Diamonds in Las Vegas: An Easy Path To Caesars Diamond Status

This is a fairly well known “hack”, loved by credit card points collectors (me) and Las Vegas lovers (also me). Opening a single credit card provides an easy path to Caesars diamond status, as well as making you diamond with Wyndham Hotels. It’s not as easy as it used to be, but still easier for a lot of people than gambling your way to diamond. This is how it is done, step by step:

First, you might ask yourself, why do I want diamond status with Wyndham?

1. You can use it to get diamond status with Caesars
2. Prostitute upgrades at Days Inn (based on availability)

Then you might ask… why do I want diamond status with Caesars?

1. You don’t pay resort fees when you book direct
2. Room rates are usually discounted, although it is still dependent on your play
3. You get a $100 yearly dining credit called a “Celebration Dinner”
4. You get priority in almost any line at a Caesars property: check in, bell service, rewards desk, high roller, etc.
5. Other fees can be waived, like early check in (yes, there is a fee for that now) and late check out

First, a warning about opening credit cards and collecting points. I have earned thousands and thousands of dollars of free travel over the years by opening and closing credit cards, probably hundreds of cards between my wife and I. I pay them off monthly, never carrying a balance and never paying interest. If I were to be paying interest on these cards, I would be paying more in interest than I was gaining with the rewards. Only get into the credit card points game if you are able to pay off all of the balances on the cards every month!

I will not give you my big lecture on why credit cards are not always evil, and opening a lot of them doesn’t hurt your credit score if you use them correctly. I will save that for another article, because to obtain diamond status with Caesars, it just takes one card. Of course, there is a small catch…. it is a business card.

What does that mean? The credit card company, in this case Barclays, expects that you have a business you are using the card for. Now a business could be a lot of things… rental properties, selling items on Amazon or ebay, selling pampered chef, fixing people’s cars or computers for them… you don’t have to have a tax ID, you can simply use your SSN. Your revenue might be only a few thousand dollars a year. You do need something with a little revenue (but it doesn’t necessarily have to be profitable). The credit card companies generally want you to use the card for only business expenses, although when it comes right down to it, they don’t have any way of knowing, and they aren’t too worried about it as long as they are collecting the transaction fees.

You will also need a credit score of roughly 700 or above. If you have a high enough credit score and something that can be called a business, lets get started!

First, create a Wyndham account if you don’t already have one. It is free to create an account. After you have created the account, make a note of your account number. You can find after you login by clicking your name in the upper right corner of the page

Next head over to Barclays website and apply for the Wyndham Rewards Earner Business Card. Note, that this card does have a $95 annual fee. This fee is offset by the $100 annual dining credit. You start coming out ahead when you are saving money on resort fees, reduced rooms, and other perks. Also, if you hit the signup bonus on this card which I will cover later, you are going to have hundreds of dollars worth of Caesars points to use.

When you apply for the card, it will ask you for a few basic questions about your business, be as accurate as you can, you can estimate annual revenue if its a new business. It will ask you for your Wyndham account number, enter the number you got from the Wyndham website.

Hopefully you get instantly approved for the card, although its more likely that it will say that you will hear from them soon. If you anything other than an instant approval (including being denied), you want to call the Barclays reconsideration line at (866) 408-4064. Tell them you just applied for the card and ask them what you can do to expedite their decision. They most likely will want a little more info about your business. If you are denied, then get the reason for the denial. Ask if there is anything you can do to improve your chances with future applications.

Assuming you eventually get approved, you should login to your Wyndham account and verify that you have diamond Status with Wyndham. Now the fun begins. Wyndham partners with Caesars letting you can match you diamond status with Wyndham to Caesars.

If you don’t already have a Caesars rewards account, you will need to create one here. Make a note of your Caesars rewards number, then go here and login to your Wyndham account. Enter you Caesars number and fill out the other information in the form.

Usually within a couple days, you should see you now have diamond status when you login to your Caesars account. It will be good through January of the next year. When your status expires, as long as you still have this Wyndham business card open, you can simply match again in February and have diamond status again for the next year!

Now lets talk about the signup bonus on the card. Signup bonuses change pretty often… at the time I’m writing this, here is the offer:

Earn 50,000 bonus points after spending $3,000 on purchases in the first 90 days and earn 25,000 bonus points after spending $10,000 within the first 12 months.

If you put all of your spending on this card, for a lot of people, including myself, its not really hard to spend $3000 in 3 months. And if you continue to use it for the year, $10,000 in a year isn’t out of reach either. It is important that you reach these thresholds using normal spending, don’t go on a crazy spending spree just to meet the bonus if you can’t pay the balance off when the statement comes.

If you do earn the 75,000 Wyndham points, you can transfer those points to Caesars points. To transfer your points, go here. You will need to login to your Wyndham account, then fill out the form, entering your name and Caesars rewards number and selecting how many points you want to transfer. You have to transfer points in increments of 10,000. It can take a few days for the points to show up in your Caesars account. The current limit on the number of points you can transfer is 60,000 per year (this limit also varies).

If you transfer 60,000 points into your Caesars account, you now have a $600 credit with Caesars. The easiest way to use them is to charge meals and other purchases to your room, and then the day you leave, go to the front desk and tell them you want to use your points to pay your balance. The points can also be applied to the room expense itself.

Recently, Caesars also updated their booking website to let you can use the points to pay for the room at the time of booking. When browsing room rates on the Caesars website, you will see an option at the top to View Rates in Reward Credits. Click this and the prices change to credits.

Unfortunately, you cannot use the credits for partial payment, you must have enough credits to pay for the entire stay. You can still book the room and use your credits when you check out as partial payment though.

Caesars diamond members also have the ability to get a free stay at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas. This is limited to certain times of the year, and there are plenty of fees and other “catches” (such as resort fees), but it is certainly something you might consider once you become a diamond member.

That’s it! That is all it takes to be diamond with Caesars. They have properties are all over the country. If you live in the U.S., it is likely there is one fairly close to you. And dont forget, if you are married, your spouse can do this as well.

Caesars properties might not be the most glamorous on the strip, but they are centrally located and offer lots of dining and shopping options. And they are much better than staying at the Psalms….