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Questions For Those That Travel

ggmike1992

ggmike1992

Seminole Insider
Jan 3, 2007
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The Missus and I are planning our first trip to Vegas. Where is a good place to find travel deals? Most of the websites (Travelocity, et al.) seem to be similarly priced, as is booking flights and hotels separately. We don't travel very often so we don't have frequent flyer miles or anything like that. I always hear about people getting really good deals but I'm just not finding that. We're looking to go in March. Is it best to book now, or closer to the actual date? I live in Tally and have looked at flying from here and JAX. The price difference wasn't really worth the hassle of driving.
 
Hotels in Vegas are high in March with Spring Break and the NCAA Tournament so if you can find a deal now you may want to jump on it. If you do flights and hotel separate the hotels typically will let you cancel and re-book if you find a better rate but I am not sure if that works with package deals. Check the Southwest Vacation Packages out of Jax or PC. I haven't used travelocity or expedia type services in quite a while so I am not sure what their packages are like.
 
By no means do I purport to be any kind of "Vegas Insider", but I did go there last July. For hotels, I found the best deals by spending a little extra time and going through each hotel's website to look for all of the current deals that they were offering. I don't think that a lot of those deals (free breakfast, free room upgrade, free spa credit, etc) would show up on sites like travelocity. You've got an idea of where you want to stay, and an idea of what kind of budget you're working under, so pull up a map of Las Vegas and zoom in on all of the different hotels that fit what you want. Then go to their website and put in the dates you're going and it should pull up all of the options that you have for those dates - different room types and prices, different specials/deals, etc. It takes a little bit extra time, but not much, and you're catching all of the deals that might interest you but might not show up on a 3rd party site.

As for me... After all the searching, I ended up staying at Harrahs for around $35/night. It wasn't nearly as nice as my buddys' rooms, who were staying at the Trump, and at the Venetian, but I was only in the room when I was asleep (and maybe I was inebriated when I got in each evening), so the room was clean, the bed was comfortable, so I was happy. Plus I had extra money for gambling, drinking, sightseeing, etc. But, as with most things, you're preferences might be different than mine!
 
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ggmike1992 said:
The Missus and I are planning our first trip to Vegas. Where is a good place to find travel deals? Most of the websites (Travelocity, et al.) seem to be similarly priced, as is booking flights and hotels separately. We don't travel very often so we don't have frequent flyer miles or anything like that. I always hear about people getting really good deals but I'm just not finding that. We're looking to go in March. Is it best to book now, or closer to the actual date? I live in Tally and have looked at flying from here and JAX. The price difference wasn't really worth the hassle of driving.
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First of all, the general rule I've found which you might not see elsewhere is that it's about a month to a month and a half that gets you the best deals. Sooner than that and they jack you, later than that and they start to get sold out raise the price.

One thing you might want to do is take a look at Allegiant. They fly out of Sanford and while they don't do multiple flights, you can chain two direct flights together with stopovers in Austin or Cincinatti for example and make it a direct. I'd just leave a day layover somewhere. If money is the limiter not time, I'd do that. If time is the limiter then pass.
 
I backed up the travel date to late February and the price got a little better. Did not even think about something like March Madness impacting the prices. Spring break was when we were planning to go because my daughter has other plans and we get to have an adult only trip.

We want to stay on the strip for 5 nights in a mid-priced hotel (around the Luxor/MGM price range from what I've seen). We're arriving on a Sunday so we've avoided the high weekend prices. Time is the limiter, more so than money (although that is always a concern).
 
In that general area look into the NYNY and Monte Carlo. Both solid hotels in the MGM family and less $ than the MGM. Skip the Excalibur. It's cheaper but lame. Sign up for the MLife loyalty program and even though you haven't earned any points you may be offered some deals. I book everything through them. vegas.com is a good resources too. Not sure how competitive the rates are but you may get ideas on things to do while you're in town.
 
NDallasRuss said:
For hotels, I found the best deals by spending a little extra time and going through each hotel's website to look for all of the current deals that they were offering. I don't think that a lot of those deals (free breakfast, free room upgrade, free spa credit, etc) would show up on sites like travelocity.
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Very true. I use the same strategy.
 
ggmike1992 said:
I backed up the travel date to late February and the price got a little better. Did not even think about something like March Madness impacting the prices. Spring break was when we were planning to go because my daughter has other plans and we get to have an adult only trip.

We want to stay on the strip for 5 nights in a mid-priced hotel (around the Luxor/MGM price range from what I've seen). We're arriving on a Sunday so we've avoided the high weekend prices. Time is the limiter, more so than money (although that is always a concern).
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If you want Luxor, they send me a coupon constantly. Let me pull it up.
 
Oops, nevermind. The code they just sent a couple of weeks ago is now invalid. They'll send me more, just check back in a month or so. You can also try signing up for the M Life card and they'll send you discounts for a number of casinos not just Luxor. NYNY, Excalibur and Luxor are the only cheaper options though, the rest are places like MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, Aria, Bellagio, etc...

If you don't have rugrats here's a couple of other cheap suggestions. 1) Consider staying on Fremont Street. There's a lot of cheap and older but still nice places like Main Street Station. If you're younger or "young at heart" the Fremont area is a lot more exciting than the Strip anyways. It's as close to Bourbon Street as any place I've been in the US, lots of cheap booze, strip clubs, and a lot of free entertainment both in the hotels and outside. Since you've never been, don't think that you can just walk from casino to casino on the Strip. With a few exceptions connected by a mall or tramway, the individual complexes are HUGE and designed to keep you trapped there and not wandering around. I was just at Ceasar's Palace and I would guestimate that JUST Ceasar's Palace and its complex is bigger than all of Fremont Street and its many little, older hotels. Even though I've always stayed on the Strip or just off it at the Silverton, next time I think I'm staying there (Main Street Station). 2) Consider some of the off the strip hotels, last time I stayed at the Silverton and it was VERY similar to staying at one of the Strip hotels (it's a nice large complex).
 
Not sure if this is available from Tally but you can fly nonstop from JAX to Vegas on Southwest.

For me, being able to get a nonstop flight would make driving from Tallahassee worth it but that's just me.
 
seminoledq said:
In that general area look into the NYNY and Monte Carlo. Both solid hotels in the MGM family and less $ than the MGM. Skip the Excalibur. It's cheaper but lame. Sign up for the MLife loyalty program and even though you haven't earned any points you may be offered some deals. I book everything through them. vegas.com is a good resources too. Not sure how competitive the rates are but you may get ideas on things to do while you're in town.
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I was reading these responses to the Missus last night and found out she signed up for the MLife loyalty program when we went to the Beau in Biloxi a few weeks ago. Gonna do some research on that site today.

As a previous poster said, the biggest saving I found so far was moving the trip back from March to February.
 
ggmike1992 said:
I was reading these responses to the Missus last night and found out she signed up for the MLife loyalty program when we went to the Beau in Biloxi a few weeks ago. Gonna do some research on that site today.

As a previous poster said, the biggest saving I found so far was moving the trip back from March to February.
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There is a period of time after the Super Bowl and before the CES convention where hotels are pretty reasonable.
 
Luxor is the worst Vegas hotel I have ever stayed in and one of the worst hotels I have been in period. I stay at Mandalay a lot because I am there for conferences and I like that hotel. It is on the end of the strip and a lot longer walk to the heart of the strip than it looks but their prices tend to be reasonable. If you stay there, tell them it is your first time in Vegas and ask if there are any rooms available in The Delano. I almost always get moved over there at no additional cost. The Delano rooms are 2 room suites and very nice. Can't help you with the flights since I am in Atlanta and the flights tend to be reasonable but not worth the drive from Tally.
 
Looks like the best hotel/flight combo I found was using MLife and flying Southwest out of Jax. We ended up paying $1500 for round trip flights and 5 nights at Monte Carlo. I don't really know how good of a price that was since I don't travel much and have no basis of comparison. Going the end of February. Looks like the Missus has some perks for food that we can use while we're there. I'll be checking back in after the first of the year for the semi-annual "What should I do in Vegas" thread. Thanks to everybody for the advice.
 
A March trip is too far out to try and get good flight prices. Start looking around Christmas.

If you are being "realllllly" cheap, open up an airline credit card for the sign up bonus, and book it on points. You have enough time to do all that.

When I was flying from TLH, I would go to google flights, type in TLH, ECP, JAX, CSG, ALB as the origin Airport, and then your destination airport(s). You can find deals, but you need to buy the flights based on price, not based on timing. So, find the deal, and then get the time off.
 
One advantage I found booking directly on the hotel's website is the fact that you can cancel your reservation easier or rebook if the rates go down.
 
plethera1 said:
One advantage I found booking directly on the hotel's website is the fact that you can cancel your reservation easier or rebook if the rates go down.
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Plus if you gamble alot they can comp the room. If you do it through another site, they may not be able to. If you don't care about the room too much Bally's is usually cheap. You may also want to sign up for total rewards for the Caesar's properties.

You could probably fly for free as someone suggested as you have enough time to sign up for a credit card with whoever you like to fly with. Usually they are running incentives like 20,000 miles or more if you spend like 2k in the first 3 months or something like that.
 
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