Ever since we launched Flip The Switch, one of our enduring pieces of advice has been simple: (Almost) always use a players card. The casino can’t calculate your value, and the casino offers derived for that value, without you playing with it. With comps potentially making up 20-40% of your expected losses on a visit, it can be a very expensive mistake.
But now, thanks to recent experience, the advice gets a bit more precise: Be sure to play with YOUR players card.
In my case, I was visiting Las Vegas and decided to take advantage of a point multiplier scenario that happened to overlap with a play and earn offer. 1,500 points allowed me to earn all the free play on that offer and also get enough base points to achieve what I wanted.
I went in on the first day both promotions were active, and made some good headway, even coming out a bit ahead financially. I decided to stop at 1,000 of the 1,500 points, as I was getting tired, with the plan of going back the next day.
The next day, I returned, and played to finish out the remaining 500 points. I did, and luck would have it, I also ended up ahead. Rarely do working these sorts of things go my way, but I was pleased with my planning and execution of this round of events.
Then I pulled out the card in the machine and realized it wasn’t mine.
See, in my casually sitting down to settle in and put in money, I didn’t mentally connect a card was already in the machine. I just presumed at the time I had put that in first, when in fact the card was there already.
So, I went to the players club desk and asked if anything could be done. They said I would need to speak to a slot supervisor. So I went back to the machine where I earned the points (luckily for me my play was all at once on one machine), pushed the service light (where the machine still showed my cash out amount – no one had put money in since, also lucky), and waited.
A slot attendant came out and, as the players club rep affirmed, it would be a supervisor who would need to assist. She came out pretty quickly, asked some questions, and told me it could take a couple of days to work it out. I opted to play a bit more on that machine, and while doing so, she came back a couple of times after that to ask more questions to hone in on when I played, and eventually was able to isolate my play to the dollar on the other player’s card, and manually credit me for it.
I got a text message on my phone from her as I had left the area to go find some food, and when I saw the amount wagered and how precisely on point it was, I was applauding the Sherlock Holmes level of commitment this supervisor put into my stupid mistake. She figured it out, was apologetic to me (I was the idiot) and ultimately turned my whole day around.
This was one of those times where I wasn’t expecting much could be done, but they were able to solve the problem. Best of all, I still got credit for those points towards both the play to earn and the multiplier, so I was able to achieve my goal without having to play for a portion of the points twice because of my mistake of not checking the card in the machine first.
This was a great example of a time where a team member went above and beyond, and was able to turn my trip around. I was sure to give them a shout out in the feedback survey when I got the email (never fail to call out the casino team members who take care of you so they can get recognition too – thank you Lori)!
And I’ve definitely learned my lesson to always be sure I’m putting my own card in before I get going – that could have been a very expensive mistake. Hopefully my idiocy can stop you from making your own similar mistake in the future. Play with a card, but to ensure you get proper credit, be sure you’re using your own.
