The next big step in the Casino Status Match Run is to book your Atlantic City flights, transportation, and hotels. If you want to play it safe, you’ll want to book everything after you’ve secured your Wyndham Diamond and Caesars Diamond statuses. In the case of my friend and I, we live out-of-state so we both had to book flights into Philadelphia and then rent a car to take us the rest of the way to Atlantic City. Also, since it was both our first time in A.C., we thought if would be fun to make it a trip our of it and decided to stay two night out there. 

• Related Article: Casino Status Match Run (Part 3): Caesars Diamond Status Match

 

Hotel: Book Your Atlantic City Hotel Rooms at Borgata for Free

If you haven’t read my post on how to get free hotel rooms at Borgata in Atlantic City, you can find the post here. Essentially, you have to play a free slot machine game called myVEGAS to earn free hotel rooms. You can totally skip this section if you do not intend on playing the game or if you plan on going to Atlantic City on the weekend since the hotel deal is only good Mon-Thurs.

Step 1: Redeem your myVEGAS Borgata Reward

Once you’ve reached 100,000 Loyalty Points, you can now redeem them on the app for a free night at Borgata Atlantic City. My friend and I both play the game and got to redeem a free night each. We’re going to combine our two redemption together so we can stay in Atlantic City for two nights back-to-back. This is nice especially since our first day there will be mostly wasted due to flights and driving. 

Once you’ve redeemed your Loyalty Points, you’ll get Purchase Reward Confirmation by email with a redemption link that you’ll have to click. It’ll take you to the MGM Rewards website where you need to sign into your account that you should have already made when you first started playing the myVEGAS game. 

Step 2: Load Your Free Hotel Night Into Your Account

Once you’ve logged into your MGM Rewards account, your complimentary night will be loaded automatically. You can then scroll through the calendars to see what dates are available. In my experience, almost all the Monday through Thursday dates were available. 

 

Step 3: Book Your Hotel Night 

Last step is to pick which room you want to book and pay the resort fee. Since there was two of us, we went with the Classic Queen. If you’re looking for King beds, they have those as well along with smoking rooms which you don’t see to often now! Of course, it’s never “free free” since there’s the pesky $30 resort fee per night which is actually $41.63 after taxes and fees. So, for our two nights, we spent $83.26. If you are MGM Gold or higher though, you do get resort fees waived.

 

Flight: How to Get to Atlantic City By Plane

First and foremost, if you are not driving distance from Atlantic City, you’ll want to pay close attention to the below. Again, this was my first time visiting so a lot of research went into how to get to Atlantic City. 

What Route Did We Book?

I will be coming from Los Angeles and my friend will be coming from Atlanta, so we decided to fly into Philadelphia since there were a lot of non-stop flights where we could plan on getting in at the same time. We both tried looking up miles redemptions, but in the end, paying the cash rate was the better way to go.

I paid $159 on American Airlines for a round trip flight in Basic Economy and my friend paid $129 on Delta on Basic Economy. We are both NOT Basic Economy (non-refundable) people but the next fare difference up was an extra $100! The Main fare didn’t seem worth it to me especially when it cost more than half the ticket.

Option 1: Fly Directly to Atlantic City International Airport (ACY)

• Pros: The closest airport to Atlantic City, located about 10 miles (16 km) from the city center. This option is convenient, especially if you can find a direct flight.
• Cons: Limited number of flights and airlines serve ACY, so options might be limited.

Transportation from ACY:

• Taxi/Uber/Lyft: Direct, quick, and easy; about a 20-minute drive.
• Shuttle Services: Some hotels and casinos offer shuttle services from ACY.
• Car Rental: Available at the airport if you prefer driving yourself.

Option 2: Fly to Philadelphia International Airport (PHL)

• Pros: Larger airport with more flight options and connections. PHL is about 60 miles (97 km) from Atlantic City.
• Cons: Requires additional transportation to Atlantic City.

Transportation from PHL:

• NJ Transit Train: Take the SEPTA train from PHL to 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, then transfer to the NJ Transit train to Atlantic City. The total travel time is about 2.5 hours.
• Bus: Greyhound and other bus services run from PHL to Atlantic City.
• Car Rental/Taxi/Uber/Lyft: You can rent a car or take a taxi/Uber for a more direct route, which takes about 1.5 hours by car. 

Option 3: Fly to Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR)

• Pros: Another major airport option, especially if you’re coming from an international location or can’t find suitable flights to ACY or PHL.
• Cons: Further from Atlantic City, about 115 miles (185 km) away.

Transportation from EWR:

• NJ Transit Train: Take the NJ Transit train from Newark to Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station, then transfer to the NJ Transit train to Atlantic City. Travel time is about 3 hours.
• Car Rental/Taxi/Uber/Lyft: Driving takes about 2.5 hours.

Option 4: Fly to New York City Airports (JFK or La Guardia)

• Pros: Suitable for international travelers or those flying from regions with better connections to NYC.
• Cons: Further away, with more complex and longer travel times.

Transportation from NYC:

• Bus: Several bus companies operate routes between NYC and Atlantic City.
• NJ Transit Train: You can take a train to Philadelphia and then connect to Atlantic City, but this can take 3-4 hours.
• Car Rental/Taxi/Uber/Lyft: Driving from NYC takes about 2.5 hours.

Summary:

• Best for Convenience: Fly directly to ACY.
• Best for Flexibility: Fly to PHL, then take a train, bus, or rent a car.
• Best for International Travelers: Fly to EWR or NYC airports, then take a bus, train, or drive.

 

Rental Car: Booking the Car Rental

As you can see from the above, there are many ways to get to Atlantic City once you’ve landed at the airport of your choice. My friend and I are normally public transit people, but Google Maps said it would take 2.5 hour to get to Atlantic City by public transit vs. 1.5 hours by car. Also, since our casino status match run coincides with the East Coast’s famous fall foliage season, we thought it would be fun to make a road trip out of it. 

• Rental Car: For a two-day car rental picking up and dropping at PHL airport, it was going to cost $147.30 through Costco.
• Toll Pass: If you’re renting a car, you might get offered the EZ Pass toll sensor where you stick it the front windshield of your car. It cost us $10 for the 2 days (I believe they charge $5 per day). It’s just something you can add-on as a convenience instead of having to have exact change for the tolls all the time. Keep in mind that it does NOT include the tolls. We initially got the EZ Pass because the rental lady at the counter told us the tolls were included. We found out later they were not.
• Gas: Gas is SO much cheaper out there than in California. For the whole two days, gas only cost us $20.52.
• Tolls: For our whole road trip from Philadelphia to Atlantic City and back, cost us $14.25 in tolls. 

 

YouTube

If you want to follow along on our status match journey, I made a short YouTube video so you can get a visual of what we went through once we got to Atlantic City. I only have Part 1 up right now, but I’ll update the page once I have Part 2 up and running as well. 

 

 

Breakdown: Booking Flight, Hotel, Car Rental to Atlantic City

Task	Cost	Time
Booking RT Flight to Atlantic City	$129-$159	–
Booking Two Nights at Borgata	$83.26 ($41.63+$41.63 Resort Fees)	–
Booking Rental Car	$192.07 ($147.30+$10+$20.52+$14.25)	–
Total	$281.67/person (average)	–