Las Vegas Makes Me Feel Stupid

Just spent today booking all my hotels in Vegas and Arizona for an upcoming trip and trying to maximise points, rewards and discounts! It's midnight! Anyway, I absolutely suck at getting/using hotel rewards as they never seem to go through, but have managed to get a stack of Virgin Atlantic airmiles from the Hilton - both double earning and then converting to Virgin airmiles. (Oh yes this trip to Vegas is a reward flight from London - yeah baby!) so I focus on the bonus airmiles you can get by going through to booking websites from the Virgin Flying Club - today that was 7 miles per £1 on hotels.com, 5 miles per £1 on booking.com which were the cheapest room prices when checked on Trivago. They also use Pointshound and Rocketmiles but I found the hotels were a lot more expensive. Also Hotels.com do a book 10 nights and stay free one night, but I tried to use a 10% discount code, which did work (for a Bellagio booking) but threw out the free night. So as it was slightly cheaper when logged in with my Sapphire (i.e. zero) MLife membership I decided to go for that and see what those points might do for me in Vegas. Booking.com actually had a room which had two free buffets included (which you only saw when you looked at room information) but I decided to go for the smaller room and play dining by ear. Although I haven't stayed in the Mandarin Oriental in Vegas I have stayed in MO Miami (it's just incredible) so please, please do yourself a favour and give it a whirl, and like another poster here says, don't get too hung up on the suite/room definition (or even the square footage). I got my room (more like a suite really) there for around $195 per night (including taxes, fees and resort fee) for a Friday AND Saturday when I booked it with my flight (still a great way to save) on Expedia (but then I didn't get any airmiles). This is kind of a round trip for me starting and finishing in Vegas, so I found the biggest saving was just playing with the dates and going cheap and cheerful on my road trip accommodation (all dirt cheap on Hotels.com) so I could splurge in Vegas. Another great tip for any hotel which has a lowest price promise is to check on Trivago, as there are a few sites I wouldn't actually want to book with due to some bad reviews on Tripadvisor, that sometimes offer ridiculously low prices - then ask the hotel to match - so you book direct with no risk of the third party ending up leaving you hanging but get the silly deal price. (Apologies for any typos - it's even later now!)

(1) Thanks to Jeff who was the first person in a LONG chain of replies to take the time to define what FHR meant. For everyone else, please define the acronym the first time it is used in a thread. (2) I was just in Vegas for two nights (Thursday and Friday) of last week. It was a spontaneous trip since I was already in Phoenix and I got a one-way fare for just $130 on USAirways. I found myself in baggage claim without a hotel room (that's how last minute the trip was), so I pulled out my laptop and spent some time looking through all the options: (a) The SLS Las Vegas (previously noted) was giving away rooms for $65/night. Again, it is on the north edge of the Strip, next to the Monorail, and offers Hilton points. (b) The Luxor had rooms available last minute for $46/night -- but I had heard that these were in need of a renovation. (c) The friends I was meeting up with were staying in the Wynn/Encore complex which has no affiliation with anything. Using the Hotwire.Com opaque hotel machine, I was able to get a room at the Wynn for $118/night. (I know you're not supposed to know where you will end up -- but Hotwire gave me enough hints that I decided it was worth the risk to spin the wheel and I got exactly what I wanted.) I accepted the opportunity to upgrade to the Encore for $35 more/night at check-in (the rooms were nicer/larger/newer) to which you need to then add the resort fee and the tax. It was still a great deal considering it would have normally been $310+resort fee+tax on a straight reservation. (d) I'm surprised that no one else has mentioned the best way to get free rooms at any of the MGM resorts (in Las Vegas and elsewhere in the USA). About 2.75 years ago, MGM Hotels unveiled a "MyVegas" application on Facebook. By playing their games, you earn Loyalty Points. You can then cash them in for free nights, buffets, and shows at MGM properties anywhere. I've now accrued almost 1.3 million loyalty points so I will be able to use them up for a better planned Las Vegas trip in the future. There are a lot of tricks to using your points well and you have to be careful not to let them accidentally expire (if I recall correctly, you have to play at least once a month). Their best reward is for 1.2 million points and it is a Caribbean cruise for two -- so I might just do that instead.

I also happened to be in Vegas at the time of this blog post. We split our stay between Mandalay Bay and the (new-to-SPG) Four Points Las Vegas East Flamingo (which is quite mediocre). I would say that Las Vegas is not a great city for Starwood travelers, but that it can be a great city for Hyatt travelers. If you're a Hyatt traveler, you can link up with Mlife, get cheaper bookings on the Mlife websites, put restaurant charges through Las Vegas (in MGM hotel restaurants and more places such as the Mandarin Oriental bar) on your room charge, and rack up the Hyatt points.

If you're going to Vegas with friends to have fun then pay for the better property. Both you as well as your friends will appreciate it more. If you're travelling there just for business/layover/etc then go with your points strategy.

Another vote for Vdara, it is non-smoking, non-gaming. Also, the Four Seasons can be had for less usually on lmtclub.com. And the Signature at MGM Grand goes on sale on Groupon Getaways sometimes. There is an established thread on FT with Las Vegas hotels deals. Las Vegas is definitely not the loyalty traveler type.