Recovering OBC

[rojoand8]

Is there a way to get your OBC transferred into cash at the end of the cruise if you do not use it all?

[mickey89]

You can visit the casino and they will exchange your non-refundable obc into special non-cash chips.  Place your bet on Roulette, an equal amount on red and black and your winnings are given in cash chips, slightly different colour. There is a 5% chance of losing with 0 and 00 wheels, but it’s worth the slight risk. Most cruise ships these days don’t let you exchange your non-refundable obc directly into cash as they used to do with  a 5% surcharge.

 

 

[BermudaBound2014]

31 minutes ago, rojoand8 said:

Is there a way to get your OBC transferred into cash at the end of the cruise if you do not use it all?

 

First you need to know if your OBC is refundable or non-refundable.

 

If your OBC is a direct gift from the TA it is fully refundable 99.9% of the time. 

 

If your obc comes from the cruise line, it is non-refundable and a bit tricky.

 

Once you determine that your obc is refundable you can go directly to guest services and they will give you cash (I do this almost always, it's no problem, guest services handles this transaction every day).

 

You can also trade in at the casino. Sometimes this process even works for non-refundable OBC so it's worth a try. US mainstream lines used to do this for free in the casino, now most charge a percentage. Beam reports that MSC still does the casino transaction for free so that's a bonus! 

 

 

[kodesthemoose]

I had OBC from my TA.  It more than covered our gratuities and the one specialty dinner we paid for, so I had about $50 left.  We went to the casino and 'took out' $50 on a slot machine, spun once and won $8, then cashed out, and took the voucher to the casino desk and they gave me $58 back in cash.

[rojoand8]

Thank you everyone for the responses, but nothing worked.  

 

[BermudaBound2014]

19 hours ago, rojoand8 said:

Thank you everyone for the responses, but nothing worked.  

 

 

Are you onboard right now? We can probably help walk you through other options also.

[rojoand8]

Thanks for trying, but we got off the ship yesterday. Nothing worked and it seemed like the casino staff was on to us—very rude.  I guess what was left was the MSC applied OBC. 

[stoneman56]

That is really strange that "the casino staff were onto you". It makes no difference to them what you do, and they wouldn't know or care anyway. 

You go to a slot machine, register your cruise card, transfer x amount to the machine from your onboard account. When it shows as transferred cash it out. 

Now if you don't want to arouse suspicion (why they should care who knows) play with it a bit so you are left with an odd amount. I personally wouldn't bother doing that, if they got shirty I'd face them up and tell the teller they are obliged to cash out my ticket