Trip to Winstar
I haven't been going to Winstar lately -- usually been going to Choctaw instead. However...
I had to work on Saturday, and it was a great big dumb situation that led to me having to work early Sunday morning as well. As compensation, my boss told me I could take Monday off. So Shae and I wound up both up pretty early on Sunday, with Monday off. As luck would have it, Shae had JUST thrown away a coupon for a free night at Winstar (Sun-Thu only, obv) since we'd never be able to use it. Sigh. So I suggested that she call Winstar and just ask if we could have a free room. FYI, the reason I had her call is that since she's played slots up there a couple of times, she gets promos out the yin-yang, whereas I am a lowly poker player and get nothing, nothing!
Anyway, Winstar is more than happy to give us a free room for the night. Yay! We must be super special! So we pack and head on up. Lunch was at Appleebee's -- I have some gift cards I got from my stupid credit cards reward program, so free lunch. Shae hangs out in the Skyline bar working on our new burger restaurant concept while I grind out $165 playing $1-$3 NLHE until we can check in. Oh, yeah, while walking through the casino they announced on the PA that they had free rooms to give out, and as we were driving to the hotel (they're connected, but the poker room is more than a mile from the hotel and we had bags) there was a flashing sign outside advertising FREE ROOMS! So yeah, not so special.
Our room is pretty nice -- your standard new hotel room. We hang out and relax and drink and get room service. Shae eventually falls asleep and I hit the poker room again, this time playing $1-$2NLHE. It's a pretty relaxed table. At some point I mention my free room, as does another player at the table. So then a third guy is like, "Free rooms, sweet!" and vanishes for 45 minutes. When he gets back, he is out of breath and angry. Turns out the casino sent him on a long-ass wild goose chase, from guest services to the players club to the box office to this person to that person and so on, until he finally spoke to a floor manager in a suit who told him that all he needed to do was go to the hotel and they'd check him in and comp his room. But surprise, the hotel told him the room was $139 a night! Poor bastard.
I win about $135 in this session, and then head back to the room to give my wife gatorade and ice cream and sprite and stuff while we watch Bar Rescue. A surprising number of people are unclear on the concept of making a bar that people would actually like to go to and drink at.
Anyway, the next morning, we head down to the box office to see what our scratch-off mailer prize worth up to $500 was. It said in big letters on the card -- IF YOU SCRATCH THIS OFF ANYWHERE BUT IN FRONT OF US, YOU GET NOTHING! Presumably because 99% of the prizes were vacuum coffee mugs with the Winstar logo and most people wouldn't make the drive just for that. Spoiler alert, that's what ours was, too!
On the way out, we decided to run some money through a slot machine to hopefully stay on the comp radar. We put money in a Plants vs Zombies machine, and 4 spins in we hit some weird Gargantaur bonus for 13,500 credits, which means we profited $125. Screw comps. Let's bail.
And we did. A fun trip, and a total free-roll. Sweet!
I had to work on Saturday, and it was a great big dumb situation that led to me having to work early Sunday morning as well. As compensation, my boss told me I could take Monday off. So Shae and I wound up both up pretty early on Sunday, with Monday off. As luck would have it, Shae had JUST thrown away a coupon for a free night at Winstar (Sun-Thu only, obv) since we'd never be able to use it. Sigh. So I suggested that she call Winstar and just ask if we could have a free room. FYI, the reason I had her call is that since she's played slots up there a couple of times, she gets promos out the yin-yang, whereas I am a lowly poker player and get nothing, nothing!
Anyway, Winstar is more than happy to give us a free room for the night. Yay! We must be super special! So we pack and head on up. Lunch was at Appleebee's -- I have some gift cards I got from my stupid credit cards reward program, so free lunch. Shae hangs out in the Skyline bar working on our new burger restaurant concept while I grind out $165 playing $1-$3 NLHE until we can check in. Oh, yeah, while walking through the casino they announced on the PA that they had free rooms to give out, and as we were driving to the hotel (they're connected, but the poker room is more than a mile from the hotel and we had bags) there was a flashing sign outside advertising FREE ROOMS! So yeah, not so special.
Our room is pretty nice -- your standard new hotel room. We hang out and relax and drink and get room service. Shae eventually falls asleep and I hit the poker room again, this time playing $1-$2NLHE. It's a pretty relaxed table. At some point I mention my free room, as does another player at the table. So then a third guy is like, "Free rooms, sweet!" and vanishes for 45 minutes. When he gets back, he is out of breath and angry. Turns out the casino sent him on a long-ass wild goose chase, from guest services to the players club to the box office to this person to that person and so on, until he finally spoke to a floor manager in a suit who told him that all he needed to do was go to the hotel and they'd check him in and comp his room. But surprise, the hotel told him the room was $139 a night! Poor bastard.
I win about $135 in this session, and then head back to the room to give my wife gatorade and ice cream and sprite and stuff while we watch Bar Rescue. A surprising number of people are unclear on the concept of making a bar that people would actually like to go to and drink at.
Anyway, the next morning, we head down to the box office to see what our scratch-off mailer prize worth up to $500 was. It said in big letters on the card -- IF YOU SCRATCH THIS OFF ANYWHERE BUT IN FRONT OF US, YOU GET NOTHING! Presumably because 99% of the prizes were vacuum coffee mugs with the Winstar logo and most people wouldn't make the drive just for that. Spoiler alert, that's what ours was, too!
On the way out, we decided to run some money through a slot machine to hopefully stay on the comp radar. We put money in a Plants vs Zombies machine, and 4 spins in we hit some weird Gargantaur bonus for 13,500 credits, which means we profited $125. Screw comps. Let's bail.
And we did. A fun trip, and a total free-roll. Sweet!