep getting about the Merry Go Round.

Indeed, I’ve mentioned I’ll update the master Status Match Merry Go Round™ post early this year (think late March / early April) both because the current master post has become incredibly unwieldy with all the changes and losses – and because I need time for things to settle a bit in Atlantic City and actually visit at a time that makes sense before I go through all that (it’s not quick to do!).

Most of this is GOOD NEWS!

Keep in mind that most people’s Hard Rock status expires at the end of February and a lot rides on what happens there in March.

But in the meantime, let me put into one place all the datapoints I have been given in the last few weeks and what we can’t yet possibly know (no matter how nicely you ask me 😉 ).

• Hard Rock Atlantic City is now under the Unity program. If you have only had Wild Card before, you are virtually guaranteed at least one match to Unity ICON from March on using your Caesars Diamond card (caveat: unless they change that – right now they are very clear that Caesars Diamond matches to ICON). 
• The once-in-a-lifetime match to ICON we have seen at other Unity locations would not apply at Hard Rock Atlantic City if you have only been matched to Rock Royalty previously. 
• Hard Rock Atlantic City has told numerous people the once-in-a-lifetime match rule will not apply in Atlantic City (perhaps due to the competitiveness of the market or perhaps due to internal miscommunication). Many people liked to argue with me over the last 6 years that you couldn’t “rematch” to Wild Card Rock Royalty – but you absolutely could and I did it 6 times, you just didn’t get a single perk other than the swank looking card. So it’s entirely possible they decide that suits them better than denying rematches as it costs them almost nothing (you get free parking and waived resort fees, for the most part) if you don’t gamble.
• Once agin, as of now, they are matching to Caesars Diamond. We can only hope that continues as most of our Wild Card Rock Royalty cards that have been converted to ICON expire Feb 29th.
• This means you can still take that matched ICON card over to Ocean for Ocean Prime which includes the cruise and two free nights in Vegas. However, if you match in February, your ICON status will end in less than a month on Feb 29th, 2024 (some people have been told they are matched through 2025 but need to pick up a new card in March). Your Ocean benefits will expire June 30, 2024 if you match now.
• In the past 2 years, Ocean has allowed those that matched from March to June to get status for the next program year (i.e. through June 2025 if that were to apply this year in March on). However, more than one person has told me they “are not” or “may not” do this this year. We won’t know for sure until March, so please don’t think I can tell you if you should wait for March. The conundrum is you can definitely match your not yet expired Hard Rock card now and it will definitely expire June 30th – or you can wait for March and hope you can still match Caesars Diamond at Hard Rock to ICON – but if Ocean says March matches expire this June, then maybe you wait for June? That would be the decision tree I would give anyone asking. Now I can point to this post 😉 
• There is always a risk that Ocean changes their program entirely in July. Cruises could go away. Vegas could go away. Matches could go away entirely. The inactivity period to rematch which used to be 12 months and is now 18 months could change again. We don’t know.
• Lastly, there have been a couple of reports of people taking their ICON cards to Borgata and being status challenge matched to Gold for three months only. Whether or not that continues, we don’t know. Whether or not they will let you rematch again after X amount of time? We don’t know.

That’s it! That is all of your data points. If you have questions, please ask them here or in the MilesTalk Facebook group – but please not via direct message. I cannot keep up one-on-one and if you ask here or in the group I’m answering everyone at the same time!

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