Las Vegas guide and MSE thread 2016

Bond,James_Bond

Last time I transited New York ( en route to Vegas) I also had to contend with changing terminals at JFK, which all adds to the time. ( also a bit scary as the transit bus they use weaves across the apron in and out of aircraft coming and going)

Your baggage will not be transferred automatically; you will have to claim it at New York and recheck it in the transit channels.
If they use your debit card in front of you ( and not take it away) you should be safe fomo fraud.

bobbyhibs

Bond,James_Bond wrote: »

Last time I transited New York ( en route to Vegas) I also had to contend with changing terminals at JFK, which all adds to the time. ( also a bit scary as the transit bus they use weaves across the apron in and out of aircraft coming and going)

Your baggage will not be transferred automatically; you will have to claim it at New York and recheck it in the transit channels.
If they use your debit card in front of you ( and not take it away) you should be safe fomo fraud.

ok thanks for the feedback, will double check closer to the time, atleast with the added time it ll give us plenty of time then !

vegasvisitor

bobbyhibs wrote: »

Happy holidays to everyone !:beer:

was getting excited for our trip to vegas (22 weeks and 1 day:D) to go
I was checking the seat plans for our flights and noticed when we stop over in new york(a connection flight) instead of 3hours in the airport its now 4 hours and 40mins!!:mad:

I know it can be prob worse but is this sorta thing the norm?
Im not too experinced in the whole connection thing, but i was saying to my brother the time we will be up starting our day here in the uk, time we get to new york , we add the layover and then the flight to vegas, and getting to the hotel , getting settled in well it ll be a good 22 or so hour day !

Just a lil annoyed we lose 1 hour 40mins, a time we could use in vegas so i feel we lose a lil bit of our holiday!!
Has anyone had problems/issues like this? sorry for the rant.

Is it Newark you stop in rather than New York? I've never changed planes at JFK (NY), but have changed at Newark before. Immigration can be quite time consuming there, so you may be glad of the extra time. We had about 6 hours in Philly this year and managed to go into town for a while which was nice. Transport in Philly is super easy to use though and very reliable. I'm not sure I'd take the chance in under 5 hours, and you'll likely have longer immigration queues than we did.

vegasvisitor

nvh wrote: »

I wondered why the other thread had gone quiet - didn't notice this had been opened (thanks for the headsup blindman )

So do people still do Social Rewards? How is it now-a-days?... it was getting 'quiet' last I looked (June'ish?)

I'm logging in every couple of days maybe and seem to be getting enough to keep it going. Not as much as I got when I started, but still worthwhile all the same. Not enough to be logging in daily though.

Another thing I've just spotted is flights with BA from Glasgow for next year (September) for £570. Doesn't seem to be pushing the AA prices down funnily enough.

duchy

bobbyhibs wrote: »

hi
and thank you for the reply its just soo frusting, going from 3 hours to nearly 5 hours in the airport, i feel im losing 2 hours in vegas !!!which in turn is 2 hours less holiday .
Im travelling with united from edinburgh to new york, stoping over new york and with united from new york to vegas so im assuming my bags will be transferred automactally. but I may be wrong.
Immigration is another thing that annoys me,im sure other people get annoyed too though, just in june when we did new york/vegas (other way round next year) we were in the Immigration line and it lasted like 45mins, and i HATE waiting(im unsure if its a bad habbit or getting old or both !) and we got to the counter and we were through within 5mins.
Just when we went to new york this year we went round the bars,my brother wanted a few drinks and out of like 10 bars/food areas 9 wanted a credit/debit card payment instead of cash....i was a bit worried about either fraud and or extra oversees fees so did not want to pay via my card over there.

but thank you for the reply,:rotfl:

You have to reclaim your bags at New York Bobby as you have to clear US customs at your first point of entry. Your bag will be tagged through to Vegas however so you pick it up off the carousel walk through customs then put it on another conveyor belt and it gets put on the Vegas flight.


As for the wait at immigration - far better to do it in New York so when you finally arrive in Vegas you can just grab your bags and head for the exit with no queues to join before you can jump in a cab/hop on a shuttle.

As for debit cards- I thought I was really careful with mine but a couple of months after I got back I noticed a Charge at Harley DavidsonCafe (which I hadn't visited in 5 years). It didn't cost me anything despite NatWest making a complete pigs ear of it a the fraud department forgot to cancel my card when I rang to advise them and it all turned into a bit of a mess for a couple of weeks. The upside was it was such a mess that I got enough in compensation to pay for another ticket to Vegas despite all charges been reversed as soon as I spotted them on my internet banking . I wouldn't drink at a bar that wanted my card- I'll pay for my drinks as I go and if the bar doesn't like it I'll drink at another .

bobbyhibs

lesley74 wrote: »

Is it Newark you stop in rather than New York? I've never changed planes at JFK (NY), but have changed at Newark before. Immigration can be quite time consuming there, so you may be glad of the extra time. We had about 6 hours in Philly this year and managed to go into town for a while which was nice. Transport in Philly is super easy to use though and very reliable. I'm not sure I'd take the chance in under 5 hours, and you'll likely have longer immigration queues than we did.

hi thank you for the feedback
Im sorry but i should have been more clear, we arrive in newark airport,Back in june we did new york first and vegas second,other way round next year and immigration , well i have zero patitence!
but thanks for the feedback ,
kind regards

duchy- thank you for the detailed feedback , i ll be sure to either remeber or ask again when we go! you are right in regards immigration best doing it ,getting it over and done with,its just as i said i havve little patients at the best of times and well its gonna be a long long long day. just i feel the near 2 hours *extra* time at the airport is 2 hours less in vegas, thus 2 hours less holiday,Just as it stand we arrive at edinburgh airport for 6am and now due to arrive in vegas at like 7 15 pm(vegas time) , time we get our bags, get to the hotel, nearly 8pm ( 4am uk time) so its nearly a day up already !

glad you got your debit card charge fixed!
as i said much eailer, when we were in newark back in june we vistied like x amount of bars/cafes and for nearly EVERYONE they wanted a credit/debit card so its a long long look !

thanks agian for the feedback, kind regards
(22weeks today thank god, counting down the days !!)

nvh

Taken from headforpoints, Virgin have extended their season for MAN to LAS flights:

Manchester to Las Vegas – season extended so the service will now continue to November 2016 and then restart a month earlier than usual, in March 2017

Re: bars insisting on payment by card - that is the weirdest thing I've ever heard!!! (unless you were trying to pay with $100 bills - I know that some of the less touristy places in America can be a bit concerned about counterfeits etc) - seems odd that somewhere would refuse something tangible like cash?

StuieUK34

Doesn't take long to get through customs and collect bags when hitting an entry point in the US before Vegas...
We did AMS-LAS with change over in Philly, with a 1hr 40 window...
Was through Imm & Customs in about 30 mins, collected bags, then did bag drop, went and got a philly cheesesteak sarnie for $11 and still had time to chill before we were to get on the plane, and then find it was delayed 1hr, and then get on the plane only to sit on the plane for another hour! ah yes, 2013yr, brings back memories!

I'm on the DUB-LAS this year, leaving Dub at 7am, and the new flight time with Virgin being 10:10am, leaves enough time to grab McD's brekkie before getting in the massive queue for the VS43 flight !

vegasvisitor

nvh wrote: »

Re: bars insisting on payment by card - that is the weirdest thing I've ever heard!!! (unless you were trying to pay with $100 bills - I know that some of the less touristy places in America can be a bit concerned about counterfeits etc) - seems odd that somewhere would refuse something tangible like cash?

I've never heard of it either. I've only ever given a card when I want to, and that's for starting a tab. They shouldn't have any issue with you paying cash, as long as you do it for each round as you would at home.

vegasvisitor

StuieUK34 wrote: »

Doesn't take long to get through customs and collect bags when hitting an entry point in the US before Vegas...
We did AMS-LAS with change over in Philly, with a 1hr 40 window...
Was through Imm & Customs in about 30 mins, collected bags, then did bag drop, went and got a philly cheesesteak sarnie for $11 and still had time to chill before we were to get on the plane, and then find it was delayed 1hr, and then get on the plane only to sit on the plane for another hour! ah yes, 2013yr, brings back memories!

I'm on the DUB-LAS this year, leaving Dub at 7am, and the new flight time with Virgin being 10:10am, leaves enough time to grab McD's brekkie before getting in the massive queue for the VS43 flight !

Times can vary hugely depending on the arrival point. The worst I've experienced is Miami. Second worst is Newark (on more than one occasion). Philly has always been very quick for us. We usually have to wait on our luggage there. From experience, immigration in Newark is likely to be quite a bit longer then Philly. I'll take a flight through Philly over a flight through Newark if I have the choice.

Stoneman may be in Miami by now and can maybe let us know if Miami immigration is any better these days?