Caesars Wipes Your Whole Balance After Six Quiet Months. PENN's Clock Can Be 30 Days.
Four big casino programs, four different expiry clocks. One takes the whole balance at every tier, one only touches its bottom tier, and one gives entry-level members 30 days.
Caesars Rewards does not expire old points and keep new ones. If you go six months without earning a single Reward Credit, the whole balance goes, and that is true at every tier. A Seven Stars member who stops playing loses the same way as someone who signed up last spring.
Most people find this out when they open the app before a trip and see a zero. The rules are published, though, and they differ a lot between the big programs. Here are the four that cover most of the regional casinos in our directory, with more programs in our rewards guide.
Caesars: every tier, the whole balance
Caesars' own help page on the subject is short. Reward Credits expire six months from the last date of activity unless at least one Reward Credit is earned in that time. There is no tier exception on the page, and the whole account balance goes, not just the credits that are six months old.
What counts as activity is broader than a casino visit. Caesars lists play or purchases on your card at a Caesars property, purchases with the Caesars Rewards Visa, shopping through the Caesars Rewards eCatalog, and buying virtual coins in its free-to-play games on Facebook. One Reward Credit from any of those resets the six months.
Tier Credits are a separate count. They build your status and reset each calendar year whether you play or not, so keeping Reward Credits alive does nothing for your tier.
MGM only watches its bottom tier
MGM's terms put the six-month rule on Sapphire members only. At Sapphire, MGM Rewards Points and SLOT DOLLARS expire after six months of inactivity. From Pearl up, they do not expire.
The definition of activity is narrow. It means earning SLOT DOLLARS or earning Tier Credits, and nothing else. Logging in does not count and neither does redeeming. Tier Credits do come from non-gaming spending at MGM properties, though, so a meal or a spa visit charged to your MGM Rewards account works as well as a slot session.
Pearl takes 20,000 Tier Credits in a calendar year, so most casual players sit at Sapphire and live under the clock.
PENN Play runs three different clocks
PENN Play replaced the old mychoice program in April 2023, and its expiry depends on your tier. According to PENN's published tier table, PENN Cash expires after 30 days of inactivity at the entry tier, called Play, and after six months at Advantage and Preferred. At Elite and Owners Club it does not expire while you hold the tier. Thirty days is the shortest clock of any big program we track. A player who visits a Hollywood casino such as Hollywood Columbus once a month can lose a Play-tier balance just by skipping one visit.
Tier points carry over into the next year only up to a cap. Advantage members carry over up to 500, Preferred up to 5,000, Elite up to 15,000 and Owners Club up to 30,000. Anything above the cap is gone at the reset.
Boyd, and the word may
Boyd Rewards has two different rules. Tier points reset every six months on a fixed schedule. Boyd's points, the ones you redeem, are subject to a discretionary rule: Boyd may forfeit them after six months with no activity on your card. "May" is doing real work in that sentence. It gives Boyd the right, not a duty, and in practice you cannot know in advance whether a quiet account will be cleared. Treat it as six months.
| Program | How long without activity | Who is exempt | What keeps it alive |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caesars Rewards | 6 months, whole balance | No one | Earning 1 Reward Credit, including via the Visa or eCatalog |
| MGM Rewards | 6 months | Pearl and above | Earning SLOT DOLLARS or Tier Credits |
| PENN Play | 30 days at Play, 6 months at Advantage and Preferred | Elite and Owners Club | Activity on your account |
| Boyd Rewards | 6 months (at Boyd's discretion) | Not stated | Card activity |
Where the standard advice is wrong
The standard advice is to never let points expire: make a small play every few months and keep the balance alive.
For a lot of balances that is bad advice.
Take a Sapphire member with a small MGM balance and no plans to visit. Keeping it alive means a trip to an MGM property. If that trip is an hour each way, the gas and the time easily cost more than the balance is worth. The better habit is the opposite one. Spend small balances before you leave the property, on free play, a meal or whatever the program allows, and start from zero next time.
Caesars is the exception, because there the keep-alive can happen without going anywhere. One purchase on the Caesars Rewards Visa earns a Reward Credit and restarts the six months, and for a large balance that is worth doing. Our side-by-side comparison shows what each program's points are worth once you have them, and current point multipliers lists the days when earning costs the least.
The rule worth putting in a calendar is PENN's. At the Play tier, 30 days is shorter than the gap between most people's visits.
Topics
- caesars-rewards
- mgm-rewards
- penn-play
- boyd-rewards
- comps