Las Vegas guide and MSE thread 2012

rorylando45

CASINOS

nvh wrote: »

Good work Rory!

(incidently, you mentioned Sunday 29th June in your post - did you mean Sunday 30th?) - not being pedantic, just don't want you to have mucked up your booking

Sorry yes that's what I meant!

rorylando45

CASINOS

Wow, Hooters is so cheap for the dates I am there.

For the week I am there it is coming out as £92.66 for a standard room on Expedia. You can get 12% cashback on Expedia, so that works out as £5.82 per person per night, based on 2 people sharing a room. That is INSANELY cheap! Although of course, there is also the $9.95 daily resort fee but even so, it works out as less than a tenner a night. I’m quite tempted by that now!

photome

VALUE FOR MONEY

rorylando45 wrote: »

It's been a bit quiet in here recently?!

Anyway...I HAVE BOOKED MY FLIGHTS! YAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSS! :beer:

What I have booked is a far-from-conventional route, but it is definitely MSE and I think it's a pretty good deal. For anyone who is interested, here is what I have booked:

There is an event I want to go to on Friday 28th June 2013 so I basically wanted to go for the week surrounding that, i.e. Saturday 22nd June - Sunday 29th June.

Flights from London for those dates were coming up at about £650 return, and they weren't at very good times, so I wasn't really prepared to pay that.

So I was checking the cost of flying out from other European cities, and Dublin was coming up pretty cheap. So for about £566 we could get the following:

Saturday 22nd June: Dublin 8.40am - London Gatwick 10am (Aer Lingus)
Saturday 22nd June: London Gatwick 12.30pm - Vegas 3.05pm (British Airways)

Saturday 29th June: Vegas 4.55pm - London Gatwick 10.45am on Sunday (British Airways)
Saturday 29th June: London Gatwick 3pm - Dublin 4.20pm

So what we are planning on doing is just "forgetting" to board the London-Dublin flight on the way home, and just leave the airport in London. This means we will effectively be on the direct BA flight home from Vegas-London!

The downside is that obviously we can't check in luggage but that's not the end of the world. I pack lightly, at that time of year will only need a few t-shirts, some shorts and swimming trunks.

However, the plot thickens; through Quidco you could get 2% cashback on flights with eBookers. Not bad, that would get us about £11 odd back per flight.

BUT, they were offering a massive 6% cashback on flight+hotel packages. So (and if I do say so myself, this was a stroke of sheer genius), we used the "I only need a hotel for part of my trip" feature on eBookers. We booked one night in some crappy motel on the Wednesday night which increased the cost of our booking by about £4 per person. But this then fell under the umbrella of a flight+hotel booking, and thus triggered the 6% cashback rate and saved us about another £22.

So overall it comes to about £536 for Dub-Lon, Lon-Vegas and Vegas-Lon. We will then obviously need to book a flight to Dublin from London but Ryanair go there for £20-£40. Not bad at all! Plus we will go to Dublin the night before our flights and have a bit of a night out.

Happy days all round..did anyone manage to follow that?!?!?!?

Am i the only one who doesnt see this as a great saving/alternative.

Firstly no hold luggage, admittedly with BA you can take unlimited weight hand luggage, but even so most people wouldnt go to Vegas for a week without hold luggage...would they?

Secondly you may not get that cheap flight to Dublin as you are tied to a specific day.

Thirdly by the time you add on that flight and an overnight in Dublin the cost will prob be more than the direct flight to start with.

So for the same money you could have took the direct flight a day earlier and had an extra night in Vegas and had clothes to wear while you are there

Just my opinion

rorylando45

CASINOS

photome wrote: »

Am i the only one who doesnt see this as a great saving/alternative.

Firstly no hold luggage, admittedly with BA you can take unlimited weight hand luggage, but even so most people wouldnt go to Vegas for a week without hold luggage...would they?

Secondly you may not get that cheap flight to Dublin as you are tied to a specific day.

Thirdly by the time you add on that flight and an overnight in Dublin the cost will prob be more than the direct flight to start with.

So for the same money you could have took the direct flight a day earlier and had an extra night in Vegas and had clothes to wear while you are there

Just my opinion

Regarding the hold luggage, I understand for a lot of people it wouldn't really be possible to do a week in Vegas with just hand luggage. But I am sure it won't be a problem for me, I pack really light. Like I say, just some t-shirts, underwear, shorts and swimming trunks.

Regarding the flight to Dublin, I can book it now with Ryanair for 35 pounds for the Friday evening inclusive of all fees.

Thirdly, we won't be overnighting anywhere in Dublin, the plan is to just buy a crate of lager and drink it through the night. It will be the end of June so should be warm enough!

I would not have been able to take the direct flight a day earlier as I will be at work on the Friday.

The direct flights alone were about 800 GBP with BA, this way we are paying about GBP 570. So it's not for the same money, it's about 230 GBP cheaper.

I understand this type of route is far from ideal for most people, but for a bunch of 20-something lads who are just out to have a good time and drink beer, it's all part of the adventure

EDIT: just checked the cost of the BA flights alone, they are coming at over GBP 820. So it was a saving of over GBP 250 and we get a night on the bevvy in Dublin on the way!

nvh

rorylando45 wrote: »

Thirdly, we won't be overnighting anywhere in Dublin, the plan is to just buy a crate of lager and drink it through the night. It will be the end of June so should be warm enough!

haha!!! Love your style! :money:

stoneman

CASINOS

rorylando45 wrote: »

Regarding the hold luggage, I understand for a lot of people it wouldn't really be possible to do a week in Vegas with just hand luggage. But I am sure it won't be a problem for me, I pack really light. Like I say, just some t-shirts, underwear, shorts and swimming trunks.

Regarding the flight to Dublin, I can book it now with Ryanair for 35 pounds for the Friday evening inclusive of all fees.

Thirdly, we won't be overnighting anywhere in Dublin, the plan is to just buy a crate of lager and drink it through the night. It will be the end of June so should be warm enough!

I would not have been able to take the direct flight a day earlier as I will be at work on the Friday.

The direct flights alone were about 800 GBP with BA, this way we are paying about GBP 570. So it's not for the same money, it's about 230 GBP cheaper.

I understand this type of route is far from ideal for most people, but for a bunch of 20-something lads who are just out to have a good time and drink beer, it's all part of the adventure

EDIT: just checked the cost of the BA flights alone, they are coming at over GBP 820. So it was a saving of over GBP 250 and we get a night on the bevvy in Dublin on the way!

Oh great, a bunch of drunk smelly 20 something's in economy for 12 hours. That should be fun for everyone within 4 rows of you. And what are a group of 20somethings planning to do for a week without a smart shirt, trousers and a pair of shoes.

rorylando45

CASINOS

Last time i checked, vegas didn't have a dress code?! Or at least, the casinos/restaurants/attractions that we tend to go to certainly don't!

vegasvisitor

VALUE FOR MONEY

I have also booked for next year. Funny I hadn't looked on here yesterday but also found a deal with ebookers because of the 6% quidco deal (and also expedia was giving me nightmare flight options and not allowing me to select a hotel for the first night only because the cheapest option was a +1day flight on the way out).

So, flights 1-14th September 2012, plus one night at The Orleans (to get the quidco for packages and we often stay there anyway).

Flights only - would have been £1470 (plus £14 quidco)
Flights with 1 night at Orleans - £1535 (plus (£92 quidco)

The 1 night at the Orleans is the Sunday of Labor Day weekend so rates are higher everywhere that night, so it's not like a normal Sunday. This way we have that night booked and just worry about the rest later. We might tag 4 nights at Orleans and get a car around then for 5 days. Then maybe 8 nights at Platinum. Got a quote from them just now but it's not great, however they have said they will honour any offers that appear over the coming months.

:j :j :j

rorylando45

CASINOS

I haven't had my eBookers transaction track yet on Quidco
It's only been a couple of days, will wait another couple before I start to worry.

stoneman

CASINOS

rorylando45 wrote: »

Last time i checked, vegas didn't have a dress code?! Or at least, the casinos/restaurants/attractions that we tend to go to certainly don't!

I meant that usually young lads in Vegas want to go to a club or a high end bar (Ghost/Voodoo Lounge, etc), my son is going to be 30 while he is in Vegas and him and his mate have a few clubs and bars to sus out, but then he would give Tracy a run for her money on the amount of gear he can pack, but with limited clothes even if you did want to do something for a big night out the option isn't there.