Alan, for you freeplay should be a no-brainer, if you're planning to gamble there anyway.

Look at it this way. Say you are planning upon playing VP that trip.

If you get $2000 in freeplay, then the first $2000 you feed into the machine will be those freeplay tickets, instead of $2000 in real dollars from your wallet.

There are only 2 reasons to get something instead of freeplay:

1) You weren't planning to play, and don't want the variance of running the freeplay to convert it to cash
-or-
2) You found items you really need which are a BETTER price than anything you can find online or in local stores