Start play money without losing bonuses?

"Virgin" question here. I want to get my feet wet in play money games before depositing cash. Is there a way to do this without wasting the better signup bonuses? If not, what first room would you suggest?

bonus activates when you make your 1st deposit, not when you sign up

Good name; and what Shake said.

Keep in mind that you lose out on rakeback if you don't sign up with an affiliate first, even if you don't deposit.

OK, how do I sign up with an affiliate without depositing and without blowing the bonus? (My suspicion is that Rakeback won't be a concern of mine for quite some time, though.)

BTW, thanks for the swift replies!

im pretty sure you have to make a deposit to get rakeback.

Thanks for the help.

Anyway, I started with PokerStars and the first two things I noticed:

• It's hard to follow the action, "speech balloons" would help.
  Damn, the tempo is fast!

I'd turn off the chat, very little good comes from it. Also once you are used to the tempo you would be better making a small deposit and playing 5NL as you will probably learn more than you do with play chips.

On the interface front, I'm now using play money at Full Tilt and it seems easier to follow the action there. On the speed front, I'm selecting tables at or under 60 hands per hour and that seems OK (and will get easier with practice, of course).

You're right that the real lessons will come with real money, but I think I'd better be able to beat the play money games before playing for real, and I'd better be able to beat a micro limit before (and in lieu of) "donating" to experienced players at higher low limits like 3/6. I know that the play is awful at play money tables (such as 90% seeing the flop when I'm seeing 25%...and that's probably too high) but my impression is that the quality of play doesn't get that much higher (such as 50% at the flop) at least through the 1/2 level.

And speaking of that small deposit, I have to figure out how to do that with so many methods cut off...

Oh, and I ignore the chat but I guess it clutters the dealer text.