Between Pokerstar's Elite Super Nova, Full Tilt's Ironman and Ultimate Bet's Icon is there any consensus on which site offers the best loyalty program? Does Pokerstar's offer anything that makes up for the insignificant sign up bonus and non-existent rake back?

AP, if you like getting the most money.

Who didn't see this one coming?


I'd vote for PS, but rakeback at FT or AP is more important to me.

Eh, you can say I'm pimping AP a bit, but it's hard to argue with several thousand dollars in extra monies every month, lol.

True, that is if you are a winning player.. most are not. (obv you are)


(not sure what the point of this post is)

What does AP have going for it other than cash for points? I didn't even know they had a loyalty program.

Right now I'm working on Rai$e, their 9% per annum interest rate on your bank roll looks worth it, but I'm not sure how practical it's going to be.

AP owns UB dude...

Where do you think the idea for UB's program came from?

AP has basically bottomless bonus, 30% rakeback, points for cash, free tournament entries, VIP freerolls, VIP customer service which is almost as good as Stars, imho, even faster, because I can just chat or call them...

Oh, and the 9% deal if you're Elite, but it's dumb, because you can't withdraw or transfer for the entire month to get the 9%/12 payment.

You're right, the two programs are identical with few exceptions, would you hold one, or both, of them above FullTilt?

Well, I haven't played on UB in probably like 3 years, so I've got no real idea of how good UB's program is, but I know for a fact their popularity has been dropping lately, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's very good.

Either way, I know AP is much much better than FT, and I'm going to assume UB is.

FTP is awful, fwiw. The rb is only 27%, and any and all fees, freerolls, point-store purchases, etc are deducted from your MGR, so it's less than that, in effect. In addition to that, their FPPs or whatever they want to call them are next to worthless, just look at the store, and check out the crap you can buy, and how expensive they are, etc.

The beauty of AP is you can trade it all for cash, within a pretty small timeframe.

The biggest drawback to AP, is they changed the points for cash promo a little bit, so that in order to get the max value for them, you need to wait until you've accumulated 200,000 points, which could take a while, depending on the limits you play. You can trade them at 50,000 as well, you only get 66% of the return you'd get if you waited.

Otherwise, bonus clears into cash rather quickly, and well, RB is just normal, in the sense that you get it once a month from most places, but some providers let you cash out daily, or by request (and I'm sure that's true for other sites as well).

Anyways, I know people are partial to FTP and Stars, and hate AP because of the superuser scandal, but in the end, for me, trying to make a living, it's all about the bottom line, and AP is far and away the best for that. I'd imagine UB comes second, with FTP then Stars after that.

i have a differently structured deal than zach with AP but in terms of benefits it's quite similar all told. AP>>>>>all else, even though i kinda dislike the idea of playing there after the scandal. FTP is by far the worst, though.

Yeah, UB's program is a direct rip off of AP's program plus some other incentives ala auction house. I think I'm going to make the move just to clear the sign up bonus. Any suggestions on rake back providers for AP?

I use Rakebreak and have never had any problems.

For interested parties, 7Stud generates a Rai$e point per anti, which is significantly more cost efficient than other games on a small bank roll. 100 hands at 10$ in antis for 100 Rai$e points has cleared the first three levels in less than a week. The game is also ridiculously soft, for what it's worth.

Bumping for posterity,

After switching from UB to AP for a month I found UB > AP; the bonus dollars clear slower at AP, with a point system based on a .50 cent rake instead of number of hands played, you're clearing 5$ every 3 hours four tabling .25/50 full handed. Increasing member status is at least 5 to 10 times as slow at AP as it is on UB, with a point system based on 4$ wagers instead of number of hands played. AP has a 500$ minimum ARP cash out compared to UB's 25$ minimum U{ cash out. Granted AP's 3,000$ max ARP cash out is higher than UB's 1,000$ max UP cash out and has a 1 cent higher conversion rate, but i've put in 30,000 hands and I'm still not even close to reaching that point.

AP seemed categorically worse for any one playing 1/2 and under compared to UB, about the only thing AP had going for it was a reload every week. AP seems tailored to 2/4+ or at least .50/1.00 with 4xBB raises or Omaha style games.

I also HATED starring at Serinda Swan for hours on in, so not that hot.

You know how I know you're gay?

You know how I know you play poker with one hand?

It takes more than one hand to play poker?

I like Tower's loyalty program but have been on FTP quite a lot lately.