Last June 6, MGM Resorts began charging for parking in all of its casino garages (except Circus Circus and Signature, which remain exempt from the paid-parking policy — so far).
Originally, all cars — visitors’, rentals, and locals’ — were to be charged the fee to park. But the fit pitched by the vocal locals was so swift and severe that MRI backpedaled on including them in Phase 1.
The fees for visitors to self-park vary by property and length of stay.
At Luxor, Excalibur, and Monte Carlo, it’s $5 to park from one to four hours and $8 for four to 24 hours. Parking is $8 a day after the first 24 hours.
At MGM Grand and Skylofts, Mandalay Bay and Delano, New York-New York, Aria, Bellagio, and the Mirage, it’s $7 for one to four hours, $10 four to 24, and $10 each day thereafter.
To answer the most questions we receive, it doesn’t matter if you’re a hotel guest or not; you still have to pay to park. Guests can charge the parking fees to their room bill and they have free in-and-out privileges at sister properties (they scan their room keys). If staying at Circus Circus, where the parking is free, however, they’ll have to pay to park at the other MRI properties.
Hotel guests’ room keys remain active until 11:59 p.m. on the day of departure. In other words, if you check out of MGM Grand at 11 a.m. on a Tuesday, your room key will allow you to park at any MRI property till a minute before midnight that same day.
If you’re in and out of a casino in less than 60 minutes, parking is free, so you can run in and out to make a sports bet or cash a ticket, pick up a friend, etc.
If you lose your parking ticket, you use the call button on a kiosk (before you get to the gate) to contact the parking "command center"; the parking staff will attempt to determine how long your vehicle has been parked. If they can’t, you’ll be charged $30 for the lost ticket.
You can self-park for free if you’re an M Life Rewards member with Pearl status or higher. Nevada residents have not been charged to park — so far. Still, free parking for locals requires scanning a Nevada driver’s license.
The good news is that the scanning process doesn’t require you insert the license into the machine; rather, you run it under the scanner at the gates to the garages. The driver’s license bar-code information isn’t captured by MGM and only verifies Nevada residency.
Still, MRI hedged its bet by stating that on or around December 29 (right before 340,000 people descend on the Strip for New Year’s Eve), they’ll revisit the locals exemption, which has led a lot of Las Vegans to assume that it will be rescinded. And that’s a reasonable assumption given that, in MRI’s parking FAQ, it says the following: "MGM Resorts is considering an Annual Pass and may implement one in 2017, after the locals offer has expired." [Italics added for emphasis.]
As for the payment procedure, parking works through a license-plate scanning system that matches a plate with a ticket pulled on entry. "Pay-on-foot" kiosks near the entrances to the garages accept payment. In some cases, the license-plate recognition technology is fast enough to open the gate before a vehicle pulling up needs to stop.
Don’t take a ticket if you have a Nevada driver’s license; scan the back of the license on the way in and the smaller of the two bar codes will open the gate.
You have 60 minutes from the time you pay at a kiosk to exit the garage. If you have trouble, each kiosk and entry/exit gate has a call button that connects with someone in the 24-hour parking command center. Each garage is also staffed by employees and supervisors from SP+, the paid-parking company, who can help.
Valet parking is another story.
For valet parking at Monte Carlo, Luxor, Excalibur, and Circus-Circus, it’s $13 per day. At Bellagio, Aria, Vdara, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, Delano, Mirage, and New York-New York, it’s $18 a day.
Rates are reduced for parts of the day. Also, like self-parking, you get in-and-out privileges at sister properties; you only have to pay once in a 24-hour period to valet park.
There’s no locals exemption for valet parking. You can valet for free if you’re an M Life Rewards member with Gold status or higher.
There is no discount for cars with handicap placards, either to self-park or valet park.
So much for the existing six-month old system. Tomorrow, we examine the announcements by Caesars Entertainment, Wynn, and Cosmopolitan about their pay-to-park plans and point out places that don’t charge for parking. So far.
And we’ll address the questions about valet income, monorail parking, and rental-car business.
