Las Vegas guide and MSE thread 2011

credit_crunch

terry & nuffy im planning on early August for our honeymoon & would rather fly direct - cheapest price so far is towards end of august around 21st for £861 pp, with Virgin from Gatwick, or £750 BA from Heathrow. We will have to pay regional flights to get to London as well
but we are a bit frightened that if we wait for the sale, we wont get them!! oh decision decisions lol!
if you see any deals please send me a pm or post on here & i will do the same :-)

travellerboy

It is far too early to book a flight to Vegas, wait at least until March next year. There are so many flights to the USA, there is no chance of you not getting a flight.

I paid £550 rtn this year for an August flight. If you book now you will regret it, with the state of the economy as it is, the cost will definately return to the more realistic levels of £400 to £500 pp.

Hold your nerve and wait.

credit_crunch

travellerboy - we want a direct flight from a UK airport & just cuz its our honeymoon we dont want to miss out lol!
deep down i know we can wait a while but still that wee bit of worry in the back of my mind lol!!

photome

August

travellerboy wrote: »

It is far too early to book a flight to Vegas, wait at least until March next year. There are so many flights to the USA, there is no chance of you not getting a flight.

I paid £550 rtn this year for an August flight. If you book now you will regret it, with the state of the economy as it is, the cost will definately return to the more realistic levels of £400 to £500 pp.

Hold your nerve and wait.

As you know for sure that they will return to that level, I guess you wouldnt mind offering us a financial gtee just incase

ferf1223

March

terryrees wrote: »

Does anyone know the drill if we Brits should win big in Vegas? What's the tax and customs situation? Is it best to rush out and open a US bank account? Transfer funds?

It would be good to know, just in case.

Anyone got any experence of this?

On arriving in the UK with currency equal to 10K EUR

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/customs/arriving/declaring-cash.htm

As for the tax situation while in Vegas...if you win more than $1199 on a slot machine you'll be subject to 30% withholding tax...most of the bigger casinos will do the paperwork for you to get you an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, at which point they can pay you the full amount...some casinos won't do this for you, and you'll have to claim the tax back (or use an agency that does this for people)...bubble posted not long ago about her mum getting paid less the 30% withholding at SouthPoint (I think it was SouthPoint).

I'm not sure you could easily open a US bank account if you wanted to - in general they require a Social Security Number (though an ITIN might suffice - not sure)...at the very least I think without being a resident it would be a struggle.

If it was such a high value and the exchange rate was such that sitting on it for awhile made sense, I would think you could take payment via a cheque and open a USD account in the UK (I know Citibank do one, not sure about others).

mat5664

November / December

I've never had to pay tax in Las Vegas. All casinos should be able to do the necessary paperwork to pay UK citizens gross - although once you have received your ITIN number, it becomes much easier - you just give the number.

(In Atlantic City though, I had to pay both income and states taxes - came to about 33% of the winnings for handpays. I didn't have my ITIN number at the time and they are very strict.)

tarkytarks

credit_crunch wrote: »

travellerboy - we want a direct flight from a UK airport & just cuz its our honeymoon we dont want to miss out lol!
deep down i know we can wait a while but still that wee bit of worry in the back of my mind lol!!

I know it's hard when you just want to get it booked, but honestly wait for the sale prices on flights, you might find that you can get PE/WT+ seats for the price you would pay now for economy tickets. We are going for new year and booked the tickets at the end of June - I'd planned to book earlier in the year but held off in the end and it was worth waiting for the saving to be honest. In the mean time have the money sitting in an account somewhere earning interest rather than being in a travel agents account

Also if you want to book your hotel(s) now do it via expedia or another online booking service - get your cashback (I now favour topcashback over quidco as they don't charge £5 per year ). Then whenever the hotel prices drop (they always do) you can cancel and rebook as needed. Do this as many times as you need to in order to get the best deal :beer:

Eitherway I agree with the others - you'll save much more and be far more in control if you book your flights directly with the airline (get cashback there too).

As long as you buy your travel insurance as soon as you get your flights you shouldn't have any problems, and if something does arise and you're dealing directly with the airline that way rather than having to go via an agent.

ferf1223

March

mat5664 wrote: »

I've never had to pay tax in Las Vegas. All casinos should be able to do the necessary paperwork to pay UK citizens gross - although once you have received your ITIN number, it becomes much easier - you just give the number.

It may be that all casinos are able to do the paperwork, not all choose to do the paperwork - they aren't required to and yes, once you have an ITIN that's all that you need to avoid the withholding - I believe it's a for-life thing, but for most that will mean winning a significant amount at a casino that will do the paperwork for you. I file US returns, so my English huband had to get an ITIN for that...came in handy the one time he won an amount over the limit.

I can't remember where we got to when we last tried to figure out if you could apply for an ITIN in advance...it seems that if there was no reason for you to have one, there was no basis to apply...seems my hubby had to have a copy of his passport notarized by a US notary (we did it for $2 at a public library in my hometown - not nearly as reasonable to do so in the UK).

ferf1223

March

tarkytarks wrote: »

Also if you want to book your hotel(s) now do it via expedia or another online booking service - get your cashback (I now favour topcashback over quidco as they don't charge £5 per year ). Then whenever the hotel prices drop (they always do) you can cancel and rebook as needed. Do this as many times as you need to in order to get the best deal :beer:

But check T&Cs on the booking to make sure you can cancel...and also check booking with the hotel directly - using the links on page 1 to find the many deals available. I understand that things have changed over the last few years - used to be that booking direct was almost always the best deal...but very much worth looking at booking direct as well, just to be sure you're getting the best deal out there for your hotel.

stoneman

October

terryrees wrote: »

Dangerous to be carrying a substantial amount of cash through customs though, surely?

Depends by what you mean by "substantial amounts". If it was 10K then I would be happy to carry it. (I have actually carried nearly that amount in U.S. cheques before as we have a U.S. bank account and I needed to deposit the money in there by hand) If you were talking about maybe a million win then I would hire security and get a private jet home:D
As ferf says you would have to have a social security number to get a U.S. bank account if it were a spur of the moment thing. Do as she says and get paid by cheque and open a citibank dollar account back in the U.K.
Good luck :T