Las Vegas guide and MSE thread 2011

stoneman

October

mat5664 wrote: »

It's a really good deal. I already had my flights booked for Christmas - did think about cancelling and re-booking using this offer, but we're flying F on the direct flight using miles and an Amex 2-4-1 which expires soon, so reluctantly giving up the chance of the extra TPs.

ps - AA have matched the deal, so you could go LHR-JFK-LAX-LAS-LAX-JFK-LHR on AA for the same price if available for a ridiculous amount of tier points/Avios, as you would get F milage on the US domestics.

Yeah, saw that after we booked, doh! But the return leg on ours is via JFK with AA so at least getting F milage and 210TP for that 2,000 mile section.

tdawber

November / December

We used hotwire and found that they were cheaper than carhire 3000.

Porthorg

May

Has anyone ever hired a car in vegas without leaving a credit card? I wanted to book through Dollar but they said I need a cc.

Niether of us has them So we need an alternative.

adamg

August

Ive rented from dollar and hertz and needed a credit card each time.

nvh

stoneman wrote: »

Just booked 2 of these, 4 day trip over New Year and all thoses lovely TP's. It would have been rude not to:D

lol - good on ya! - i'm guessing it's all about the points as i recall your stance on the whole 'going in december / january' thing

Where you thinking of staying?

nvh

Porthorg wrote: »

Has anyone ever hired a car in vegas without leaving a credit card? I wanted to book through Dollar but they said I need a cc.

Niether of us has them So we need an alternative.

I think Dollar are lying to you (according to their website) - however I stand to be corrected (it may be an 'American Citizens only' thing):
http://www.dollar.com/Car_Rental_Information/Main/Renting_a_Car_without_a_Credit_Card.aspx

Either way, the main reason they do it is if you get any speeding tickets, unpaid toll tickets etc, it gives them the ability to auto-charge it through to your card so obviously cash alone isn't sufficient to cover this

Are you going direct or through a broker such as CarHire3000?

Froggitt

nvh wrote: »

Either way, the main reason they do it is if you get any speeding tickets, unpaid toll tickets etc, it gives them the ability to auto-charge it through to your card so obviously cash alone isn't sufficient to cover this

Plus it covers them if you total the car or get it nicked, and your insurance doesnt cover it eg if you were high as a kite or didnt declare something you should have.

Porthorg

May

nvh wrote: »

I think Dollar are lying to you (according to their website) - however I stand to be corrected (it may be an 'American Citizens only' thing):
http://www.dollar.com/Car_Rental_Information/Main/Renting_a_Car_without_a_Credit_Card.aspx

Either way, the main reason they do it is if you get any speeding tickets, unpaid toll tickets etc, it gives them the ability to auto-charge it through to your card so obviously cash alone isn't sufficient to cover this

Are you going direct or through a broker such as CarHire3000?

Well I rang them and that's what they said but I could try again. Also emailed national and got the same response. Really gutted as we will be on honeymoon and booked a lovely lodge at the canyon. Didnt even consider that we'd need one

Ruth_honey

Who was it that was planning on visiting a couple of National Parks on their trip?
The search thread tool is playing up for me at the moment. Not getting my email notifications about new posts either. Has MSE put me on the naughty list???

nvh

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]San Francisco, Yosemite, Death Valley, [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Las Vegas, Zion, Grand Canyon (S) & Las Vegas Trip Report[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Hey, now I know this is the Vegas thread but as people seem to tag stuff on when they go Vegas, then what the hell – i'll include the other stuff – will try not to loiter on it though! I normally do a trip report on the first few days of jet lag but with this trip being quite long, I was a bit gutted on return and its taken a while (till planning our next trip in fact!) to get the motivation to sort my !!!! out and post this. Hope its of interest to people![/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]This trip was a bit of a whistle stop tour in some ways – and was re-visiting places to do things we just hadn't got around to doing before whilst also taking my wifes brother and parents for their 21st birthday and 25th Wedding Anniversary respectively. Trip was broken down as follows:[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]- San Francisco (4 nights)[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]- Yosemite (2 nights)[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]- Death Valley (2 nights)[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]- Las Vegas (5 nights)[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]- Zion (1 nights)[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]- Grand Canyon – South Rim (1 night)[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]- Las Vegas (4 nights)[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Pre-Flight[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Got a £29 room at Manchester Airport Travelodge. Compared to travelodges at other airports we've stayed at – it seemed quiet and functional. Bonus is that we were at the end of a very long corridor so didn't get the “suitcase” traffic going past at all hours of the night.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]My mates dad has just started a taxi company this is the first time I hadn't used airport parking and for the length of time we were going, the £60 outlay for a taxi (return) versus car parking charge (and trying to get 5 people + 5 large suitcases in my car) meant the taxi easily won![/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]A shuttle bus the next morning (provided by Travelodge) would cost us £2 each so seemed a good price for the short run to T3[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Flight with AA from Manchester - Terminal 3[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Well, T3 is a bit of a bore isn't it! Some articles on the net stated it was adjoined to T1 and you can go through to T1 airside for food... that was a crock of crap to be honest, so not much choice going on we ended up having breakfast at Starbucks. [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]The flights we had got were a bit of a bargain as a 'special price' to celebrate the joining of Iberia to the AA / BA partnership. So for £500 each (instead of a typical £700 each) we got:[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]MAN – ORD – SFO (Boeing 737 then a 757) – dep. 10:40; arr. 19:10[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]then[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]LAS – ORD – MAN (Boeing 757 then a 737) – dep. 10:05; arr. 07:45[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]All flights had blocks of 3 seats and they were all small planes with just a single aisle running down the middle and no seat-back TV's on the 737. On the 757 it had a TV above the seat which folded down for each person but no choice as to what you could watch. What I did like is that for all flights I could pick a seat that had a power socket under it which meant I could get the laptop on the go and amuse myself [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Nothing stands out from the flights – we've reached the point where we don't care about them and they're all just a means of getting there... as long as the flight times are not too bad. Basically all flights are just long & tedious - like this trip report What we did find is that AA were very very polite (apart from the idiot working @ LAS) and certainly @ MAN, they were very helpful and also very chatty which was nice and a good start to the trip.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]@ ORD, we went for a Buffalo Chicken salad from Burrito Beach (outgoing trip) to kill the few hours we had to wait for the plane. It was good and nice to get something to kill the time. We also met Burt the Conqueror! - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_the_Conqueror[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Again, ORD isn't the best airport in the world but we had a good 3.5 hours to kill there so the train from Terminal 5 to Terminal 3 was just a way of killing time, along with clearing security again etc etc[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif](return trip) we only had 2 hours to kill so had a Chicago Pizza – no change of terminal this time so was quite nice not to loiter too long![/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]@ SFO, didn't hang around – landing was slightly 'interesting' – reminded me of London City Airport where you think you're going to land in the Thames! We had booked “Lorries” minibus to get us to our accommodation – took around 30minutes so no time really as traffic was good. Think it was ~$70[/FONT]