Las Vegas guide and MSE thread 2015

bobbyhibs

Ingsy wrote: »

I know you say complimentary, but is this the famouse "$20 trick"?

I'm staying at the MGM Signature for 4 nights next month over a weekend - is it worth giving it a go?

I think the "$20 trick" is when you slip a 20 in between your passport and card and nicely asking "if there are any complimentary upgrades"
there is some info on the first page of the thread and a couple of sites links which if i recall give "success rate" and some peoples views on how it worked for them(or if not!)

As for if its worth giving it a go, it depends on how full the hotel is, if there are any upgrades etc.

hope this helps a lil

duchy

Ingsy wrote: »

I know you say complimentary, but is this the famouse "$20 trick"?

I'm staying at the MGM Signature for 4 nights next month over a weekend - is it worth giving it a go?

No I don't mean the $20 trick -

You could certainly try it - it'll cost you either nothing or $20 depending on which method you choose (although it's usual to get the $20 back if they can't offer an upgrade)

What's the worst that could happen ?

stoneman

Back home now, no thanks to sitting for 2 hours on the Tarmac at LAS because the president was in the sky somewhere over the west coast meaning that nothing is allowed to fly until he landed. I'll compose a TR over the weekend, warning there will be pictures of my wife and food.

bobbyhibs

stoneman wrote: »

Back home now, no thanks to sitting for 2 hours on the Tarmac at LAS because the president was in the sky somewhere over the west coast meaning that nothing is allowed to fly until he landed. I'll compose a TR over the weekend, warning there will be pictures of my wife and food.

wow, never knew that about the president, holding everyone up !!

I have seen a few documentaries and there was of course restraicted airspace around air force 1, 10miles i think, but not allowing people to take off?darn him!!

Looking forward to your trip reports, im a big fan of them !

Im sure your wife is lovely (better not show her the thread if you are warning people about her though )

photome

bobbyhibs wrote: »

wow, never knew that about the president, holding everyone up !!

I have seen a few documentaries and there was of course restraicted airspace around air force 1, 10miles i think, but not allowing people to take off?darn him!!

Looking forward to your trip reports, im a big fan of them !

Im sure your wife is lovely (better not show her the thread if you are warning people about her though )

She has made many appearances, the thread approves

bobbyhibs

photome wrote: »

She has made many appearances, the thread approves

thats great!
Though i do have a stange taste in females, im a more lily allen fan than cheryl cole or whatever her name is

ferf1223

stoneman wrote: »

Back home now, no thanks to sitting for 2 hours on the Tarmac at LAS because the president was in the sky somewhere over the west coast meaning that nothing is allowed to fly until he landed. I'll compose a TR over the weekend, warning there will be pictures of my wife and food.

welcome home and look forward to your TR and I reckon the food photos will be just the ticket to kick me into getting excited for next month mode and Tracy always makes any photo better.

We were once leaving the day Obama was in town...we left Encore in plenty of time because I am nuts and always so stressed about unexpected delays. It all went fine until we got just a bit south of Excalibur on our way to return the car. Stopped dead. People getting out of their cars asking each other WTH is going on stopped dead. Air Force One was due to be departing from LAS so they closed not only the airspace around LAS, but the surface roads that ran along side the airport.

Decided to be clever and go around via the tunnel. Nope. Then the petrol light came on on the dash. Because I needed more stress, you see. Not knowing how long we would be stuck and since we were running the AC, we swung into a petrol station for a splash and dash. Hubby saw the plane take off while I was at the pump, so at least we had a heads up that things might start moving again.

Of course it was fine in the end though it was absolute chaos returning the car and getting on the shuttle with all the back-log landing on them at the same time. Since we had left quite early we were in a much better position than many.

To this day, I use the AF1 incident as a justification for my wanting to leave far earlier than we need to.

oh - and the best part of this story was the TSA agent who checked our documents. He was fabulous. Best TSA agent, ever. I loved him. My hubby asked him if Obama gets hustled through a secret terminal and the guy replied 'oh yes he does, and it is made of gold and lollipops'.

stoneman

OK here is the TR on our Vegas trip 8/9-16/9. Let me start with a little background. We have been to Vegas more than 40 times, the first trip I ever had was way back in the late nineties, when the Bellagio wasn't even built. Our trips tend to revolve around shopping, drinking, and gambling. We have never bee ones for shows, I think we have only seen Carrot Top, Pen and Teller, and Terry Fator.

So off we go. Traveled down from Nottingham on the evening before our flight, stayed at the Travel inn Express T5 in Slough, about 5 minutes off of the M4, 10 minutes by car from T3 where our flight was departing from. I am IHG Platinum via a credit card sign up, so we get a free drink and nibbles, upgraded room, and the car parking charge of £10 waived. I could have paid for the room with points (25K) but I am on an accumulator incentive run at the moment with IHG so decided to pay with cash (£85).
Woke at 6am the next morning and headed off to Heathrow, we have our car collected by a guy I have been using for years, first found him on "park at my house", he collects the car from the terminal, parks it on his drive 10 minutes away, and brings it back to us when we return. Charges me £40 no matter how long we are away.
Well today we are flying Virgin Upper Class so I want to try out the Upper Class wing, and to do that we have to collect our driver from the drop off point at T3, and take him with us through the special channel to the wing. You are met, your luggage is taken out of the car by porters, they take everything up, you are given your boarding cards and then whisked through a private security channel, very efficient and swish. Click the link below to show us arriving at the Upper Class Wing
http://vid1116.photobucket.com/albums/k579/stoneman56/FullSizeRender%201.mp4

I will explain a bit about how the flights came about. I had been collecting Tesco Club card points for some time quite aggressively, buying dongles,mobile phones,games,toners, you name it, if it had extra points on it I bought it. I frequent "Paid to Shop" forum where most of the info on gaining extra points can be found, and when I bought the items I just stuck them on eBay to recoupe some of my money. So I had around £800 in CC points to blast through, bought 200,000 Virgin Flying miles for 2 Upper class tickets, paid the taxes and fees of just over £1K, and went about serching fro reward availibility.
Luckily we are both self-employed so we are very flexible. I could have looked at flying direct from LGW to LAS but it's another 1 1/2 drive for us and of course you just have to be able to use the famous Virgin Club House at LHR. So I used my miles for LHR-LAX return and bought a return fare with Southwest to Vegas for about $70 all in.
Below are a couple of snaps in the Clubhouse
Breakfast selection

Tracy pretending to play pool


"Virgin Atlantic announce the departure of flight VS007 to LAX"
This was our first Upper class flight with VS for some years, we stopped flying with them as soon as BA started their Vegas flights from LHR so that we cut 3 hours out of our traveling. I was quite excited about this as I had fond memories of our previous Upper flights with VS and was looking forward to the experience. We were on one of their brand new 787 "Dreamliners" with the new Upper suite.

Now I have to say VS mop the floor with BA on the soft product, the food is better, the staff are nicer IMO, the Clubhouse is far superior to the CCR and is rightly regarded as one of the finest airline lounges in the world, BUT oh dear, the hard product "the seat and cabin" are not so nice. The dividers are so low that you can see everyone, no privacy at all, it's like being in Premium economy with a lie flat bed.
A shot of the cabin, notice all the heads above the seat dividers

In contrast a BA Clubworld seat, high divider with total privicy.


One of the fun things on the flight is the bar, a couple of snaps of Tracy and I enjoying a drink. (Notice I am wearing the sleep suit they give you while Tracy prefers her own PJ's)



Tracy's dinner, very nice.

High Tea, how very British. (Take note BA)

Well we made good time, I got about 5 hours sleep and before you know it we're in LA.
We breeze through immigration, collect our luggage and trundle the 3 minutes it takes us to get to T1 from T2.
We have about a 2 hour wait, or so we think, as we are lined up to board the flight there is an announcement that boarding has to stop as there is something happening at LAS, it turns out to be the BA plane that caught fire.
Luckily it's only about an hours delay so we arrive at LAS not that far behind.
More later

pebblesmax

Good start stoneman. Looking forward to the rest of it.

stoneman

pebblesmax wrote: »

Good start stoneman. Looking forward to the rest of it.

Thanks Elaine, in La Tasca at the moment so will get back to it later