planning trip to Las Vegas

ferf1223

you will be lucky to get flights alone for your budget.

Do what the first page of the Vegas thread (where you will find tons of useful info) suggests.

Pick dates you are interested and price up flights on their own - that will at least give you a baseline.

Sun may be important - but temps may be too...

You can go here
http://www.weather.com/weather/wxclimatology/monthly/89109
Click on the months you are interested in and see the average highs and lows each day.

May - average highs in the 30s - certainly pool weather.

July - average highs in the 40s - may be too hot for some.

Etc.

Agree that the best hotel deals are normally not available until a few months out...but you can get an idea now.

Since a pool is a big thing and you seem to want mid-range hotel consider Flamingo - but look at the links on the first page of the Vegas thread for ways to get good prices.

Meals can vary from almost nothing to very expensive - there are many ways to keep the cost of meals down, again, noted on the first page of the Vegas thread.

Spursman180

Silky

Your flight and hotel budget is at the moment nowhere near enough. At the moment a more reasonable budget would be £900 each.

I suggest you run a few searches on Expedia to benchmark prices against possible dates, if you can't search that far ahead then run dates for similar dates this year. in most cases the booking window is about 11 months ahead.

Once you have an idea on those prices run through various scraper sites and the hotels and airllines directly.

Any number of members here will give advice and have some really great nuggets but really you will need to realise what would be an effective budget.

Things that will impact on prices will be the time of the year and what days of the week you travel on. Obviously where you want to stay will be the biggest element when you are there.

You need to do the boring thing of reading the thread picking the bits and pieces that are interesting and explore.

You're an experienced MSE'r but it looks like you're a Vegas newbie? a lot of people on here talk about some amazing deals which maybe unachievable for a newbie as most have histories with Vegas and have built up 'currency' over many years and many trips earning 'perks'.

Good luck and like elsewhere here you know we'll try and help.

nw_man

Personally there is no way on earth I would be buying a flight plus hotel deal for Vegas from a travel agent.

Travel agents definately have their value, however not in this case.

Get flights from Expedia as mentioned above, or Kayak or Opodo, but be aware they will almost certainly involve a 'layover' in the US ( thats a plane change to you and me ). This should bring down the flight cost.

Hotels, booking direct with them is my preferred option, they all have websites and all offer fully refundable deals. They will also drop the price you paid should they advertise later at a lower one

Samrtervegas though has codes for even cheaper deals...

I agree with Ferf and Spursman above that your budget is waaay too low.

Ferf : I know what you are saying about Flamingo but have you read some of the reviews lately ? :eek:

nw_man

silkyuk9 wrote: »

Thanks. So lets start with flight and hotel, not bothered about moving hotels however, one will be fine. So im not looking for budget, but something nice and reasonable, flights from UK, possibly Manchester. Once I get a flight and hotel with a competitive price i then can start the next stage of planning, shows and tours etc. But first I have to get a good price to get there and stay. Also the sun is important as we do like to lay out during the day and catch a few rays!

Sorry, just re-reading your reply.... that is EXACTLY my point... if you book the hotel direct, often they will lower their own price !!!!!

They honour the new price, but only if you tell them so !

ferf1223

silkyuk9 wrote: »

Thanks. So lets start with flight and hotel, not bothered about moving hotels however, one will be fine.

I think you misunderstood nw_man's suggestion - what many on the Vegas board do is to book refundable hotel deals as they come up (normally only the first night's deposit is taken, with a few exceptions)...then closer to their dates they cancel those that they don't want to use (as they are refundable, they get a refund for the deposit paid). Some people will have multiple bookings in the run up to their trip - and then jump on a new one that pops up late in the day and cancel the others...so they have a couple of 'worst case scenario' bookings in hand to allow them to keep an eye out for the really good deals that may (or may not) come up in the last few weeks.

On of the regulars on the Vegas board booked her hotel many months in advance as she had a good deal - not long after, a fight was announced and room rates skyrocketed...but she had her booking in place already.

Agree with Spursman180 - if your budget won't extend to Vegas then it won't extend to Vegas...so best to get an idea if there's any possibility of that first before spending a lot more time on it.

ferf1223

nw_man wrote: »

Ferf : I know what you are saying about Flamingo but have you read some of the reviews lately ? :eek:

Yes, that's a good point...I've never stayed there - it's never appealed to us.. and I did read some of the recent reviews not long ago....I just tend to think 'pool - Flamingo'.

nw_man

ferf1223 wrote: »

Yes, that's a good point...I've never stayed there - it's never appealed to us.. and I did read some of the recent reviews not long ago....I just tend to think 'pool - Flamingo'.

The main thrust of reviews lately ( and I have been looking a lot ) are that the place is run down and dirty and lots of people complaining of last nights room service trays, plates, left over food, etc etc being outside peoples rooms in the corridors for days !

Not what I would expect from Vegas at all.

GREAT location though

luci

Yep, book as soon as you see a rate you are happy with. The past few trips I have booked the hotel 7-8 months in advance when I found a rate I was happy with. However each time I haven't found anything better nearer the time.

We booked the MGM at $109 and it rocketed to $450 once the fight was announced.

Spoke to someone at the airport coming home. It was their first time and they stayed at the Flamingo. They had to get their room changed 3 times before they got one that was habitable. They didn't know about the Go rooms when I asked.

If you can go from MAN then look at Thomas Cook for flights. They have flights this summer for around £575 when the next cheapest with a scheduled airline is £824.

JustWonderful

ferf1223 wrote: »

It's all relative to what someone thinks their time is worth - but we've been to Vegas nearly 20 times and still haven't done a time share presentation - just not worth it to us...with all the discounts available online for many shows booked in advance, the savings comes down quite a bit. I can see if someone is on a really tight budget, or really, really wants to save money...but 3 hours is a lot of time to us...and we've probably spent 140+ nights in Vegas. And some of the presentations can be really pushy especially when they find out you had no intention of buying - I've read of people not being taken back to their hotel for hours before.

We actually found the presentation a bit of a laugh- we had absolutely no intention of buying anything, and it was quite clear that no one on our mini bus had either- people were chanting on the way up 'do not sign anything' and when we all left we all laughed about it and it was a good way of meeting different people.

JustWonderful

luci wrote: »

There are much better hotels in a far better location than Circus Circus for a few dollars more if you book direct. However they look ridiculously more expensive when priced on a UK site.

Check the page ferf linked to then come back with new questions from that.

Circus Circus has a bad reputation for some reason but it is perfect for someone travelling on a budget (as the poster appears to be).