Ticket To Fun
Aladdin's Castle (1980's)
This arcade rewards card was shared to the Aladdin's Castle Arcade Facebook group a couple of years ago by Melinda Lawson. The idea here is that you'd keep this card in your wallet and get it stamped every time you bought tokens. After you accumulated enough stamps (which would be $50 in tokens), you would get five dollars worth of free tokens as a bonus, but for some reason, the arcade chain wouldn't let you redeem it between Thanksgiving and New Years Day.
 |
| Source: Gains McDonald (Aladdin's Castle Arcades) |
Melinda's card is a little different than the card that I wrote about a couple of years ago that was being sold on eBay. The dollar amounts are all same, but the small print stated that it could not be redeemed between two specific dates (presumably Thanksgiving 1984 to January 2nd, 1985). I'm dying to know the meaning behind this policy. Was the arcade particularly busy in December, or did they not want to give out a bunch of free tokens at the end of the fiscal year, or were they trying to keep folks from buying $50 worth of tokens as a present and then immediately redeeming their coupon for another $5 in tokens for free? I'm sure there must be a good reason, but nothing I can think of makes a lot of sense.
I know that I had one of these cards when I was a kid, but I'm pretty sure I only ever got it stamped a couple of times. I'm still hoping to find one of these for sale at a reasonable price for my game room.
