Las Vegas 2007 bargain hunt + tips

photome

Kezza25 wrote: »

Guys, got to diagree here. I'm a frequent virgin and constantly save cash.

For example, I've just booked Orlando for next year and the total holiday cost is 4000 pounds. Now, as a frequent virgin you get 10% off so the cost to me is about 3600. The flights I have are premium economy return and I have 14 nights accomodation in two hotels, one 5 star, one 4 star. If someone can do this same holiday for cheaper I would be very surprised.

This is not to say that some holidays aren't expensive at VH but there is a deal to be done.

Here goes..but I have no experiance of Orlando or when you are going so I plucked a date out of the air.

March 2008 premium economy miles plus money.

Buy 15000 miles cost= £240 then add on just under £1400 for the two flights

total for 2 x premium economy is £1640 which leaves about £2000 for the hotels. I had a quick look on tripadvisor and some of the best hotels can be had for around $200 dollars a night total $2800..about £1400 so a similar holiday in March 2008 for about £3100

I only spent about 2 minute looking up prices and i dont know when you are going but that is a rough example

photome

tashawasha wrote: »

Wow! Have just finished reading all posts - taken me nearly all day but they are so informative and have helped me greatly. Will def book flights using the Virgin miles plus money fare option and leave hotel until later.
Would also like to say that you all seem such a friendly and happy bunch and so ready to give out good advice.
So thanks again - will keep you posted.

Good luck in hunting down hotel later in year.

I will be arriving in Vegas on the 20th march, dat before you leave so we might cross paths.

tashawasha

Will let you know where we are staying once we have booked. Perhaps we can meet up. Red rose in button hole maybe.

ferf1223

photome wrote: »

Here goes..but I have no experiance of Orlando or when you are going so I plucked a date out of the air.

March 2008 premium economy miles plus money.

Buy 15000 miles cost= £240 then add on just under £1400 for the two flights

total for 2 x premium economy is £1640 which leaves about £2000 for the hotels. I had a quick look on tripadvisor and some of the best hotels can be had for around $200 dollars a night total $2800..about £1400 so a similar holiday in March 2008 for about £3100

I only spent about 2 minute looking up prices and i dont know when you are going but that is a rough example

And I think that even if you don't book miles + money fares it's still several hundred pounds cheaper than VH.

Kezza25 - check the price of the flights directly on virginatlantic.com and then check the prices of the hotels either directly on their websites or via expedia (wouldn't suggest expedia for Vegas, but for Orlando may be OK)...will be really, really surprised if VH gave you a better deal than available booking separately. Every time we've checked, it's been several hundred pounds more for the same thing the only exception being very last minute deals on occasion which we would never have waited for.

ferf1223

I had forgotten how much I enjoyed checking VH for fun.

Just checked for our dates in November...we booked Virgin flights for £312.50 each...so £625 for the pair of us.

They don't list our hotel (Bally's) so I went with the cheapest on-strip option (Circus Circus, which we wouldn't normally even consider but this is just for illustrative purposes)...CC is available on the hotel's website for $633.22 incl. taxes so about £320...

total for the 2 of us flights + hotels booked separate = £945

Total VH price = £1660

****

The cheapest hotel listed with VH we would consider is Excalibur = $910.52 (about £460) booking direct, so total cost to us with flights £1085

Total VH price = £1820

trets77

great tip that Photo me , i was unaware of it. if it was me travelling in March from London i would grab that £296 fare PDQ,!!! as we have yet to see a sub £300 fare from virgin this year even in the sales


if your booking your flights now with VIRGIN try to pre book your seats online .

You can book everything execpt aisle and bulkhead. goto https://www.seatguru.com for diagram of below descriptions under Virgin 747 seat plan


be near the front left of the plane going ( with a aisle seat) 31 D and F for example . this means "last on -first off " and near the front of the queue for Border control. don,t worry to much about being right at the front of that queue as your luggage still has to come through. if your not bothered about waiting at the other end try this below as well as for return


the window seats at the back where the seats config narrows from 3 to 2 . seats 61 - 64 A,C, H,K. on diagram

be warned Virgin know how to fill a 747 with maximum amount of economy passengers

ferf1223

trets77 wrote: »

the window seats at the back where the seats config narrows from 3 to 2 . seats 61 - 64 A,C, H,K. on diagram

those are the seats we always try for and are so sad if we happen not to get them...it's great when there are just 2 of you not to have to share the row with a random stranger...and since I like an aisle and my husband prefers a window, they're great...but as you said, there is a slight downside as you'll be last in the immigration queue...but even then, 11 hours in relative comfort (relative to the 3 person rows) is worth a bit of a delay at immigration, we think.

Kezza25_2

fair play - never thought of using miles in that way. Worth noting that you can only buy 19000 a year though so it won't work all the time and i'm saving my miles to upgrade to Sydney. Nevertheless, my hols would probably be cheaper that way so i stand corrected.

v-flyer.com and flyertalk are also useful resources for virgin flyers.

Kezza25_2

interesting, and sorry that this is off topic but miles plus money is an 'x' fare with virgin.

X
Economy Megasaver Fare/MilesPlusMoney
Flying Club Miles and Tier Points will be earned on this fare. 100% of mileage flown earned (125% for Flying Club Gold members). 2nd Lowest level of fare class for Economy, non flexible, non changeable and non-refundable. One of the 4 fare classes that are used for Economy Flying Club MilesplusMoney fares (MpM). There will need to be availability in this or the other MpM fares class (N, Q or M, though latter is only for Orlando route during peak season) for you to be able to take advantage of MpM. MilesplusMoney tickets do not earn Tier Points or Flying Club miles regardless of whether its booked under N or X class. Advance Purchase will be required. This fare class is also utilised on all routes (except Delhi route – see N Class) for redemption of Select voucher, if there is no availability in X and a customer wishes to use a Select voucher – Virgin will manually check through the sold allocation of X Class to see how many are Select voucher redemptions, as they are allowed to oversell this class to take them up to a maximum of 4 Select voucher redemptions.

So, although you're spending miles to get the fare, you quite probably get the same amount back. This would be very useful for those who travel virgin frequently.

I may well book that flight myself...........

Kezza25_2

anyone managed to register with the MGM Players club with a UK address?