VIDEO POKER
 Bob Dancer writes a video poker column for beginners to experts. He also writes a column each week with Jeffrey Compton titled Player's Edge, which features information on promotions at various Las Vegas Hotel. Player's Edge is published each Friday in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Click here to send Bob Dancer an e-mail.
June 19, 2001
Airline Fare Redemption
Periodically I teach a seminar at the University of Nevada Reno campus. They pay me a stipend, offer modest housing for one night if I want it, and pick up airfare. If I bring Shirley along to assist me, they'll make sure the room is big enough for two, but Shirley's airfare is on me. Usually we'll use this seminar as an excuse for a 3-day trip to some Reno casino, and we'll stay in one of the hotel rooms because we play enough for considerably nicer rooms than what UNR offers.
On one of these trips, I told Jeffrey that we would be staying at the Atlantis. He asked me how much I would be playing. I told him. This was more than he expected so I told him that I wanted to play enough to get my airfare reimbursed. He was shocked! "But your airfare has already been picked up! Don't you think it wrong to ask for it to be picked up again?"
No, I don't. As far as I am concerned, if I have played sufficiently to warrant airfare being picked up it doesn't matter if somebody else is also picking it up. The airfare is simply an additional cash complimentary that I am entitled to."
Needless to say, Jeffrey disagreed. I tried it another way.
"If I owe you $20, does it really matter whether you are dead broke or have $10,000 in your pocket? I think not. And if you agree to that, why should it matter to the casino how many times players have received full or partial rebates for their airfare?"
For me personally, asking for airfare on this occasion was a rare case. I live in Vegas and don't go on many out-of-town casino trips. So me asking for airfare even once is extremely rare. But a number of players play at two or three or more Vegas casinos in a single weekend, and if they play enough, demand airfare from each one.
If you ask these players, they will argue much as I did that if they play enough to deserve the airfare, why should they not be able to collect it? If you ask casinos whether or not this is ethical behavior, most casino executives will say words to the effect that players to get airfare from more than one casino are taking advantage of the system.
The casino executives are correct, of course. And the goal of many winning players is to take advantage of the system every chance they get. After all, why play more on double point days than you do on single point days if it is not to take advantage of the system?
I know some players from back east who would far rather get a $700 air ticket than a $300 one. Why? Because they collect on it three times every trip. And collecting on the first ticket three times leaves them $1,400 to the good, while collecting on the second one three times leaves them only $600 to the good.
Casinos are striking back, as is to be expected. Some insist on seeing the actual ticket and stamping the ticket in bold letters, "Reimbursed by the xxx casino." Many casinos are demanding that you lose this trip before they will pay airfare. This would, to me, be an unfair action if no player were taking advantage of the system. But since so many players are collecting more than once, perhaps it's not so unfair for the casinos to control these costs any way they can.
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