We had a great trip over Christmas. 12-20 through 27. With Breeze we were able to get round trip day flights from Jacksonville for four people for $1300+ including two suitcases in the hold. It was an opportunity for my wife and kids to see their uncle/aunt/cousins as they were in Vegas for Christmas as well. Breeze was an excellent experience: seamless check-in, boarding and brand new plane with USB and power outlets. No complaints.
We stayed at:
- OYO (Hooters) with one room comped and another adjoining room with the 30% government employee discount + low resort fee. With Hooters we also got $180+ in comps at the end of the stay with 10X multiplier on rewards with slot play.
- HICV timeshare 2 bed / 2 bath with promotion tour (had already bought this in 2021 but finally got around to it this time. The tour was 120 minutes on the dot with no pressure.
- Plaza one bedroom suite comped at Plaza with $700 free play and $185 food credit.
Did not use my Palace Station, MGM, Caesars and Tropicana offers this time.
We saw these shows/activities:
- Tournament of Kings
- Mac King (excellent except for age inappropriate crotch jokes)
- Shark Reef (super busy: extremely long wait)
- Circus Circus AdventureDome (BOGO coupons bought on eBay)
- Circus Circus Midway
- Various parks
- Stratosphere
AVIS was pretty cheap at $330+.
Meals were a mix of lavish to budget:
- Hash House a Go Go (comped at Plaza, Bite Card % off, LVA BOGOs)
- Oscar's (comped)
- McDonalds (iPhone application discounts + freebies with points)
- In & Out Burger
- Ellis Island (Special Player Deal)
- Hooters (LVA % off)
- Binions Cafe (LVA BOGOs)
- Rampart Buffet (LVA BOGO)
- Treve (Landry's Select Gift Card Bonus Offers: 50% off)
- South Point (LVA BOGOs)
- Johnny Rocket's (Bite Card % off)
- Champagne @ Circa (LVA Freebie)
- Blondie's (no more Bite Card + some $2+ weird upcharge: lame!)
- Peppermill (first time, cool experience, very expensive but then again with drinks + 8 people it goes up fast)
Got a Bite Card through Groupon with $10 back on $30.
Even managed to take $400 in profit home ($2500 bankroll). Plus spent a lot of cash on tips, booze and so on. I played a lot at Plaza (single zero roulette / slots). Not sure if I played enough for another amazing offer like the one they gave me this Christmas however.
Tropicana is being run into the ground. It was very empty there and the property is not maintained well. On an upside: I managed to win at roulette there for the first time ever.
At MGM they retain a single zero roulette table on the main floor. However, the minimum spin is $100 to $200 even on Monday's and Tuesday's in a dead (Christmas) week: beyond bizarre. At Strat they have a weird practice of changing from $10 minimum spin to $15 on weekday evenings as well out of nowhere. Horrible. Sahara was pretty fun. The 000 roulette infection has spread virtually everywhere.
Turned most of the freeplay and matchplay into free money so that was fun. Was unable to use most free drinks coupons.
Obviously the deals from the Great Recession and thereafter (gradual decline) are long gone. But all in all, there are still deals and fun to be had. One additional downside is that there appear to be far fewer waitresses around at the tables / slots regardless of casino tier. Or maybe that was just bad luck on my end.
Bally's renaming to Horseshoe is progressing I noticed. Plus Margaritaville Casino is no longer: that part of Flamingo has been re-incorporated into the Flamingo.
We already booked the next trip for the summer. Direct flights from Orlando to Vegas and back with Frontier for $700+ for the four of us. Got a Frontier MasterCard ($200 statement credit) and Frontier discount club membership ($99 cost). We will be staying at Flamingo for the week in a one bedroom suite for $450+ plus daily parking fees. Unless I get the Caesars or Wyndham credit card for Platinum status. I have a buddy from Europe flying in for the summer trip so at least I should be able to use the free drinks coupons this time hopefully.
Used Lyft a few times: consistently 25 to 30% cheaper than Uber.
Hopefully with the 2023 and 2024 Federale Reserve triggered recession there will some recovery in coupons, deals and offers.
OYO (Hooters) has a great casino host: she is super friendly and acommodating. Unfortunately, OYO (Hooters) front desk and cage staff are not very customer service focused. When checking in I had to go back and forth to get my comps validated. Then after playing roulette for a while and wanting to cash in $900 of chips they had to call the pit boss for validation: weird for such a relatively low amount. The Plaza casino and front desk staff are amazing. They initially put me in a suite facing Fremont Street which is fine for adults (because there is an insane amount of noise until 2AM) but not an option with young kids. They switched me to the quiet side of the tower right away. Plus the dealers have a great sense of humor.
We also got a free Hash House breakfast at Plaza. A group of ND roughnecks causes a ruckus (cursing, arguing) and security forced them to pay for our breakfast to "let it slide" (7AM). Turns out they had come back later to try and steal food, plates and what not. So in the end they were removed by security, charged by LVPD and placed on the blacklist. Hilarious.
Plaza was my favorite location this stay: great food court, great steak house, nice smaller casino with single 0 roulette ($15 spins) and close to Fremont Street. OYO (Hooters) is a close second because you can get to MGM, Tropicana, Excalibur and New York New York fast. They also have Hooters (restaurant) and a really generous loyalty program. HCIV is depressing to me: very low ceilings: Koval Lane is not conducive to walks to the strip when it is dark (may just be my perception) plus when you do tours they put you way in the back of the property so Uber / Lyft drop-offs are quite a hike from the entrance.
