Status Match Merry Go Round® – What to know Jan 31, 2025

Last Day to Match Caesars Diamond to Bally’s Superstar in Atlantic City

First off, let’s start with a final reminder that if your ONLY card in play is the Caesars Diamond card (which is no longer rematch-able with a Wyndham Business Earner card) then today is your very last day to high tail it to the Bally’s casino in Atlantic City (only Atlantic City) and match to Superstar, which you can then use to match to Hard Rock and then Ocean (if you will have passed your 24 month inactivity mark) this spring.

I’ve been banging the tables on this for weeks if not months, so no complaining that you didn’t have fair warning! Obviously many of you cannot make it down to Atlantic City TODAY. But if you can and you forgot or didn’t know – go go go!

Rivers Philadelphia is Tier Matching Again

If you are heading to AC today anyway, you might want to make a run to Rivers in Philadelphia. Your Caesars Diamond (or MGM Pearl/Gold) will match to Rivers Platinum. 

That comes with 3 comped nights at Rio in Las Vegas and a comp stay at Atlantis (same general terms as with Caesars Diamond). Now the tier also comes with an MSC Cruise that is the same as Ocean’s HOWEVER the brochure clearly states this is only for earned status. The last few days we have seen people that have matched booking that cruise anyway, but beware – this ended poorly in 2023 under a similar situation, with cruises later being cancelled so book that with your eyes wide open.

If you already matched to Ballys Superstar but can’t make it to Rivers today, don’t worry. I fully expect we will see another MGM Tier match this year and if you got your Ballys Superstar this month, you will be able to match that to Hard Rock Icon which will match to MGM Gold – which you can THEN match to Rivers Platinum (if the match remains open). Your Rivers status will be valid until June 30, 2025.

How Can You Get Caesars Diamond Now?

Gambling. That’s it. We await some new path to it. Even Founders Card Elite has lost access to Caesars Diamond, replacing it with Wynn Platinum status. Can’t say I think you’ll find that worth it given the high cost of FC Elite.

What’s Next for You If You Have Been On the Merry Go Round and Missed Matching to Ballys?

Don’t panic. At least most of you shouldn’t. If you matched to Hard Rock Icon in the last year (which most Merry Go Rounders did!) you still have a month to match that to Bally’s so that you can match back in the spring. Your Hard Rock card expires Feb 28th.

Better yet, if you have a current Ocean card, that is valid until June 30th. That can ALSO be matched back to Hard Rock starting in March (UNLESS THINGS CHANGE – it is always possible Hard Rock Atlantic City ends the practice of rematching, although man do I hope that does not happen as it would really kill the whole AC flow).

And again, if MGM does a 3 month match this year (I assume they will and we have seen isolated cases of matches happening right now outside of the official MGM-wide match – so far at Park MGM in Vegas and at MGM Springfield in Massachusetts, matching from Hard Rock Icon – but these are unofficial and don’t make a special trip to either without being prepared to be told no to the match), you can match your Hard Rock card to that for 3 months of MGM Gold. Do that strategically for an onward match like to Rivers. If you had MGM Gold on July 1st, for example, and Rivers is still matching (big if, I know), then you could nab Rivers Platinum for the July-Dec 2025 period. Unfortunately it’s not so useful for an onward match in AC as it won’t match to Hard Rock Icon nor Ocean Prime nor MGM Gold on its own.

If you have Ocean Prime now and fear you won’t be able to keep it going, make sure you book your free MSC cruise which has to set sail by June 30th, 2025.

Venetian / Pechanga Match

If you have Venetian status from the now-over Venetian match, you can match Venetian status to Pechanga status (Temecula, Souther California).

Cruises

You can also still follow the info in the Merry Go Round Master post here for matching links on cruise offers and we have a dedicated and very active group chat on Facebook for Merry Go Round based cruises. You’ll need to me a member of the MilesTalk Facebook group to join. 

And yes, I’ll be working on reorganizing and rewriting the master Merry Go Round post with all the changes in the coming days. 

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