I stopped by the Total Rewards desk at Harrah's Rincon last night because I misplaced my mailer that had my "free play promotions" for August and I wanted to get my "access numbers" to load the free play on the video poker machine.

Since there wasn't a line of other players, I took some time to ask some questions that I've always wondered about. The first question was could I "bank" my free play or did I have to use it during the day or week it was issued?

First of all you must be at the casino to download the free play on the day or during the week or month that it is offered. That's a given. You can't use a free play promotion that you missed by not being in the casino.

But what I found interesting was that Rincon gives you about four to five weeks to use the free play once your have downloaded it into your account.

So, for example, if you get $25 of free play each week, you could theoretically stop into the casino each week to download that free play into your account, and then after four weeks use all of the weekly free play at one time.

I don't know what the rules are at other casinos. Do they let you bank the free play and if so, for how long?