Ask the Slot Expert: When do you redeem your slot club points?

When Starbucks has an online game, you can get entries without making a purchase by answering a few questions. One of the questions is about how you use your stars. (You earn stars by making purchases, completing challenges to purchase certain items or make a certain number of purchases, and playing games. You redeem stars for menu items.)

The question asked whether you use your stars as you earn them or save them for use at the right time or a mix of the two techniques.

I used to choose a mix, but then I decided that saving them is more correct. I don't think I've ever redeemed stars as soon as I had enough for a free beverage. I always seem to accumulate hundreds, if not more than a thousand, stars before I redeem them.

Just today, I could have made a purchase to start an order-on-consecutive-days challenge or turn in stars to try a Honey Almond Milk Cold Brew. The rewards for the consecutive orders challenge are pretty small (10 stars for two days, 75 for four days), so I turned in stars for the Honey Almond Milk Cold Brew. (Meh. I won't get it again. I'll stick with Cold Brew with Dark Cocoa Almondmilk Foam for my free beverage.)

Starbucks sent me an offer to get bonus points for a purchase tomorrow. A good thing about all of the offers I've received from Starbucks is that one purchase can be applied to multiple offers. So I'll get my bonus points for making a purchase tomorrow. Then I'm halfway to completing the first tier on the consecutive days challenge, so I'll probably make another purchase on Thursday. And then I'm halfway to completing the top tier on the challenge, so I'll probably make purchases on the next two days too. I might even have a weekend challenge that will influence what I purchase.

You can see how I end up accumulating hundreds of points.

There are Starbucks Rewards advantage players who analyze the challenges and figure out how to complete them with minimal cash outlay, but I just order what I usually get and leave the advantage play to video poker.

Slot club points are like Starbucks stars. You can either use them as you earn them or save them to use at the right time.

I've seen players follow a few different philosophies in using their points. A couple of well-financed players let their points accumulate until they have enough to redeem for $1000 cash, the maximum amount one can redeem per day at their casinos. This method has acquired an advantage in the past few years when casinos stopped awarding points when playing on redeemed points. Redeem points for $100 in free play and you earn no points on that play. Redeem points for $100 cash and give Benjy a ride through the bill acceptor in a machine, you earn points on that $100.

Another philosophy is to use your points as you earn them. Once you have enough points to redeem for a certain amount of free play (say $10, $20 or $50), you redeem them and play the free play.

A third philosophy is to save your points for a rainy day. When you run out of money, redeem points to keep you in the game.

The way I've settled into using my points fits into my hierarchy for funding play at the machines: First, use the ticket leftover from my last visit (if I don't have a ticket, use some cash). If that runs out, redeem points. And keep using points as needed before putting in more cash. Finally, when I'm out of points, resort to cash.

One thing to keep in mind is whether redeeming points for cash instead of free play might be a black mark on your account. Cash can walk out of the casino. Free play can't.

If I remember correctly, Bob Dancer recommended redeeming points for free play in one of his slot club talks for this reason.

I don't know whether how you redeem your points makes a difference, but I would guess that if you play enough to qualify for one of the premium tiers in a slot club, the doesn't really care how you redeem your points.

And if you don't play enough to be in a premium tier, the casino also doesn't care how you redeem your points.

When do you redeem your points? Drop me a line to let me know.

The first day of Trump Impeachment II just finished as I write this. Perhaps you can help me.

David Schoen said that the January exception described by the House Impeachment Managers was a canard because-- And then he lost me on how a President in the final days of a term could still be held accountable. What is the remedy in this case?

Didn't he and Castor argue that the trial should not proceed because Trump was no longer in office? How were they not arguing that any officeholder could commit an impeachable offense and then evade accountability by resigning before impeachment or trial? Did they ever say how officeholders could be held accountable for offenses committed at the end of their terms?

It reminds me of Alan Dershowitz's argument in the first trial. As I recall, he said that a president cannot commit an impeachable offense if he believes he is acting in the best interests of the country. And a president surely believes that being reelected is in the best interests of the country.

So, I ask, doesn't that mean that a sitting president has free rein to do whatever he wants in pursuit of reelection?

The most puzzling part of the day's proceedings is why Schoen always touched the top of his head when he took a drink of water like he was trying to keep an imaginary toupee from slipping off.

The participants in this and the past impeachment compared and contrasted the impeachment and trial with criminal proceedings, doing one or the other whenever it supported their position. The impeachment in the House has been likened to a Grand Jury indictment. There was some talk about due process today.

I was the foreman of a Grand Jury in New Jersey in the mid-1980s. This is what due process meant in our Grand Jury.

We never heard from the defendant's attorneys. I don't even know if it's correct to call the subject of a case presented to us the defendant. He or she hasn't been charged yet.

The Grand Jury decides whether the Grand Jury Prosecutor has presented a prima facie case to presume guilt and issue an indictment. There was no standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt" or even a "preponderance of the evidence". We were not determining guilt. We were not depriving the defendant of any freedom. We only had to determine whether there was enough evidence to prove the case.

We never heard any exculpatory witnesses. That's for the trial jury. We were not determining guilt.

The defendant's attorney was not present. The defendant does not have the right to present a case to the Grand Jury. Again, we were not determining guilt.

There were no spectators. The only people in the room, which was like a classroom not a courtroom, were the jurors, the prosecutor(s), and the stenographer.

Our proceedings were secret. We spoke through our indictments.

I had the worst job on the jury. When the jury was dismissed for the day, I still had to stay for another hour or more because I had to wait for the staff to finish preparing the indictments. Then I had to sign them and go the courthouse to deliver them to a judge.

The judge asks a series of questions about the indictments. I don't remember the questions.

The prosecutors rehearsed me on the questions and the answers. They said that I didn't have to worry about the questions. Just remember the order of the answers. The order of the answers was something like yes, yes, no, yes, and me, your honor.

Delivering the indictments went smoothly many times, but then a judge asked one of the questions out of order.

I panicked. I knew that the answer next in line was not the right answer to that question. I looked at the prosecutor for help. He mouthed the word "no". I said, "No." The judge moved on to the next question.

You can argue about how similar a House impeachment is to a Grand Jury. They differ in one significant way that makes the arguments moot.

The Grand Jury is a criminal proceeding. The House impeachment by its very nature is only political.

Here are the latest figures from https://www.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_totalcases.

Will new cases start increasing again next week from Super Bowl superspreader parties?

There have been many news stories about people having difficulty scheduling vaccination appointments. A large number of people having to wait is inevitable. There are many people vying for a limited number of slots, which are limited by vaccine supply and personnel to administer the vaccines.

Still, there's no excuse for slapdash appointment websites. It's not like we haven't known for months that we were going to have to vaccinate 300,000,000 people. Why didn't Operation Warp Speed develop a website that jurisdictions could use to schedule appointments?

I thought about systems already developed that could be used for scheduling. How about airline reservations? It can handle no-shows and waiting lists for a flight.

Better yet, TicketMaster. It can handle thousands of people accessing the site without crashing. Sell an hour-long appointment block like a concert.

Snagging a vaccination appointment is going to be catch-as-catch-can until the supply of appointments increases and the demand drops.