Las Vegas thread and MSE guide 2009

sew109

The Volcano @ Mirage

duchy wrote: »

Oh dear I can resist anything except temptation it seems
Easter weekend-flying Good Friday -for 4 nights. Flight £330 from Heathrow (including tax) and at the moment 4 nights at the Flamingo is $240 plus taxes (weekends $75 & midweek $45 min stay 4 nights) so £840 for the two of us or £420 each. Hotel is (of course)-refundable but I think I'll be pushed to better that price.
Well chuffed

Who is the flight with my arm may just have been twisted at that price

slash2k01

I know a few people have driven from vegas to stay at the canyon and I wanted to ask some advice. We'll be going for a night in the middle of our stay, so we have 3 nights in vegas then a night at the canyon and 3 nights back in vegas. Did you keep your hotel room in vegas when you went to the canyon or check out and try somewhere different when you get back? We will be staying at the canyon on a friday night so it will save us alot of money if we do this and we can then probably afford to stay in 2 nice places rather than one ok place.

sew109

The Volcano @ Mirage

slash2k01 wrote: »

I know a few people have driven from vegas to stay at the canyon and I wanted to ask some advice. We'll be going for a night in the middle of our stay, so we have 3 nights in vegas then a night at the canyon and 3 nights back in vegas. Did you keep your hotel room in vegas when you went to the canyon or check out and try somewhere different when you get back? We will be staying at the canyon on a friday night so it will save us alot of money if we do this and we can then probably afford to stay in 2 nice places rather than one ok place.

I have done both it makes no difference to me

duchy

sew109 wrote: »

Who is the flight with my arm may just have been twisted at that price

Ebookers using NW or KL. Was a little tricky to find as it doesn't appear at that price when you do a flight search (so no Quidco ). To get to it use https://www.kayak.co.uk flight search and when it appears click on the ebookers link below the flight.

nvh

The Bellagio Fountains

trets77 wrote: »

The Best show i have seen in Vegas ( or anywhere else) is Hands down Le Reve @ The Wynn . i bet people are bored of me always suggesting it , but it is truly spectacular . don't be put off by the abstract nature of the show ( it is very hard to define in a few sentances) , all i will say is it is a class act from start to finish with breath taking stunts and Chorography

to add to that, can i strongly recommend you consider paying the extra for the 'VIP' package... it doesn't seem like you get much extra (and i think it's about $75 more than the non-VIP) but for me, being able to watch 'behind the scenes' (underwater etc) on the TV made it really interesting - plus the big armchairs were cool!

(also there's the free bottle of champagne and choccie dipped strawberries!... the missus scoffed all that though! haha)

duchy

slash2k01 wrote: »

I know a few people have driven from vegas to stay at the canyon and I wanted to ask some advice. We'll be going for a night in the middle of our stay, so we have 3 nights in vegas then a night at the canyon and 3 nights back in vegas. Did you keep your hotel room in vegas when you went to the canyon or check out and try somewhere different when you get back? We will be staying at the canyon on a friday night so it will save us alot of money if we do this and we can then probably afford to stay in 2 nice places rather than one ok place.

Depends how light you travel and if the faff of packing and unpacking twice is worth it to you. For me it is-and I'd choose one mid strip and one south strip hotel -making sure if one was nicer than the other that I did the nicer one second

ferf1223

The Bellagio Fountains

duchy wrote: »

There's the Gold challenge as well Ferf but booking on aa.com now even the cheaper fares earn 1 point per mile (1.5 for silly money economy & above)
Couple of other points challenges are a one time thing-you can't challenge every year but if you don't reach the re-qualification level (50000 miles in the year Jan-Dec) they soft land you down to gold for the following year. For you ONE of you challenging one year -and the other challenging another year might work out better.
Like Stoneman I used my Plat status to match with another airline too once the year was nearly up -works very nicely but again it's a one time deal so needs to be planned carefully (for me the lure was LGW instead of Heathrow -can't always be avoided-but it's nice to sometimes have the choice)

Thanks for that...definately seems like something you have to really understand before you jump in there...I shall start studying and see how we get on. This may just be the thing that sways us away from the Virgin direct thing...though I suppose that most of the bigger benefits are not guaranteed, but the upgrade options make it sound very tempting!

ferf1223

The Bellagio Fountains

slash2k01 wrote: »

I know a few people have driven from vegas to stay at the canyon and I wanted to ask some advice. We'll be going for a night in the middle of our stay, so we have 3 nights in vegas then a night at the canyon and 3 nights back in vegas. Did you keep your hotel room in vegas when you went to the canyon or check out and try somewhere different when you get back? We will be staying at the canyon on a friday night so it will save us alot of money if we do this and we can then probably afford to stay in 2 nice places rather than one ok place.

We didn't check out - we kept both rooms in Vegas (but one was comped, so didn't cost us anything for the night we didn't stay and the other was at casino rate)...so it may depend on how much you would save, etc. We had 4 adults and all our luggage and people wouldn't have fit in the rental anyway...so checking out would have been that much more of a pain for us.

Remember that some hotels don't allow Saturday check-in - just something to look into...usually if you book with a 3rd party you can get around that, but for various reasons most suggest caution is booking with a 3rd party.

If you can do it, I would do what duchy suggested and split the trip into 2 locations...if as you say having the Friday at the GC means you can stay in 2 nicer properties while in Vegas, sounds to me like it would be worth doing if you don't run into any issues with Saturday check-in.

ferf1223

The Bellagio Fountains

duchy wrote: »

Oh dear I can resist anything except temptation it seems
Easter weekend-flying Good Friday -for 4 nights. Flight £330 from Heathrow (including tax) and at the moment 4 nights at the Flamingo is $240 plus taxes (weekends $75 & midweek $45 min stay 4 nights) so £840 for the two of us or £420 each. Hotel is (of course)-refundable but I think I'll be pushed to better that price.
Well chuffed

We'll just miss you - we're also flying on Good Friday, but a stop in the midwest to see family first, then a night in LA and then onto Vegas...if you would have a word with the slots that we're on our way and expect to be properly welcomed by them it would be appreciated.

nvh

The Bellagio Fountains

ferf, if you don't mind me asking - and i know it's a difficult question to answer anyways!, but how much would you say you put through harrahs slots per day to get offers on comped rooms?

also, another quick question, but where is best to sign up for a harrahs players card?

believe it or not, despite spending a month of my life in Vegas, I haven't signed up @ Harrahs or Wynn!!! They are on the to-do list for next time, but i wondered (if like MGM) it was better to sign up for Harrahs cards at a particular location (ie. better freebies )