Any updated restrictions on X OBC?

[chisoxfan]

My assumptions were that X provided OBC was non-refundable and could be used for dining, drinks, excursions, and on board shops. Have heard rumblings that there are more restrictions on usage in casino? Would greatly appreciate any comments on OBC usage particularly in casino. Thanks in advance.

[jelayne]

DH used OBC to play blackjack and poker 2 weeks ago. 
 

[cruisestitch]

34 minutes ago, chisoxfan said:

My assumptions were that X provided OBC was non-refundable and could be used for dining, drinks, excursions, and on board shops. Have heard rumblings that there are more restrictions on usage in casino? Would greatly appreciate any comments on OBC usage particularly in casino. Thanks in advance.

Rumblings? Source?

[awhfy]

Only thing you can’t use it on is to book another cruise

[abbydancer2003]

It appears on some ships (Apex for sure) there are now some restrictions on OBC for slots.  If you put in, say 50.00 and do 5 spins of .50 each and you decide to cash out, you'll be locked out for the rest of the cruise.  

 

 

[chisoxfan]

11 hours ago, abbydancer said:

It appears on some ships (Apex for sure) there are now some restrictions on OBC for slots.  If you put in, say 50.00 and do 5 spins of .50 each and you decide to cash out, you'll be locked out for the rest of the cruise.  

 

 

Merry Christmas!  On Ascent upcoming... will probably have to question casino manager as the rules seem unclear. Can't believe they will lock you out? Our goal isn't necessarily to cash out OBC but just to understand process. My wife likes slots and spending OBC in casino is as much fun for us (her) as 200 dollar specialty dinners. 

[wrk2cruise]

When they say locked out it's just that you are locked out from transferring additional funds from your seapass account until you play a min percentage of what you already took.  We have heard it anywhere from 10%-50%.

 

If you are locked out you also can't take advantage of any time they load $5 or $10 promotional play like they do some nights.   We have been successful in asking an attendant and they will unlock for the promo play.

 

If you are going to take OBC this way I would suggest you take the entire amount at one time so if you do get locked out it won't matter.

[abbydancer2003]

2 hours ago, wrk2cruise said:

When they say locked out it's just that you are locked out from transferring additional funds from your seapass account until you play a min percentage of what you already took.  We have heard it anywhere from 10%-50%.

 

If you are locked out you also can't take advantage of any time they load $5 or $10 promotional play like they do some nights.   We have been successful in asking an attendant and they will unlock for the promo play.

 

If you are going to take OBC this way I would suggest you take the entire amount at one time so if you do get locked out it won't matter.

It was 50% on Apex.  Sorry, I wasn't quite clear.  You could still play, but no more transfers until you played 50%. And if you have more than 500 of OBC, you can't transfer more than that at a time.  

 

[Jim_Iain]

The general restrictions I've seen is that if you take out OBC in casino you will receive promotional chips.   If you play one say 5 dollars and win 5 dollars they give you a regular cash chip that can be redeemed. 

 

On slots you can transfer a certain $ amount to slot.   Differs on each ship Max amount.    You have to play at least 50% or will be locked out from further withdraws.     When I say play it means churn -   it isn't the amount you win.   So if you took out $300 you would have to at least use $150 total in the slots to be locked out.       e.g.   If you bet $50 and won $300 you only bet $50 of the 150 to be unlocked.

[billc23]

3 hours ago, Jim_Iain said:

The general restrictions I've seen is that if you take out OBC in casino you will receive promotional chips.   If you play one say 5 dollars and win 5 dollars they give you a regular cash chip that can be redeemed. 

 

On slots you can transfer a certain $ amount to slot.   Differs on each ship Max amount.    You have to play at least 50% or will be locked out from further withdraws.     When I say play it means churn -   it isn't the amount you win.   So if you took out $300 you would have to at least use $150 total in the slots to be locked out.       e.g.   If you bet $50 and won $300 you only bet $50 of the 150 to be unlocked.

Jim - does it matter if you use your sea pass card to receive points when playing. I found that if I put my voucher in a machine and cash it out to a new voucher - then repeat on a different machine, all without putting my sea pass  card in the machine, I could cash out at the cashier to receive real dollars without a problem. 

I wrote about the process earlier in the year and described how it was a little different between the Millennium, Infinity, and Reflection. I do not believe anyone tried it or even commented on what I did to give a yea or nay and maybe it doesn't work now. 

[abbydancer2003]

1 minute ago, billc23 said:

Jim - does it matter if you use your sea pass card to receive points when playing. I found that if I put my voucher in a machine and cash it out to a new voucher - then repeat on a different machine, all without putting my sea pass  card in the machine, I could cash out at the cashier to receive real dollars without a problem. 

I wrote about the process earlier in the year and described how it was a little different between the Millennium, Infinity, and Reflection. I do not believe anyone tried it or even commented on what I did to give a yea or nay and maybe it doesn't work now. 

I was told that to use a voucher again I needed to use my card.  Otherwise, I think it would still show that I hadn't bet my 50% of whatever.  I might be misunderstanding your question.

[billc23]

Just now, abbydancer said:

I was told that to use a voucher again I needed to use my card.  Otherwise, I think it would still show that I hadn't bet my 50% of whatever.  I might be misunderstanding your question.

I was on the Reflection Oct 31, 2022 TA. I went to the cashier for a voucher and walked over to a Video Poker machine. The machine would not take it so I tried another VP machine and got the same results. I proceeded to the cashier who told me it was a known problem and I would need to use cash in the VP machines. The cashier gave my voucher to another person who went over to a slot machine, put it in and cashed it out immediately to receive a new voucher without betting at all. He gave the new voucher to the cashier who scanned it and gave me cash. So I tried the same process. Get the voucher from my NR OBC, put it in a slot machine and cashed it out to a new voucher. I would then put the new voucher in a different slot and cashed it out also. No sea pass card used. Not wanting to go back to the cashier with the round number I took out initially, I put some cash in the slot along with my voucher and cashed that out to another new voucher. No problem getting real cash from the cashier without any gambling. 

 

I am not certain but it seemed that the voucher was sanitized of my information regarding NR OBC.

 

Another person I was chatting with had been locked out for not using enough of the NR OBC. I told her the process above and her partner removed all their NR OBC on the account without a problem. 

 

Maybe this process does not work anymore. 

 

I am looking forward to meeting you on the Solstice. I'm HK to Vancouver.

 

[abbydancer2003]

9 minutes ago, billc23 said:

I was on the Reflection Oct 31, 2022 TA. I went to the cashier for a voucher and walked over to a Video Poker machine. The machine would not take it so I tried another VP machine and got the same results. I proceeded to the cashier who told me it was a known problem and I would need to use cash in the VP machines. The cashier gave my voucher to another person who went over to a slot machine, put it in and cashed it out immediately to receive a new voucher without betting at all. He gave the new voucher to the cashier who scanned it and gave me cash. So I tried the same process. Get the voucher from my NR OBC, put it in a slot machine and cashed it out to a new voucher. I would then put the new voucher in a different slot and cashed it out also. No sea pass card used. Not wanting to go back to the cashier with the round number I took out initially, I put some cash in the slot along with my voucher and cashed that out to another new voucher. No problem getting real cash from the cashier without any gambling. 

 

I am not certain but it seemed that the voucher was sanitized of my information regarding NR OBC.

 

Another person I was chatting with had been locked out for not using enough of the NR OBC. I told her the process above and her partner removed all their NR OBC on the account without a problem. 

 

Maybe this process does not work anymore. 

 

I am looking forward to meeting you on the Solstice. I'm HK to Vancouver.

 

You too.  I think I was at the cage 3-4 times asking questions.  In 2022, I had no problem going to a slot machine, using some OBC, playing a few spins, and cashing out.  I'd cash out after one spin if I won a few cents.  

Not anymore.  And when I asked about reinserting the vouchers until I played 50% they were very clear (more than once) that I had to put my sea pass card in.  

 

It may be different because you started with the cashier.  Presumably, they asked your room number? 

 

 

[billc23]

3 minutes ago, abbydancer said:

You too.  I think I was at the cage 3-4 times asking questions.  In 2022, I had no problem going to a slot machine, using some OBC, playing a few spins, and cashing out.  I'd cash out after one spin if I won a few cents.  

Not anymore.  And when I asked about reinserting the vouchers until I played 50% they were very clear (more than once) that I had to put my sea pass card in.  

 

It may be different because you started with the cashier.  Presumably, they asked your room number? 

 

 

Yes, the cashier needed my sea pass to withdraw the NR OBC and give me a voucher. I believe that on the Millennium I used the banker on the machine, the cashed out. Went to another machine and used the voucher without my sea pass card. I could then receive cash from the cashier regardless of playing at all. If you use their bonus program - the one where you receive a bonus above what you withdraw - then you must use your sea pass card and what I described will not work. I will try it on the Ascent Jan 21 sailing and see what happens. Just a game for me because I use the OBC as additional tips and if I cannot receive cash I just fill out the form provided for additional tips.

[abbydancer2003]

11 minutes ago, billc23 said:

Yes, the cashier needed my sea pass to withdraw the NR OBC and give me a voucher. I believe that on the Millennium I used the banker on the machine, the cashed out. Went to another machine and used the voucher without my sea pass card. I could then receive cash from the cashier regardless of playing at all. If you use their bonus program - the one where you receive a bonus above what you withdraw - then you must use your sea pass card and what I described will not work. I will try it on the Ascent Jan 21 sailing and see what happens. Just a game for me because I use the OBC as additional tips and if I cannot receive cash I just fill out the form provided for additional tips.

I think this was a fairly recent change - although it's been about 7 months since I did the quick cashout.

I also use the OBC for additional tips.

[billc23]

1 hour ago, abbydancer said:

I think this was a fairly recent change - although it's been about 7 months since I did the quick cashout.

I also use the OBC for additional tips.

I'll check it out in January. My only X cruise since March was on the Flora, I sort of jumped ship.

[Jim_Iain]

5 hours ago, billc23 said:

Jim - does it matter if you use your sea pass card to receive points when playing. I found that if I put my voucher in a machine and cash it out to a new voucher - then repeat on a different machine, all without putting my sea pass  card in the machine, I could cash out at the cashier to receive real dollars without a problem. 

I wrote about the process earlier in the year and described how it was a little different between the Millennium, Infinity, and Reflection. I do not believe anyone tried it or even commented on what I did to give a yea or nay and maybe it doesn't work now. 

 

You can cash out immediately without even spinning if you wish.   The only thing is you would be frozen out from additional withdrawals.    I at least spin a couple times on a penny machine to not look too obvious.

 

Our friends did that on Edge but they had a small OBC and each of them took our 1/2 and just cashed out after playing about 50 cents on a penny machine.    They were definitely not gamblers.

[Jim_Iain]

4 hours ago, billc23 said:

Yes, the cashier needed my sea pass to withdraw the NR OBC and give me a voucher. I believe that on the Millennium I used the banker on the machine, the cashed out. Went to another machine and used the voucher without my sea pass card. I could then receive cash from the cashier regardless of playing at all. If you use their bonus program - the one where you receive a bonus above what you withdraw - then you must use your sea pass card and what I described will not work. I will try it on the Ascent Jan 21 sailing and see what happens. Just a game for me because I use the OBC as additional tips and if I cannot receive cash I just fill out the form provided for additional tips.

We had to do that also on Solstice (non-revolutionized).    Their old Slots didn't have the ability to log onto the slot.   They would give you in $100 chits.

[abbydancer2003]

23 minutes ago, Jim_Iain said:

 

You can cash out immediately without even spinning if you wish.   The only thing is you would be frozen out from additional withdrawals.    I at least spin a couple times on a penny machine to not look too obvious.

 

Our friends did that on Edge but they had a small OBC and each of them took our 1/2 and just cashed out after playing about 50 cents on a penny machine.    They were definitely not gamblers.

The only thing with that is if you have over the transaction limit (after I run out my current bookings with all the suite OBC that won't be a problem anymore), you can't do a single transaction to liquidate it all.  

On this last cruise, I think I came out slightly ahead.

 

And maybe now we know why they got rid of the suite OBC.

[Jim_Iain]

7 minutes ago, abbydancer said:

The only thing with that is if you have over the transaction limit (after I run out my current bookings with all the suite OBC that won't be a problem anymore), you can't do a single transaction to liquidate it all.  

On this last cruise, I think I came out slightly ahead.

 

And maybe now we know why they got rid of the suite OBC.

 

I'm now an Onyx Level in Blue Chip which waives Credit Card Cash advance so didn't have any trouble pulling off my Refundable.   I like to pull it off so it doesn't come back as a credit and loose Chase 3X points on transportation.     I know you can go to front desk on last day and take it out but too much waiting on line.

[Jim_Iain]

To be honest I don't like to discuss how to get around the casino limits --- Celebrity often read the posts and then are prone to block tricks some find. 

[chisoxfan]

Appreciated all the comments. Just wanted to get a feel for current restrictions. We will likely 'play' most of the OBC and will be pleasantly surprised if there will be anything left to cash out.

[billc23]

12 hours ago, Jim_Iain said:

To be honest I don't like to discuss how to get around the casino limits --- Celebrity often read the posts and then are prone to block tricks some find. 

Reminds me of the good old days of manufactured spending, silver dollars and all that, when as soon as a method became known it would be shut down. My lips are sealed on the current manufactured techniques! 

[grest]

can you use OBC for gratuities?

 

 

[abbydancer2003]

51 minutes ago, grest said:

can you use OBC for gratuities?

 

 

Yes, room steward specifically.  Dining will go into a pool and be distributed.  If you have a butler, you can also tip him/her.