Welcome to yet another insanely long Las Vegas trip report! I left NYC on December 13 and flew back home late night on December 30. This is my favorite time to be in Vegas. The weather is perfect. The week before the week of Christmas is usually pretty dead. There used to be a lot of promos such as point multipliers at this time. Those seem to have slowly gone away though.

I had started to document my planning of this trip, including the many changes to hotels as offers came in. It ended up getting completely overwhelming, even to me.  So I’ll spare you that part of the planning process.

I decided I could not stay in any hotel I had stayed in during the past five years. The reason for this? Some people have traditions in Vegas, I have bad habits.  I cannot tell you how many times I have made the loop from my room at Fremont, to the Dunkin Donuts, to my favorite machines (of which there are only three: Ultimate X, that one quarter DDB machine, and the Cleopatra Keno near the live Keno.)  I wanted to break the cycle, and decided I would set a rule that I can only stay in hotels that I have either never stayed in before, or have not stayed in for many years.  The only exception would be that I could stay one night at Four Queens, because I had accidentally purchased a $50 credit on the Binions game, so it would be going to waste if I did not use it.   This worked out PERFECTLY because from the time I purchased this non-refundable award, and the time this trip came along, that voucher was good for a night at Apache.  This meant I could see a new Binions room for FREE.

Booking this trip proved very difficult to do inside those parameters.  It was very hard for me to not stay at Fremont, especially when I had an offer, and when there is a Dunkin Donuts inside the casino.  It was VERY difficult for me to agree to paying a resort fee at Park MGM, when on the same night I could be at Fremont for $0, just to adhere to my rule.  At least my Park MGM offer came with $40 free play and $50 resort credit.  But I told myself that the resort fee was a price I was paying to not be a degenerate making a beeline to my favorite machines.

So in the end, I signed up to pay resort fees on EIGHT nights.

On the day I left for Vegas, it looked like:

3 comped nights at Paris: Paying only the resort fee. I have not stayed here in so many years. Possibly longer than ten years? This offer may or may not come with $70 free play. The offer for $70 free play is showing in my account. But there is a glitch with the offer code that shows it needed to be booked by August, for dates good through 2020. This is obviously incorrect as the offer that supposedly needed to be booked by August, is still showing in my account in December. Let’s see how this goes.

1 comped night at Park MGM: Paying only the resort fee.  I have only stayed here when it was Monte Carlo, over a decade ago. My offer came with $40 slot play and $50 dining credit.

2 nights comped at Downtown Grand: 100% comped, no resort fee, $10 in free play to use twice. I have stayed here before as Lady Luck, never as Downtown Grand. This was double booked with two nights at Fremont that I booked just for the freebies. $10 slot play and $20 dining. Yes, I will check into a hotel for a measly $30 in freebies.

3 nights comped at Fitzgeralds….er I mean The D:  The room and resort fees were comped but I did pay $10+ tax per night for a smoking room. My last stay here was a very long time ago, which was also coincidentally the last time I had a comped offer from them. This came with $25 dining and $20 free play. I double booked this with El Cortez, for the freebies. It came with $25 dining and $25 free play.

3 nights comped at Wynn, via their mobile app:  100% comped, no resort fees. I last stayed here a million years ago. I am hoping for an upgrade to Encore, which would have me finally staying at every Strip hotel.

2 nights comped at Treasure Island:   100% comped, no resort fees, $100 free play and 30% off spa services. I have never had a comped offer here.  My last (and only) paid stay was over a decade ago.   This was double booked with one night at Apache, using a voucher from the Binions app.  I kind of did want to stay at Apache, but I also kind of hate non smoking rooms.  So I’ll check in just because it is free, and to see the new rooms.

4 comped nights at The Linq: I last stayed here when it was The Quad. I had previously stayed numerous times when it was Imperial Palace. I used to love booking it for my first night, so I could stand on the balcony and see the Strip. The balconies are long gone. This was a late offer that included $70 free play and $150 resort credit.

A lot of people get really horrified about hotel changes. Honestly, I don’t see the big deal. I have comps at all these places, which means I play at all these places. If I am going to go and play at these places anyway, why not take an extra few minutes to check in and restart my trip?  It really doesn’t make a difference in my future comps.  I always hop around and my offers are based on that.  

Then came the actual trip planning. A lot of people do not like making plans for Vegas. I love making plans for Vegas. I spend so many hours planning trips, only to arrive in Vegas and forget I ever did that.

I normally have an insane itinerary that is both color coded and detailed.  It has very few things to actually do other than switch hotels, casino promos and planned coupon runs.  For this trip though, in an attempt to not spend the entire time gambling degenerately, I had to find things to do.  I decided to do one thing per day.

What counts as a thing?

I had the same question myself.

In the past, I would put faraway locals casinos in this category. Nothing like spending an hour on a bus to gamble in an unfamiliar casino, right? But this defeats the purpose. So I decided that a thing would be a show, a spa treatment or an attraction that you paid for.  So no, walking past the Bellagio fountains while between degenerate sessions at Cosmo and degenerate sessions as Cromwell, did not count.

I knew I wanted to see the Friends parody show at The D.  Why has no one ever told me this exists?

I used a MyVegas reward for Ka.  I fell asleep through this show in the theater the last time I actually saw it.  I also fell asleep in my bed rather than going to the show the last time I had a ticket for it.  But hey, it is a “thing” and it is free.

I also added a rule that I had to eat somewhere I have never eaten at before, every day. As I was planning the trip, I had to switch this to “eat somewhere you have not eaten in years.” Downtown doesn’t really have too many places I haven’t eaten at, at least once. The idea was pretty much to break my bad habits and force me to not follow the same pattern as normal, so this rule worked. But it would be stupid to give up dining credit. For places like Boyd properties or El Cortez, there aren’t many choices to use these at places I don’t eat at regularly.

As the trip came closer, there were so many changes and additions to my planning. Offers came in, hotels were changed. Then Vegas.com had a crazy Black Friday promo where for every purchase, you got a $50 credit emailed to you the next day.  I ended up booking so many things that it would be impossible to actually do them all.

Finally, the day is here. The day I am leaving for Las Vegas! IT IS HERE IT IS TODAY I AM LEAVING TODAY FOR LAS VEGAS.

I worked from home and treated myself to a Lyft to the airport as it was storming outside. The airport was a mess. TSA were very short staffed. I was flying Mint so I had Even More Speed, which means I can skip the TSA line. Normally it would take about 3 minutes to get through security. Tonight it took over an hour. The line was full of assholes who would not prepare when they got close to the front of the line. They would wait until the last second to take their shoes off, and to take their liquids and laptops out. At some point, people decided it was okay to cut. It was not. I yelled at a couple who tried to cut me, and then just kept going about how I don’t understand why people wait until the very last second to take their liquids out of their bags. I definitely caused a scene. The TSA worker definitely slow clapped my tempter tantrum.

Once I was finally through security, I could hear the last call announcement for my flight. I made it, without time to stop for the restroom. The doors closed before I had even settled in my seat.

Tonight I am flying JetBlue Mint for the first time ever. This is very exciting to me. I have never had a lay down seat on my flight before. I had ordered a Plane Eats meal, since fancy food is not my thing. My meal didn’t make it on the flight. I was offered to pick anything from the pay menu, and it would be free. I picked a sandwich. Guess what, they don’t have anything from that menu. I ended up with a cheese plate, and a whole lot of apologies.

I had my own cabin so it felt private when I was laying down, even though the door only comes up a couple of feet of the ground. So anyone walking by me could look down and see me sleep. I don’t think the seat was as comfortable as I have read about. Your feet go into this little cubby, which felt weird. But overall, I loved having no one near me and being able to lay down.

I arrived in Vegas at midnight and took an Uber to Paris, which is my first hotel of this trip. For some reason, I have 50% off Uber on the app. That was a nice surprise.

Check in was dead. Huge plus of arriving at this time of year.

I was given room 1690, which was the last smoking Strip view room and the check in person had to get permission to give it to me. This was the room type I booked, but I suppose they may have needed it for someone more important than me. Luck was on my side and I was given my keys and sent off to my room.

Night view:

 

Room view I took the following morning:

I did the thing I always do on night one. I write in my notes about how I feel like I could just go to bed and not gamble the first night, but then decide to anyway. Fuck it, I deserve a reward for surviving the flight, right?

I lost my entire daily budget on dollar Double Double Bonus video poker. I kind of had to, ya know?

I am off to bed at 2:30, psyched as all hell to know I still have over two weeks left in this trip. Anything can happen.

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