Comp chasing...good idea or bad idea

I was looking around for some gambling news while watching halftime of the Eagles @ Cardinals game and came across this story in the Hartford (CT) Courant about a couple who saved their comps at Foxwoods in Connecticut. Unfortunately the husband passed away before the points were used and the widow was unable to use the rewards after he had passed on.

He accumulated a large number of points before becoming ill and soon after, he died. He liked to hoard his points, and at the end of his life had a total of 8500 points.

The casino agreed to transfer his points to my players card, however the maximum they would transfer was 5000. That, the powers that be told me was the maximum they would transfer.

First thought is that we all should wish the best for the widow. That aside, I do not operate this way. This is a good example of hording your comps. Things happen in life (or death in this case) and I would never want to lose a reward that I’ve earned. I don’t use comps as I get them, but I don’t save them for a rainy day either.

I pretty much have a “reward plan” for all rewards or comps I receive. For example, I will use my rewards to save on expenses that I can’t gain rewards on elsewhere. I get multiple times rewards for certain credit card spending I’ll usually use casino comps on things I can’t get rewarded for elsewhere. Additionally, I know how often I will be traveling in a given year and plan to use my rewards or miles for upgrades.

What do you do?