D going to Vegas!

After years of gambling and recreational AP trips, in 8 countries and dozens of casinos, I am finally visiting Vegas in the neighbourhood of May 8 - 15. I intend on playing UTH at my home casino for fun, and travelling the city to see the big casinos, hit-and-run countable and other vulnerable games, and play promotions. At least one of my friends is a fairly serious poker player.

I have a few questions for the board:

- any good loss rebate or other promotions on right now I should not miss?
- suggestions on where to stay (spreads UTH, good poker room, has nice waitresses, conveniently located, etc.)
- who wants to give or sell some room/food comps to me, a fine upstanding member of this board?
- can I meet the Wizard?

Quote: dwheatley

- any good loss rebate or other promotions on right now I should not miss?

There are some going on right now, but you want to wait for the beginning of May before you worry about all of that, because they could change, and you don't want to visit a place just because you thought something might be there if you have no other reason for going and it's not there anymore. If you don't mind doing Micro-AP, then you should definitely get an American Casino Guide and Las Vegas Advisor Membership.

You could sign up on Facebook for MyVegas and try to get room, food and show comps, if you're interested. I don't know how many loyalty points you could earn by then, but certainly enough to get a few things from MLife casinos.

You could also sign up for WebPASS from Cannery or Eastside Cannery and earn their webpoints (EASY!) to get some comp food/drinks from those casinos. Each casino has its own Player's Club and Webpass, you'd definitely earn enough points for free stuff if you start now. Just remember, you only have one week from the time you print off the redemption, so don't print them until the day before you leave.

Quote:

- suggestions on where to stay (spreads UTH, good poker room, has nice waitresses, conveniently located, etc.)

Downtown is good for all of that and extremely cheap rates, and the Poker Room at Golden Nugget is pretty good, (plus an ACG coupon for extra $10 in chips when you buy for $50 or more) but it's a bit more expensive to stay at Golden Nugget. The Downtown casinos are so close together than the walk is negligible, but I believe Downtown is down to two poker rooms, GN and either Binion's or Fremont, forget which.

Quote:

- who wants to give or sell some room/food comps to me, a fine upstanding member of this board?

If I had them to give, I would, I didn't gamble a ton anywhere except The D and Plaza, but Plaza didn't send me anything and I am using my D stuff for this quarter when I go next month.

Quote:

- can I meet the Wizard?

He seems to enjoy meeting Board Members, but has a busy schedule. I'd PM him to see if he will be around then.

Congrats, D! It should be fun.

Harrah's has 3 tables of $5 min UTH. Venetian has 2 tables of $10. That's all I know about UTH placements, but there are lots more. Harrahs has nice waitresses, most older than the hottest places hire. I'm playing in a poker tournament there in 3 weeks, but I don't know if they have a regular card room; I'm thinking they don't, could easily be wrong.

Downtown is good for easy walking around, cheap minimums. The D had very cheap rooms when I was looking, The Grand had pretty cheap rooms. Even the GN has weekday rooms for 40-50. Best thing is to look at hotels.com and booking.com for comparison rates, then go to the hotel website itself to book. The rates on the collection sites are almost always the same as the hotel websites (I'm assuming that's where they pull the rates from), but the front desk sometimes/usually can't offer to comp rooms purchased through them. So I recommend you do a 3 step process: comparison shop for the rate you want, book through the hotel website, then at checkout ask them to look at your play and comp the room. (That assumes you join the player's club and use your card at the tables.)

Quote: beachbumbabs

Downtown is good for easy walking around, cheap minimums. The D had very cheap rooms when I was looking, The Grand had pretty cheap rooms. Even the GN has weekday rooms for 40-50. Best thing is to look at hotels.com and booking.com for comparison rates, then go to the hotel website itself to book. The rates on the collection sites are almost always the same as the hotel websites (I'm assuming that's where they pull the rates from), but the front desk sometimes/usually can't offer to comp rooms purchased through them. So I recommend you do a 3 step process: comparison shop for the rate you want, book through the hotel website, then at checkout ask them to look at your play and comp the room. (That assumes you join the player's club and use your card at the tables.)

That's what I forgot to mention, add this step:

***Book your rooms now, because you know what rate you are getting, but most hotels have a 24 hour cancellation policy, so continue to look at the hotel you have booked (or others) to see if the rate becomes lower before you leave.

Here's an example: I booked my room at Downtown Grand for $49 + Tax back in February, but then they introduced a, "Spring Fling," promotion for the day I have booked in which you get $25 food credit, but the room rate was the same. I called and asked them to add the, "Spring Fling," to my room, or alternatively, to cancel my reservation and I would simply book on-line again, so they added the food credit to my room.

Another example: I had a buy two get one night deal at Four Queens and booked three of my nights there, it would have come to about $23/night. I got a BOGO offer from The D after that and a rate of $22, and there is no resort fee if any part of your stay is comped, so $11/night at The D. I have one night still booked at Four Queens at $26, so the total ends up being $48 for the three nights instead of $69.

You just have to keep looking for stuff, I can be a son of a gun about bargain-hunting, though, so I'll cancel and re-book if it saves me so much as $1.00!

Thanks for the tips so far. I'll probably revive this thread as it gets closer to by departure date.