When Staying at The Cosmo, It's Identity vs. Marriott

Last week, we passed on a pretty sweet upgrade offer from Cosmopolitan's Identity players club and decided to take them up on an offer to become a Platinum member, instead. We will test the membership perks later this week, but we digress.

There is very little that Cosmopolitan does marketing-wise that follows along with other casinos so we were thrown for a loop when reading a recent comment from VegasChatter fan Emerlink. (Click the link for the comment and the backstory.)

Let's start by saying that we began visiting Planet Hollywood/Aladdin back in the day because they were a Starwood property and we could earn both Starwood points and A-List (Aladdin's old players club) points.

On the surface, Cosmopolitan has a similar partnership with Marriott with one slight difference. If you make travel arrangements through Marriott, any points earned go towards your Marriot Rewards account and not your Identity account. This includes room charges, but not gambling. A big perk pitched from Cosmo about Identity has been the ability to earn points for all spending, not just gambling. We guess that's not totally the case.

We were a little confused by all of this so we checked with a membership representative at Cosmopolitan for a little clarity and we received the following information:

If the guest is a Marriott member, they will have to choose either to earn or use their points strictly through Marriott. They do have to make their resort reservations through Marriott reward center... if they choose that route. If they choose to book directly through us or third party agents, they will be earning their points with us.

Given the information, we might take different tactics to booking a stay with Cosmopolitan. If we frequent Las Vegas multiple times a year and want to maximize our Identity points, we'll book through Cosmo. If we only stay in Vegas once or twice and can get more mileage from Marriott, we'd probably go that route.

Hopefully, this clears up any confusion. Thanks to Emerlink for making us aware of the situation and thanks to the Cosmo staff for helping us make sense of this. Send us an email if you have any new tips�or questions.

Comments (3)

Return to » When Staying at The Cosmo, It's Identity vs. Marriott

Thanks for the shoutout :)

Was able to get a Platinum match but it seemed that the dedicated casino host was more trouble than it was worth. We never got assigned a specific host, so everytime we needed assistance (even when we went to the Identity desk, they kept telling us to contact our host) it became a challenge. Of course not having one they sent us to the high limit area to hunt one down and it was more of a "who are you and why are you here" exchange. A little awkward.

I can't say that it was a bad stay, but I can say that the perks that were advertised were not delivered. The complimentary airport transfers was actually a bus that they tried to charge $6 per person each way. Also the enhanced turndown service with a special gift didn't happen and when I requested it they said only VIPs get turndown service. Also the late check out request for an hour later (went to the spa which was great!) was met with much resistence. Had to call 3x's before getting them to extend it.

I noticed one point from the article from the Cosmo rep: "they do have to make their resort reservations through Marriott reward center... if they choose that route. If they choose to book directly through us or third party agents, they will be earning their points with us."

I book directly with Cosmo res and they entered my Marriott Rewards number and it credited the hotel portion to my account. I'll see what happens with this last stay.

Good luck with everything. I was given a host card, but haven't reached out yet. I'm not sure I will since I won't be staying/playing all the time, even though I like Cosmo a lot.

I've booked 2/3 of my stays at the Cosmo during the past year and had only ONCE come across the problem of having the only option of earning Marriott Rewards Points. I've always had my Identity card linked to all my reservations even when I've booked through Marriott. I would end up receiving full credit Identity Points (10 per $1) for my stay and not the 1,000 points you get for booking with a 3rd Party. Once in May did I notice I didn't receive the credit for our weekend stay so I called and was told, "When you check in you have the option of choosing to receive Marriott Rewards or Identity Points. " Had I caught this earlier (within 30 days I believe it was) I could have swapped the Rewards for Points, granting me Gold status a lil' earlier than expected.

I also booked once through Jetsetter.com. They've got awesome deals btw. And I only received the 1,000 points.

VegasChatter

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