Las Vegas 2007 bargain hunt + tips

wdyw

trets77 wrote:

Bazlovejoys dates of 1st May till 7th i got a price of $385 at the Stratosphere compared to $490 best he has found so far. that might be able to be beat but the more tools you have the better your chance of getting the best price.

That makes it $347 then as Vegas.com (always the first place I check for prices and then look elsewhere) will match any other price AND give an additional 10% off.

lucy7509

HI Everyone

Sorry for the delay in replying, I go throught https://www.cheapflights.co.uk for flight comparison, and the hotel deals I look and compare 3 different locations before haggling my room rate, with America unlike Briton if you contact the hotel and can show where you have the price comparison from which they can confirm they will either meet and most often beat the lowest price for your business, some exceptions do apply as certain weekends the rooms book out for events running in Vegas.

Also look for coupons, America is big on them you can load them off the net in some cases and often hotels have them available upon arrival.

Last note, dont be afraid to complain if you are unhappy about something, remember in America 'The Customer is King' and as long as you are polite and the complaint is geniune. all sort of places will bend over to accomodate, become rude and it will get you no where, and the American's love your accent, you would be amazed what you can get just be talking politely and smiling.

ferf1223

I cannot support Lucy's comment on booking direct enough.

I have never found a Vegas package deal that has beat booking hotel and air separately.

This site regularly compiles the room rates on offer to the general public:

http://www.vegashotelspecial.com/

Also, go to the hotel's websites and sign their 'guestbooks' to be emailed special offers.

US hotels are priced per room, not per person as most hotels in Europe. Most UK Vegas packages I have seen effectively double the cost of the hotel element (if you take the package cost and subtract the price of the flights if booking the flights on their own) or more...and many packages offer the lower-tier hotels when booking direct you could have much nicer accomodation for the same price.

Also, booking direct with the hotel allows you to shop around as you can typically cancel the booking up to 48 or 72 hours before arrival - find something better? cancel your original booking, get a refund of your first night's deposit and book the new hotel.

And if you gamble at all you may be in a position to reduce your hotel charges when you check out if you book direct (by signing up for an using the players club cards)...you cannot do this if you have booked a package or through expedia.

And with a package you normally have to pay for the hotel up front...booking direct, you pay only one night's deposit and the balance when you check out...so your money stays in your account earning interest that much longer.

We have flights for November booked on Virgin, direct from Gatwick for £312.50 per person (have seen as low as £297 from Virgin for the same period)...our hotels are free because of our history with the casinos, but I would not expect to pay any more than an average of $100USD per night for the hotel if we had to...so for an 8-night trip - effectively £420 for the pair of us (not for Circus Circus, Stratropshere, Terribles which would be less)...works out to about £520 per person for direct flights, decent hotel on the strip for 8 nights.

Sorry for the rant...but I really think that packages are generally rather rubbish (there are exceptions, but very few and usually involve connecting flights and less than stellar hotels) and I hate to think how many people are paying more than they could be paying for better accomodation.

doodle_bug

someone last year stated a massive flydrive bargain with mytravel but I can't find anything there at the moment. I have been to Vegas the last 3 years, first year my flight was £198 then £258 around early March and last year £404 in August from Manchester, prices much dearer this year from Manchester, from London I can get flight around £300 using ebookers in middle March.

I would very much recommend The Orleans hotel for budget travellers, it is a very good hotel for the money, I stayed in a 3* hotel in France in October and it was a dungheap compared to The Orleans. The Orleans is an off strip Hotel but has rooms with magnificent views of the strip, it runs very frequent shuttle buses to the strip, you can use shuttle buses of all the hotels to get around for free. Last year I booked the Orleans for about $75 a night weekday but a couple of weeks before I was due to travel they sent me an email for an offer for $49 a night with free meals and free bowling, I emailed back asking if I could have this offer having already booked and they emailed straight back saying my booking was ammended to the cheaper price.

You don't have to gamble to get the free cocktails/drinks just sit by a slot machine or sit in the Keno area and the waitress will take your order, you should tip $1 per drink, if you don't tip, the waitress will remember and won't fetch anymore drinks, in The Orleans they have a liqour store (really cheap) eg. you can but 6 330ml bottles of bud for just over $4 spirits are really cheap, miles cheaper than going to France.

The outlet store on the south strip is really good, my son got a really nice leather jacket for about £50 Levi jeans for £10 levi shirts for £3-£4.

The Meadows Mall is pretty good, lots of shops and not far away is a walmart, the shops in the strip hotels are good but not that cheap.

You can get an allday bus pass for $2.50 the Deuce is $5 but can be slow and packed at peak times, if you get the $2.50 pass and then get on the deuce you have to pay 50c not bad really. The buses run North-South and East-West so if you want to get NE first you get on a bus North then get off and get on one going East, on the bus you can get a bus map and timetable for 25c and the buses on the main routes are about every 15 mins on quicker, we have had really good laughs on the buses, the drivers are very extrovert and entertaining.
This site is quite good http://www.cheapovegas.com/index.php

Please don't bet black and red at the same time on roulette, it looks really stupid at the table.

Anyone want any tips on Vegas I might be able to help, I chuckled to hear Martin say how he played Roulette for 4 hours with his girlfriend and only lost a small ammount but made up for it with $20 of freebies, 4 hours at the roulette would kill me. You could go to the Barbary coast at 10.30am and learn how to play Craps at the end of the lesson they'll give you a free $5 coupon, one per person per day, you have a bout an even money chance of winning when you walk upto a craps table and place a bet on the pass line, I won a few $'s just doing that after breakfast. Vegas is not for everyone but if you get it you can't go wrong.

trets77

someone last year stated a massive flydrive bargain with mytravel but I can't find anything there at the moment

here is the link to that luck persons story http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=304879 there is also a ton of links in that link.

If i could get that kind of a bargain i will not show up at circus circus and check in to a differnet hotel at £100 per person how can you go wrong ??
i would appeal to Maesmaesmummy to give us futher advice on how she got this amazing deal..

here is anthor good link for fatwallet.

http://www.fatwallet.com/t/63/658200

Mizz_Pink

Hiya,

I love searching for holidays and looking at reviews but I'm stumped at finding a bargain for Vegas!!

Anyone want a challenge ?

3 or 4 nights covering 26th May (our 1st wedding anniversary) flying from Birmingham or Manchester preferably. Staying on the strip, ive heard Imperial Palace is nice. Cant find anything cheaper than £700 for 4 nights.

Can you help me ?

Thank-you

wdyw

trets77 wrote:

here is the link to that luck persons story http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=304879 there is also a ton of links in that link.

i would appeal to Maesmaesmummy to give us futher advice on how she got this amazing deal..

here is anthor good link for fatwallet.

http://www.fatwallet.com/t/63/658200

There is no secret to the cheap price. The closer to the flight time the cheaper their tickets are! however, when they get down to the last few tickets, prices skyrocket so you keep an eye on the dates you want to travel, prices will fall dramatically in the weeks leading up to the flight and book whenever you think the prices will not fall any further or when there is a chance of the flight being full.

you can always judge how many places they have left by the hotel accommodation thats still available. Once they get down to the fly-drives with or without their cheapest motel option then you know they are near enough sold out.

ferf1223

Mizz_Pink wrote:

3 or 4 nights covering 26th May (our 1st wedding anniversary) flying from Birmingham or Manchester preferably. Staying on the strip, ive heard Imperial Palace is nice. Cant find anything cheaper than £700 for 4 nights.

Can you help me ?

Thank-you

Is that £700 per person or total for 2?

I love a challenge.

Though that is Memorial Day weekend in the US...so prices may be higher than normal.

Bazlovejoy

Hi Trets

Where did you find $385 for the Strat? I used the Travelaxe tool, cheapest it found was $490.

Cheers

Baz

trets77

you can always judge how many places they have left by the hotel accommodation thats still available. Once they get down to the fly-drives with or without their cheapest motel option then you know they are near enough sold out

,,which site/ sites do you use as your gauge for this wydw????:,,,and do you think savings can be made on the £300 that is available now ?. the flights are what is causing me concern at the mo as i,m very confident of getting a good hotel with a good price with all the Ammo supplied here :beer: A

Where did you find $385 for the Strat? I used the Travelaxe tool, cheapest it found was $490

Using dates 1st to 7th may travelaxe comes up with $385 for one site which is what what i did intially as tester . However following through the links today the site that advertises that price Ups the price to about $500 when you get to it,s booking page. . this really gets my back up the price quoted should be the price you pay !!! there does however appear to be one that sticks to its advertised $438 price (premier travel company). you could try using this to negotiate with the Strat direct or with https://www.vegas.com. be sure you have downloaded the Travelaxe software and are not using the web site to see it....apoligies if i was too hasty in putting that price up

i still say hold off your hotel booking till the May offers come around on all the sites/links posted. You will not be without a choice of hotels for your budget. Orleans as mentioned and reccomended by post here is same price