I recently took a trip to Las Vegas. My flight out of Detroit left at 6:20 PM on 4/10 (Saturday) and got into Phoenix at 8:00 PM and the connecting flight to Las Vegas left at 8:50 PM, getting in at 10 PM. The flight out of Detroit was delayed 20 minutes due to storms but still got in early.
When we landed in Phoenix, I put my phone on and had 3 texts from Southwest. Your flight is delayed til 10 PM. Your flight is delayed til 11 PM. Your flight is delayed til 12 midnight.
I call Budget (my rental car company for this trip) and explain the situation. I was scheduled to pick up my rental car by 11 PM and told them I would not get to rental car facility til about 1:30 AM. At first, she said she would have to cancel my reservation and then make a new one. I knew I would not get my $82 rate on a rebooked rental so I protested, and she said ok, she can just move the time. Then she tells me that Budget closes at 1 AM in Las Vegas rent a car center. I was not expecting that. I said, “what do I do?” and she says that Budget re opens at 7 AM. Not good.
I call the Golden Gate (where I am staying the first 2 nights), explain the situation and they tell me, as long as I check in by noon on Sunday, everything will be fine. That was nice to hear.
I now go to the Southwest customer service, explain the situation and ask what they can do. The lady tells me I can catch a flight in the morning. I ask about a hotel for the night and she said they can offer a discount, but not a freebie, since the delay was weather related. Transportation would be on me and Uber/Lyft are difficult to get.
I decide to think about my options over a bite to eat. It is now 8:30 PM and almost everything is closed at Sky Harbor airport. 8:30 on Saturday and they are locking up? I finally find a place and they tell me we have one hot sandwich available. I take it, give him a few dollar tip and thank him for being open, and enjoy my meal.
After thinking about my options, I decide to keep my midnight flight and just wander around LAS for 5 hours til I can go pick up my rental car. This will give me plenty of time to machine hustle at the airport.
We touch down about 1 AM and after taxi and deplane, it is 1:30 AM. There is no one at the airport. I may not have seen 10 people, including workers. And to top it off, all the slot machines are roped off because they are moving them around. I decide to wait at the rent a center, hop the shuttle and get to the facility about 1:45 AM. For kicks, I walk over to the Budget desk and it is dark and roped off, but I see a worker in there, so I go it. He asks if I have a reservation, I say yes, and he says okay I’ll take care of you. Very, very nice of him. We finish the paperwork, I leave him a tip so he and his co worker can grab a coke, and head on my way.
I finally got to bed about 3:30 AM so the trip was off to a rough start, but it could have been much worse.
Lessons learned:
- Avoid the last flight of the night.
- Be aware that not all rental car facilities in Las Vegas are open 24 hours any more
- Do a little scouting on the last airport you will be in to see what is open and what isn’t, in case there is a delay.
- Since rental cars are now grossly expensive and Uber/Lyft are difficult to get, securing your car rental is way more important than it used to be.
- Put a non-perishable snack in your backpack. Delays will happen and sometimes, there are no good alternatives except to wait it out.
- Review travel protection offered by your credit cards. Two things worked against me on this trip. It was a frequent flier flight and I used a gift card for the 911 security fee. For future, I should use a credit card for the fee and make sure that I am offered travel protection if only a portion of the trip is paid for with a credit card. Also, this was a weather delay, so it is very tough to get compensation. Especially since the actual delay was 3 hours and 15 minutes.
Travel nowadays is not very accommodating to delays/issues and I don’t see it getting much better. You now have to prepare in ways that you didn’t have to worry about previously.
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Just curious, why not head to your hotel, get a good night’s sleep and head back to grab the rental car the next day?
Now you are getting a closer picture what it feels like being an international traveler. Europeans’ traveling time from door-to-door is something between 16 and 20 hours , depending on your flight arrangement. The longer the stop-over at the airport of arrival in the U.S. the more aggravating it gets until you finally arrive in Las Vegas. The least you need is a long queue at the rental car center or no shuttle bus arriving for more than 25 minutes once you finally have your luggage and exit the arrival terminal of McCarran.
From my point-of-view Jimm’y experience is something hat occurs to many tourists these days. We are not through yet with this pandemic and it may take another 6 months or so until the new normal will become a bit less hassleful. Imagine you get to your hotel and there’s another line of 10 people ahead of you until you get your room key!
Well, from the airport to Golden Gate is going to be a $40 cab ride, if there are even cabs still floating around the airport at that time. Seriously, I saw less than 10 people in the airport. Then another $40 cab ride back to the airport. And after a very long travel day, I think once I hit the pillow in the hotel room, it would be hard to get up the next day.
When I’m in a situation like this, I try to take the path that has the least possibility for additional things going wrong. By now, it is 1:30 AM so to catch a cab, sleep and then catch a cab back just seemed like something else could have gone wrong.
Boris,
The idea of my post was that a couple of things happened that I never considered before. I was used to be able to pick up a rental car 24/7 in Las Vegas. Not the case anymore. I’m used to Uber as a reliable back up. Not the case anymore.
$100/day for rental cars in Las Vegas? I’ve had rentals for a week that were less than $100. I just wanted to let people know that it is a very different travel experience these days. It takes more preparation and you need to be able to adapt to conditions you may not have experienced before.
Jimmy
Could it be the rental car rates have been high lately because not all companies are back in operation and therefore offer / demand is not in balance yet? I would probably refraim from booking a rental car under such conditions. Let’s hope the situation will change again as the year passes….
From Switzerland,
Boris
Las Vegas airport Terminal 1 down on Zero Level you can catch the Public Transportation. 109 Maryland Pkwy was actually faster than 108 Paradise. The CX (freeway bus that goes thru downtown) goes thru Terminal 1 going in and out of the airport. All the schedules and everything are on the internet: rtcsnv.com.
Sincerely
Steven
Years ago, standing in line at the McCarran Rent-a-Center, I had plenty of time to read the list of additional fees and charges. There were seven or eight of them, for a total of something like 33% on top of the quoted rate. One of them was a recovery fee for building the Rent-a-Center itself. None of them had been mentioned when I made the reservation. That was the last time I rented a car at the airport.
I think that was before resort fees, and before the airlines started charging for carrying your own bag onto the plane. If so, it was a portent of things to come.
Perhaps fortunately, I now live close enough to drive to Las Vegas. That takes care of the airlines and the car rentals; but there are still parking fees, resort fees, franchise recovery fees, stadium taxes, etc. For the last few years we’ve preferred Laughlin, which is an hour closer and still has one good poker room and workable comp policies.
But despite all that, I really enjoyed your article. Both my significant other and I have had similar experiences in places as far-flung as Atlanta, New York, Paris, and St. Petersburg (Russia). And your remark in one of the comments is spot-on: “I try to take the path that has the least possibility for additional things going wrong.” Good advice for all of us.
Hello gaattc2001
From what I heard most poker rooms in Laughlins have shut down operations, with the exception of the Riverside Hotel. I played at Harrahs a few times but learned that there in fact was a game starting on Friday around noon but too many players were playing hit-and-run so you were always risking the game to break once you lose a coin-flip hand and this also happened to me and around 5 p.m. both games were short handed and eventually one game broke so I quit and headed to the Riverside. The problem there is that they have a lot of interesting tournaments and there was just 1 single 1-2 nol game with a long list and they would not open another table until the first tournament table would break. It was quite a wait but I got my seat and had a lot of fun there. I also love to play at the Riverside as the dealers are friendly and casual and no stress and it was a blast overall.
Some day I hopefully will find my way to Nevada….for good.
From Switzerland,
Boris
Jimmy,
Penny pinching has a cost. Book a nonstop flight next time.
Jerry
It’s a little more complicated than that. Rental car companies sold off a lot of their fleet to survive during COVID. IC shortage hit the automakers so they are scrambling to build cars. Automakers cut back on fleet sales ( low margin) to concentrate on truck sales ( high margin). So, the automakers don’t have cars to sell to the rental car companies. Rental car companies have fewer vehicles so prices go through the roof.
Taking the bus, especially with luggage, doesn’t sound too pleasant. But that is definitely an option and if rental cars continue at $100/day, I might use that. I have also heard that an Uber is about $20 from LAS to 4 Queens. If that’s the case, I would gladly pay the extra for an Uber over a bus.
Thanks gaattc,
Yes, travel has changed significantly over the last 15 months.
We used to play at Harrah’s Laughlin a lot. But they kept decreasing the VP pay tables. When they deemed Bonus Deuces Wild was too good a game ( 98.8%) we stopped going to Harrah’s Laughlin. We like Laughlin but that isn’t much to play.
Jerry,
A non stop flight makes it less likely there will be issues, but it doesn’t eliminate them. We have a pretty good deal with Southwest. I fly on points and my wife flies on my companion fare. Unfortunately, Southwest has eliminated the week day non stops from DTW to LAS.
So, to fly non stop, we would have to switch airlines. Based on fares I see, a decently timed non stop flight for 2 would be close to $1000. Our Southwest flight costs us $11.20 each for 911 fees. So, I will have an occasional issue due to connecting flights but not enough to take the cost hit. So, this is more of $100 bill pinching.
If it’s late, you’ll probably miss the buses. Happened to me and got stuck with a $31 cab ride to Harrah’s. Naturally, the driver took the “scenic route” too.
Oh, and that $1000 difference doesn’t include the cost of baggage ( 2 bags free per person on SWA, or their very liberal cancellation policy). We travel to Las Vegas 3 or 4 times a year so the cost difference would be at least $3000 – $4000 per year. That’s a lot of pennies.