2025 Gambling Trip Reports

Today I began my first gambling trip of the year.

5 nights. Paris Las Vegas. Comped (well, $23 total, but no resort fees). It’s 7x multiplier for 4 days that I’ll be here.

Flight from NY was uneventful. Lots of rain in the morning and many delayed flights but by the time I left no problems. Landed at about 10pm. One odd thing is a couple else tried to get in my uber. I showed the driver my reservation and the couple apologized and went to an other car. The other car looked nothing like the one I reserved. Oh well. Maybe just drunk or careless. $20 from LAS to Paris. No traffic.

Checked in easily. Room is nice but no view. King bed. Large bathroom. Usable fridge. I’ve stayed at Paris twice before and it’s the nicest place I’ve stayed at in Vegas.

Put down my bags and went down to the floor. At first all craps was $25 with one empty table. Went to the high limit slots area. Played 7/5 bonus poker for quarters. 100 play but I just played 1 hand ($1.25). 98% game but oh well. I never actually hit a flush or full house so it didn’t hurt me. One odd thing is I had 2 shots at 4 to a Royal in the first 50 hands. Both times had 10/10 pair that I discarded. First time hit a straight and second time pair of queens. Hit one 4OAK (QQ after holding QQ).

Ended up $1 at VP (at one point I hit the wrong button and was betting less than max coin for a few hands).

Walked around. the previously empty $25 craps table was now $15. I bought in for $200. $15 on the line and $15 or $20 odds. Really even table. Ended up winning like $7. Their fire bet only pays 500/200/40 for 6/5/4 points. That seemed low to me.

Walked down to the foot court and had a slice of pizza. Now in the room, showered and heading to bed. My plan is to gamble lightly until the 7x starts on Tuesday. My hope is to get close to diamond on this trip or maybe actually get there.

The 40 payout for 4 points should bring the HA back up to 20%. The Wiz hasn't advanced that pay table yet. Reddit users say LV casinos have cut the top payout to 500 recently, but it's still taxable at over 300 for 1 on bets over $1. Getting paid more for 3 or 4 points is a boost.
https://wizardofodds.com/games/craps/side-bets/fire-bet/

Day 2A

Woke up early and walked to PH around 8:30. Saw a $5 UTH table. 2 parents and 3 kids. Very nice people but generally pretty bad at UTH. Several times people called with literally the nut low, saying “it’s just $5”. They were all drinking but friendly and not belligerent. The mom hit a SF for $450 all told between her bets. I caught one dealer error (my two low pair beat her 1 high pair). Otherwise pretty good dealing. I won $250 in about 90 minutes.

Played some VP and lost $15.

Earl of Sandwhich for $6 BEC. It was good for the price. Too bad ocean one is no more.

Walked to Park MGM. My Vegas $25 and $15 match play. Lost the $15 and won the $25 for a net $35 profit.

Good start to the day.

Rest of Day 2

Took tram to Bellagio. Played some 8/5 BP for quarters. Won $10.

Walked over to Cromwell. $5 UTH. I believe I won something like $50. Good dealer. One couple was ending their trip and really friendly.

Stopped at Flamingo and had Nathans. $17 for 2 hot dogs and fries. I watched them cook the fries to order and they were still mushy and mealy. I don't understand how that happens. So expensive and the fries sucked. The hot dogs were fine, but nothing special.

Walked over to Linq. $5 UTH again. Won $20 or so after maybe 90 mins. Had 2 frozen Baileys. Dealer made a comment about me not playing the trips.

$10 craps at Linq went well. Won about $100. One odd thing was a player asked for $5 "boxcars." Stick had no idea what that was. Other dealers had to tell her. That was odd.

I had a free High Roller offer. I redeemed the voucher. It was me plus 2 families. It's winter recess for a lot of schools so I've seen more families with kids under 18 than ever before. I really think it's because of winter recess. High roller was good. I had been on it once before.

I stoped at In N Out on the Linq promenade. This was my first time. I just got a regular burger (not a double double). It was good. I'd do back for a double double next next time. Much better than the rip off Nathans. Solid burger for the price.

Walked back to Paris. Crapless craps. $20 or $25 on 12 buy only. Won $100. One thing I haven't seen before. One guy was betting $5 on the horn. NOT horn high anything, just $5 horn. What is that? Is it literally $1.25 on each horn number? Good crew. They did have separate spaces for high high yo or horn high a2 (etc etc), but they also had a space for just "horn" for $5.

Sat down at PGP. Friendly table. I bet $25 ($30 twice). Won another $150. Took forever for me to lose the first hand. At one point I was up even more, but lost back $100 from my peak and then quit.

Walked to 7/5 bonus poker in high limit room. Hit 2 FOAK. Won something like $30 all told.

Successful today today. I think I'm up something like $600 or $700 on the trip, might be more. I'll do a count at the end.

Back up to Paris room. Have to work NYC hours tomorrow so heading to bed soon.

Quote: TinMan

Day 2A

Earl of Sandwhich for $6 BEC. It was good for the price. Too bad ocean one is no more.
link to original post

Where was the 6$ EoS? Most of the ones I see are like 10$+ now, which, while tasty, I find them a tad small to justify the price.

Quote: Venthus

Quote: TinMan

Day 2A

Earl of Sandwhich for $6 BEC. It was good for the price. Too bad ocean one is no more.
link to original post

Where was the 6$ EoS? Most of the ones I see are like 10$+ now, which, while tasty, I find them a tad small to justify the price.
link to original post

I went to the one in planet Hollywood. It was just inside the casino from the mall. The $6 sandwiches are only for breakfast until 11am. There were a few choices—egg and cheese only, ham egg and cheese, sausage egg and cheese and bacon egg and cheese.

Quote: TinMan

Dealer made a comment about me not playing the trips.


link to original post

Get this all the time when I don't play Sucker bets on Blackjack, Spanish 21 and Baccarat.

Dealer does the "Awwwwwwwww man, you woulda got XX to 1..." conveniently ignoring the 25 previous rounds it did not hit!

I let it slide once or twice, but if they keep making noise about it, I usually start doing this.

Every Time the Side Bet DOESN'T hit I emphatically point at it and say "Awwwwwwwwww man, it didn't pay out again!"

After about 5 - 6 times the dealer starts to get irritated, keep doing it until the side bet finally hits. Then say "Welp, good thing I didn't listen to YOU or I woulda LOST 27 to 1 just to win back XX to 1!"

Day 3A

Worked NY hours (6am-2pm).

Down to the floor. Swiped in for 7x multiplier on tier credits. Tiles was open. They said a high roller requested it. I got killed. Down $600 there. There were two other guys playing. I was flat betting $50. One guy started betting $500-$600 on my hand. I don’t like that because I get put in an awkward spot if I set the hand differently than he would and it makes a difference. It’s good if the guy tips me but that never happens at tiles. Anyway, thankfully there were no debatable decisions. He won 3 hands and lost 1 and didn’t bet on me again.

Walk to crapless craps. Nothing notable except two guys placing $100+ on every number. Ended up losing another $300 before the game broke.

Rest of Day 3

Went to the Guy Fieri place in Horse shoe. Got the brisket nachos. They were very filling and heavy. $35 for nachos is expensive. Didn’t feel great so came back up to the room. Took a nap for about 2 hours.

Back down to PGP. $25 flat bet. The progressive is up to $2 million. Nothing much to speak of. Lost $100 and walked away.

Went to VP. Lost $50 at $1 denom 9/5 JOB.

Up to the room and heading to bed. All told I think I lost about $1000 today. I was up something like $600-$700 to start the day so my overall loss is modest for 2 days of gambling.

Hopefully better tomorrow.

Day 4A

Worked NYC hours. Logged off at 2 and walked over to Caesars. Peter Lugars has a great pre fixe menu for $50 all in. They said for 1 person I could only sit at the bar, even though most tables were empty. I had a Caesar salad, salmon, creamed spinach and ice cream dessert. The dessert took forever to come out so the bartender gave me an espresso on the house. There were 2 guys also seated at the bar. Once was wasted. Started off with telling bartender he was beautiful but then started to get more aggressive. At one point an employee (woman) came over to calm him down and ask him to leave. The other guy was trying to calm down his friend. He kissed the woman’s hand and eventually left. I assumed that sort of thing happens all the time but bartender said only 1x a month or so.

Walked to Cromwell. $15 craps. One guy kept betting the Don’t and losing. He was whispering 7 every roll. It was a hot table so he got wiped out. The table was fairly busy. At one point a very old man tried to squeeze in and the don’t guy had some words for him. The old guy took another spot. I won $200.

$5 I love suits. Dead even.

Walked to Horseshoe. Crapless craps. $25 2 & 12. I cleaned up winning about $500. One negative is their cashier. The way it’s set up the cashiers don’t really see the diamond line so they called like 10 other people while I waited in the diamond line. The window right in front of me had a woman doing some elaborate transaction. That cashier later apologized for the wait and said the other cashiers were supposed to look at the diamond line first.

Walked to Paris. $10 UTH. Dealer was way too happy. Dancing, yelling, just too much. She was very good at dealing the game but gave terrible advice. At one point she told people to 4x only Aces and some sone “professional poker players” will 4x King hands. What most bothered me was she called the pit over and asked to raise the minimum from $10 to $15 and said it was so she could pay us more. She was getting tipped quite a lot from other players so I don’t see why she was asking to raise the minimum. At one point she admitted it’s not good for the players. She asked the pit to raise the minimum a second time and I left. I did win $150 mostly by 4x per basic strategy. The dealer was technically good and fast but not my style personality wise.

Went to 7/5 BP for quarters. Lost $40.

Overall a very good gambling day. I’ve pulled out of the hole and think I’m back up a few hundred.

Rest of Day 4

Briefly played crapless at Paris. One dealer recognized me. Table was cold and broke after 10 minutes (no shooters). Lost $100 there.

Went to PGP. Very fun table with two people who were funny and lively. I lost $100 there. For the first 80% of the time there was a veteran dealer. At the end, There was a rookie dealer being supervised by the veteran dealer. The rookie dealer had no idea what to do. I’ve never seen anyone on a game so lost. She didn’t know how to use the automatic shuffler or how the game works. Reading hands was a huge challenge. She had trouble handling the cards. The veteran dealer was extremely patient and a very good teacher. At one point the pit boss was watching and apologized to the veteran dealer. The veteran dealer said it was completely ok. She was very kind to the new dealer. It was late and the new dealer was attractive and legitimately trying so I didn’t mind but I hit my stop loss at $100 down so I left.

Walked to the food court at horseshoe. Got a slice of chicken buffalo pizza. It’s not great pizza but it was adequate.

Up the room. Did a count. Currently up $400 in gambling overall. So it was a solid winning day.

Final work day on Thursday.

Day 5A

Worked NYC hours. Walked to PH. Had a pastrami sandwich at Earl of Sandwich. It was great

PH has 3/2 late surrender BJ for $25. Both shoe games and CSM. At first Played with a very good dealer—won $300 and tipped regularly during the win streak. For the next few hours I bounced around between $25 crapless, $5 UTH and more $25 BJ. Generally lost everywhere. One BJ dealer rubbed me the wrong way. I was down $100 on her table within 10 mins when I hit a BJ for $37.50. I tossed her the 50 cents and she did a mock dance and said “woo-hoo 50 cents” in a very exaggerated way. I colored up and walked.

Odd moment at craps. Two guys were clearly friends. Dice out to one guy. Other friend says $25 hard 6 and tosses in a quarter. The other friend was nowhere near throwing and was waiting for his friend. The proper response should be “bet” or “hard 6 for $25”. The stick was upset. “The dice are out! I’ll allow it this time but not again. Bet early.” The guy was really confused which set the stick off more. Eventually they booked the bet but after that every roll the stick would push the dice and say loudly “no more bets. No action.” I’ll admit I wasn’t at the table the whole time but it seemed excessive.

Eventually I lost my profit for the day, plus my buy in. Down $400 on the day.

Dinner back at Earl. Chicken avocado. It’s good but not as good as the pastrami. Highly recommend the pastrami.

End of day 5

Walked back to Paris. Got killed at crapless. No 2 or 12 for 6 shooters. Lost $300. A few other people got killed even worse because they had anywhere from $25 to $100 placed on every number every time. Very short rolls too. Most were 2-4 rolls. No points hit. I think I was on the table for about 10 minutes.

The rest of the night was mostly $25 PGP and VP. All told I think I lost another $20 or so.

Total for the trip is now down about $320.

Check out tomorrow but still have almost a full day before my flight.

Day 6

Woke up early and went downstairs. Craps was pretty cold. Lost $70. Went to $10 UTH. It’s amazing how many people will sit down and say “hey so what’s this? Poker, ok I know poker. What do I do?” And then check check check A7. Or make the double bet with 7/8 on a flop of 9, Q, 2 because they’re “close to a straight”. Anyway, won $25 but lost most of it back at VP.

Checked out of room. Applied $30 in comp dollars against room charges. The luggage drop was a mess. I expected it would be a 2 second process in or near the diamond check in. Instead it was outside and chaotic. Took 20 mins.

Walked to cosmo. Reservation for buffet. $50 all in. It was good. Crab legs were good. Salt and pepper shrimp was awful. One of the carved meat beef cuts was delicious but the other was terrible. Desserts were excellent. I ate an embarrassing amount of food.

Walked back to Paris. Tiles was open. I sat for 4.5 hours. It started at $50 and then table limit dropped to $25. Only had the table to myself for maybe 25 mins total. Ended up losing $50. One uncomfortable moment—very old man sitting next to me betting $100 hand. Another guy sits down and buys in for $2000. New guy starts betting $250-$400 on old guy’s hand. At one point the layout was covered in chips because each of them had bets on multiple spots. Dealer declares one of their shared hands a loser but doesn’t take the bet. Old man points it out, which results in both of them losing their bets. If old man says nothing, dealer error saves them both hundreds. Old man realizes what he did and apologies several times to new guy. New guy doesn’t get upset but he does stop betting on old man’s hand and gets up a few mins later.

After tiles I played some VP. Lost $15 or so.

I believe my total gambling loss now is something like $470.

There are lots of 3:2 blackjack games in Vegas, that are not CSM. Caesars DD is no good because at least at the public table they don't allow double after split, but at all of the others I can think of the rules are fine.

End of Trip, Misc Events and Final Numbers

Thankfully, the process to pick up bags was much faster than earlier time to drop them off. Uber to airport was fast. I've never seen LAS busy when I was leaving. Always feels empty, in a good way. TSA was fast, especially since I have Precheck. Of course, I still got there 3 hours early because I always get to airports early. Flight back to JFK was uneventful.

Final accounting: Turns out my on the fly estimates were a bit off. Total gambling loss was $335. Drink tips were an additional $64. Some other miscellaneous out pocket that I don't count as gambling losses.

it's interesting how people can have different perspectives. I mentioned the $335 loss to a friend who does not gamble. She was mortified at the idea of losing that much money. I said, "I had the room free for 5 nights. I couldn't get a nice hotel room for that long for $335 anywhere." She said, "Yeah, but the room was in a casino."

Misc Stories

Craps at Cromwell. A 7-stars player buys in with his wife (each presents a card). He takes a marker for $2,000 and asks the pit to give $1000 to his wife. Pit says "I'll give you the $2,000 and you can give her whatever you want." Dealer cuts out $2,000 and gives it to the player. 7 stars guy is upset and gives some to his wife. The only reason I could think why he's upset is because he wanted his wife's buy in to be recorded as $1,000. But the whole $2,000 marker in on his card, so I don't know how that would be possible since it would mean accounting for $3,000. Anyway, the dealer on that side of the table was very new and the fact that the 7-stars guy was upset got into his head. It took the dealer forever to set up place bets. The wife made the same bets, which led to the dealer doing the same slow process all over again. A few times he lost track of chips or would color down chips only to then color them back up again. After the 4th or 5th time doing this, the player said to take all of the place bets down for him and his wife. The dealer started mixing the chips, which upset the pit boss, who stepped in and told him to take the bets down separately for each person. 7-stars guy waited until his pass bet resolved, and then walked away upset.

Craps at Paris. As I walk up to the table, the sign says $15 on one side and $25 on the other. I know that sometimes tables will have 2 different limits, so I buy in at the $15 side figuring they have two different limits. Dealer gives me the chips and then says "it's a $25 table." He then changes the $15 sign to $25 (after I have the chips). I know Caesars typically gives you 30-minutes after a limit goes up before enforcing it. I ask if I'm grandfathered in and other players say "yeah, you're grandfathered." I put down a $15 line bet. 12 rolled, so $15 gone. I go to put down $15 and dealer gets upset and says loudly "it's a $25 game." I ask him if I'm grandfathered and he says "you're a new player. it's $25." I walk away. I don't know if the pit boss was there or not, but I assumed if I buy in while the sign says $15 then I get the benefit of the 30-minute grace period.

UTH at Planet Hollywood. One guy is very drunk, but not obnoxious or rude. Just plastered. Board is something like 22QQA. Dealer has 4/5 and another player has J/10. Dealer pushes the hands and drunk player is convinced the J/10 won because J is higher than 5. Dealer tries in earnest for about 3 solid minutes to explain why it's a push. Guy doesn't get it. To his credit, he wasn't angry, just very very confused.

Anyway, it was a good trip. Weather was mild the entire time I was there. With the 7x multiplier, I managed to churn about 13,000 tier credits. I wish I had done a bit more to get to 15,000 on this trip, but I'll get it next trip.

Quote: TinMan

Of course, I still got there 3 hours early because I always get to airports early.

We could never travel together. My wife always wants to get to the airport an hour and a half early which drives me crazy. I fly quite a bit and my goal is to get to the gate as they are boarding first class. That still usually leaves me five or ten minutes of waiting which is the most I can tolerate.

Quote: DRich

Quote: TinMan

Of course, I still got there 3 hours early because I always get to airports early.

We could never travel together. My wife always wants to get to the airport an hour and a half early which drives me crazy. I fly quite a bit and my goal is to get to the gate as they are boarding first class. That still usually leaves me five or ten minutes of waiting which is the most I can tolerate.
link to original post

I am in your wife's camp. You are taking a chance with trying to cut it close; you can't be too sure how long the security lines will be. Somebody here said that they have never had delays at LAS; I have, multiple times, and you wouldn't expect Friday at 6 AM to be busy. What's the length of the security line at O'Hare today - 10 minutes, or 90? Switch to Philadelphia, and it becomes hours. I try to get there 75 minutes before the scheduled gate leaving time.

Quote: ThatDonGuy

Quote: DRich

Quote: TinMan

Of course, I still got there 3 hours early because I always get to airports early.

We could never travel together. My wife always wants to get to the airport an hour and a half early which drives me crazy. I fly quite a bit and my goal is to get to the gate as they are boarding first class. That still usually leaves me five or ten minutes of waiting which is the most I can tolerate.
link to original post

I am in your wife's camp. You are taking a chance with trying to cut it close; you can't be too sure how long the security lines will be. Somebody here said that they have never had delays at LAS; I have, multiple times, and you wouldn't expect Friday at 6 AM to be busy. What's the length of the security line at O'Hare today - 10 minutes, or 90? Switch to Philadelphia, and it becomes hours. I try to get there 75 minutes before the scheduled gate leaving time.
link to original post

I appreciate your position but I look at it differently. Most airports I travel though I can make a pretty educated guess about times at TSA. I fly about once a week and if I spent an actual extra hour at the airport every trip that would really add up to inefficiency. I would say that about once every 150 flights I might get delayed and miss my flight. So what, I just catch the next one whether it is 90 minutes later or the next day. How often is it absolutely crucial that one gets to their destination at a particular time? I would guess for most people it is pretty rare.

BTW, I think your 75 minutes is reasonable.

One year I was travelling from Vegas to Atlantic City every single week for 51 straight weeks. I had that one down to where I could arrive and be one of the very last people to board before the plane pulled away from the gate. That was fantastic.

I'm far on the opposite side-- I tend to arrive 3+ hours early as missed flights for me are fairly costly, and, outside of outbound travel-related deadlines, I generally don't need to be anywhere at a particular time. And hacker fares involving international stops are a whole different kind of fun...

On my most recent flight, I estimate that I'd be out 13k if my final arrival time was about 5 hours later than what I had scheduled.

Quote: Venthus

On my most recent flight, I estimate that I'd be out 13k if my final arrival time was about 5 hours later than what I had scheduled.
link to original post

I assume you are booking your tickets separately and not on the same airline. In that scenario I would also show up early. Most of my flights don't have a penalty for missing the flight you just have to fly standby on the next flight.

Slight tangent to the question: how much time do you allow for changing flights at an airport?

I am a slightly special case, as San Francisco International is notorious for delays caused by fog - either problems taking off, or problems with the plane I am supposed to be on arriving. Anything under one hour is pushing it - especially if the switch happens at O'Hare.

Quote: ThatDonGuy

Slight tangent to the question: how much time do you allow for changing flights at an airport?
link to original post

I typically aim for at least 45min, if I know the area, don't expect delays, and it's domestic. Otherwise, 1h+. Extra for international, especially with checked.

Check the on-time/typical delay stats for both of your flights, and the four immediately before/after them. I had one case where the before and after were both typically delayed by about 45min, but my 'middle' flight was marked as generally on time... Yeeeeah, no.

Quote: DRich

Quote: Venthus

On my most recent flight, I estimate that I'd be out 13k if my final arrival time was about 5 hours later than what I had scheduled.
link to original post

I assume you are booking your tickets separately and not on the same airline. In that scenario I would also show up early. Most of my flights don't have a penalty for missing the flight you just have to fly standby on the next flight.
link to original post

Cruises, mostly. So I'd be liable for my deposit, no-show penalties, loss of freeplay, plus expenses to hang out until I can catch it on the next leg.

I suppose I could fly back home until the next leg, or catch it in the next city, but the former saves only a thousand or so, and the latter is non-trivial.

Quote: ThatDonGuy

Slight tangent to the question: how much time do you allow for changing flights at an airport?

I am a slightly special case, as San Francisco International is notorious for delays caused by fog - either problems taking off, or problems with the plane I am supposed to be on arriving. Anything under one hour is pushing it - especially if the switch happens at O'Hare.
link to original post

I will take the shortest layover offered by the airline. The lowest I see anymore is around 35 minutes. Most international connections they don't schedule layovers shorter than 90 minutes or so. This is assuming that I am flying on a single itinerary. If I am changing airline and on a different itinerary I will allow longer for layovers.

Quote:

One year I was travelling from Vegas to Atlantic City every single week for 51 straight weeks. I had that one down to where I could arrive and be one of the very last people to board before the plane pulled away from the gate. That was fantastic.
link to original post

That's cuz NOBODY in their right mind is leaving Vegas for AC!

As someone who has over 20 years playing experience in AC, I can tell you if I had the choice between Vegas and Lantic Shitty, I'd go to Vegas every day!

Heck, I prefer to go to PA casinos over AC, and it ain't for the free parking!

Quote: 7NeverWins

Quote:

One year I was travelling from Vegas to Atlantic City every single week for 51 straight weeks. I had that one down to where I could arrive and be one of the very last people to board before the plane pulled away from the gate. That was fantastic.
link to original post

That's cuz NOBODY in their right mind is leaving Vegas for AC!

As someone who has over 20 years playing experience in AC, I can tell you if I had the choice between Vegas and Lantic Shitty, I'd go to Vegas every day!

Heck, I prefer to go to PA casinos over AC, and it ain't for the free parking!
link to original post

I was not going to gamble, it was for work.

Quote: DRich

Quote: ThatDonGuy

Quote: DRich

Quote: TinMan

Of course, I still got there 3 hours early because I always get to airports early.

We could never travel together. My wife always wants to get to the airport an hour and a half early which drives me crazy. I fly quite a bit and my goal is to get to the gate as they are boarding first class. That still usually leaves me five or ten minutes of waiting which is the most I can tolerate.
link to original post

I am in your wife's camp. You are taking a chance with trying to cut it close; you can't be too sure how long the security lines will be. Somebody here said that they have never had delays at LAS; I have, multiple times, and you wouldn't expect Friday at 6 AM to be busy. What's the length of the security line at O'Hare today - 10 minutes, or 90? Switch to Philadelphia, and it becomes hours. I try to get there 75 minutes before the scheduled gate leaving time.
link to original post

I appreciate your position but I look at it differently. Most airports I travel though I can make a pretty educated guess about times at TSA. I fly about once a week and if I spent an actual extra hour at the airport every trip that would really add up to inefficiency. I would say that about once every 150 flights I might get delayed and miss my flight. So what, I just catch the next one whether it is 90 minutes later or the next day. How often is it absolutely crucial that one gets to their destination at a particular time? I would guess for most people it is pretty rare.

BTW, I think your 75 minutes is reasonable.

One year I was travelling from Vegas to Atlantic City every single week for 51 straight weeks. I had that one down to where I could arrive and be one of the very last people to board before the plane pulled away from the gate. That was fantastic.
link to original post

Just curious how much time you spent waiting for the next flight due to missing your scheduled flight, let’s say over the course of a year when you were flying weekly.

Quote: camapl

Quote: DRich

Quote: ThatDonGuy

Quote: DRich

Quote: TinMan

Of course, I still got there 3 hours early because I always get to airports early.

We could never travel together. My wife always wants to get to the airport an hour and a half early which drives me crazy. I fly quite a bit and my goal is to get to the gate as they are boarding first class. That still usually leaves me five or ten minutes of waiting which is the most I can tolerate.
link to original post

I am in your wife's camp. You are taking a chance with trying to cut it close; you can't be too sure how long the security lines will be. Somebody here said that they have never had delays at LAS; I have, multiple times, and you wouldn't expect Friday at 6 AM to be busy. What's the length of the security line at O'Hare today - 10 minutes, or 90? Switch to Philadelphia, and it becomes hours. I try to get there 75 minutes before the scheduled gate leaving time.
link to original post

I appreciate your position but I look at it differently. Most airports I travel though I can make a pretty educated guess about times at TSA. I fly about once a week and if I spent an actual extra hour at the airport every trip that would really add up to inefficiency. I would say that about once every 150 flights I might get delayed and miss my flight. So what, I just catch the next one whether it is 90 minutes later or the next day. How often is it absolutely crucial that one gets to their destination at a particular time? I would guess for most people it is pretty rare.

BTW, I think your 75 minutes is reasonable.

One year I was travelling from Vegas to Atlantic City every single week for 51 straight weeks. I had that one down to where I could arrive and be one of the very last people to board before the plane pulled away from the gate. That was fantastic.
link to original post

Just curious how much time you spent waiting for the next flight due to missing your scheduled flight, let’s say over the course of a year when you were flying weekly.
link to original post

That has been a long time ago but I do remember arriving late for my flight once and I had to wait two hours for the next flight but that one had a connection so I ended up getting in about four hours late. If I had to guess I have probably only been late for my flight five or so times in the last 35 years.

The last flight that I missed for arriving late was about five years ago leaving Vegas. The line at TSA was a little longer than normal but when I got to the front of the line my phone wouldn't power on so I had to go back to the desk and get a paper boarding pass. I remember that specifically because I was flying into Corpus Christi and it was my first time there. Where I was staying was about 50 miles away and my phone was dead so I couldn't get directions or addresses or phone numbers. I just took the rental car and headed north until I saw something that I recognized. The first thing I saw was a Walmart so I went in and bought a new iphone and then everything was solved.

A funny story once in the Reno airport. I was on a business trip in Reno with a co-worker. Our meeting ended early so we went to airport in hopes of catching an earlier flight. There were flights about every 90 between Reno and Vegas. We are at the airport about 2.5 hours early but the next flight out was fully booked so we had to wait for our flight. We went to the bar and drank for about three hours before we realized we missed our flight and had to wait two more hours for the next flight. That was an expensive bar tab.

And with good timing, my newsfeed decided I needed to learn about 'airport theory' and 'check-in chicken' today... where evidently the former is basically you only need to show up at TSA 15 minutes before boarding to make it in time, and the latter is some... thing about trying to check in at the last possible moment for internet points?

My favorite part is 'Google searches for "I missed my flight" have skyrocketed by 645% this month."'

Quote: Venthus

My favorite part is 'Google searches for "I missed my flight" have skyrocketed by 645% this month."'
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That may be related in part to al the bad weather in the last couple of months.