The last cheap trip!

Booked RT flight on Spirit Airlines for next week. $39 from PDX-LAS, and I had a $30 credit, so...nine bucks. Four nights comped at Arizona Chuckie's, where the last fullpay Deuces and Joker machines reside. Home of the $6 steak and eggs. This will be a low-overhead trip!

I've gotten my second shot, so I feel reasonably safe. Aside from that, Vegas is going to be insanely expensive AND hotter than hell for the next five+ months, so I thought I'd get this one last trip in. Also...I don't expect the good video poker to last long and I'm frankly surprised that it's still there.

Will provide a detailed trip report, including photos of all the geezers nodding off at the machines.

Their Decatur location was packed last trip in December.    They have their own crowd of regulars for sure.    They used to have one of the better "cheap" buffets in town.  I hope they bring it back.

I'm a jealous wreck that you get to fly so inexpensively!  We don't have Spirit, and I'm not sure the Frontier to Vegas has started up yet.  Gonna check today!  Good luck, and have a ton of fun.

Extra points if a geezer has an oxygen tank parked next to him and tubing tucked under his mask. 

Saw a lady at the Stardust (obviously years ago) playing a slot, had her O2 tank parked next to her, nasal prongs in her nose, and smoking a cigarette.   Didn't notice any black smoke stains on her face, so she must have been careful to hold the cig away from her nose while lighting it.

Candy

Frontier does have service from Portland to Vegas, but I don't know about other locations. They were, though still quite cheap, more expensive than Spirit, and they had fewer flights to choose from.

As I'm sure is true with all airline flights, the day of the week mattered tremendously. Sunday and Monday flights to Vegas and Thursday and Friday flights from Vegas were the cheapest by far. That works for me, because I don't like visiting Vegas on weekends anyway.

Just checked Frontier.  No cheap fares, terrible schedules, multiple layovers.   Will keep checking as time goes by.  Never anything cheap from this city.

Candy

I have a question and an unrelated comment about your trip.

The question is how did you score that airfare? Was it easily obtainable just by selecting the right day from the airline's website?

The comment is about a term you used in a QoD last week that I didn't see until it was too late to comment.  You referred to casino employees who work at player's club booths and the like as "boothlings."

I know it's a common and humorous term, but during the pandemic we saw menial or clerical  workers in a new light as they continued to show-up at personal risk to collect the garbage or keep food on the shelves. As such, I would retire the term. Would you like to be called a teachling?

Have a good, safe trip. (You're the only person I know of who voluntarily makes frequent trips to a place he can't stand. Does the definition apply here of  someone who keeps doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result?)

"Saw a lady at the Stardust (obviously years ago) playing a slot, had her O2 tank parked next to her, nasal prongs in her nose, and smoking a cigarette.   Didn't notice any black smoke stains on her face, so she must have been careful to hold the cig away from her nose while lighting it."

ROFL!

To respond to your comments in turn:

Yes, I just selected the right day(s), using the monthly fare view tool on their website.

I definitely use "boothling" in a somewhat derogatory way, and without obtaining anyone's (yours or anyone else's) permission. The reason I do so is that in my extensive experience dealing with casinos, these are the least informed people I talk to. But more than that, literally hundreds of times I have been told with a straight face that this or that promotion doesn't apply because it's Tuesday or a full moon or the Lakers won yesterday. I've been told that I'm not eligible for this or that because I had ranch dressing on my salad yesterday or I'm wearing a blue shirt. They're perfectly willing to lie to your face just to get rid of you.

I've never said I "can't stand" Las Vegas. Others have said that, but that doesn't mean that I have. There's a lot about it I can't stand, but there are still decent values and fun to be had. I go there a lot less than I used to, and I no longer live there.

That silly saying about doing the same thing over and over blah blah is very, very widespread, and people who use it think they're oh so clever, but the fact of the matter is that doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result is an extremely common activity, in the worlds of work, scientific research, and yes, gambling. I play video poker and do the same thing over and over--I push the DEAL button and play the hand. I don't get a royal flush. I play another hand. I don't get a royal flush. I play another hand. Now, according to the nimrod who made up that silly saying, I'm obviously insane, since I'm "expecting" to get a royal flush sooner or later.

The police patrol a neighborhood every night. Three weeks go by, and there are no incidents, no disturbances, no arrests need to be made. Should they stop patrolling, because doing it over and over, expecting a different result, would be insane? Or...a prospector digs a hole in the ground, looking for gold. He has dug 20 holes, but hasn't found any. Would it be insane to dig another one?

So if you're talking about "retiring" an expression, that one would be at the top of my list. It's stupid and the implication made by using it is false.

Well, there's still Southwest, right?

One very surprising thing about Spirit was that some of their fares stayed cheap even as the flight date became sooner. With Southwest, the fares are cheap(ish) as long as you buy three weeks in advance, but sooner than that, and they skyrocket.

One major motivation for me was that I doubt this cheap trip will be possible once summer starts. Not that I really want to be there during summer anyway. I intend to come back for a week+ during the WSOP, which will happily be right about when the weather kinda sorta starts to cool down. I don't know why the bleepity blank they ever moved it to midsummer in the first place.

I've used the term boothling after seeing it used here, actually thinking it was kind of a cute way of referring to the players club worker without having to go into gender or whether the person would be a host-type or supervisor-type or what.  "Boothling" seemed to cover all the posibilities with fewer words than "booth lady"?  "Booth guy"?  "Booth person?"  "Booth attendant"? 

Because after all. we are directed to the "Players club booth."  If the consensus is that "boothling" is derogatory, I'll certainly cease using the term.

Candy