On NTN Buzztime online communities, part one

You'll recall that on Wednesday, I wrote a post that talked about how to transfer your NTN Buzztime Players Plus points from one location to another. This post, which followed up on a Paul Ryburn post from January 23, included some relevant information on transferring your membership to a new location - for example, if your existing location closes, or discontinues NTN/Buzztime.

It turns out that Paul Ryburn gave a nice mention to this blog on Thursday:

Did you know that there’s an NTN/Buzztime Trivia blog? I didn’t either but found out yesterday, when the Empoprise-NTN blog addressed my issue of transferring my points from a location that closed (Sleep Out Louie’s) to a new location (Calhoun’s). The blog is a good one to bookmark if you’re a fan of the little blue crack boxes.

I love that phrase "little blue crack boxes," by the way.

But Paul's mention of this blog isn't the real story. The real story is the comment that was added to my blog post. It seems that Otto is another little blue crack box addict, and he provided some helpful information regarding points transfer:

As somebody who recently transferred my old points from Sleep Out Louie's to Calhoun's as well, I found a simpler way, but it did require some forethought on my part.

Back when Sleep Out's was still open, I signed up there as well. However, I did something that my friend Paul didn't, which was that I also went on the buzztime web site and signed up as a member there, linked to my own account.

After Sleep Out's closed, I still had my active membership on the buzztime site, even though I didn't use it much. When Calhoun's got the system as well, I went back on their website, logged in, and transferred through that system. The only reason I was able to do this was that I already had my account and did not need to sign up with a new one. Paul could not do this, because he could not put in Sleep Out's as his location for the new account, as it was no longer listed there (having closed a couple years ago).

In fact, I did this transfer from a computer at Calhoun's, and my points appeared there within about 10 minutes. Two trivia games later, my plus points were showing up on the big board.

So word to the wise: if you use buzztime, sign up on the buzztime website with a new account tied to your players plus account, if you have not done so already. Then you won't have any issues transferring the points around in the future.

So you may also want to include Otto's tip in your contingency planning.

And you may want to pay attention to the online communities that provide assistance with NTN Buzztime tips. There's another community that merits attention, but I'm going to save the discussion of THAT community for another post. (If Paul Ryburn is directing people here, perhaps this blog ought to have some semi-regular content.)