YouTuber Travel Ruby does an excellent job sharing her experiences in Las Vegas, whether it be rooms, pools, restaurants, good deals and more. Some of her strongest tips are summarized in one of her latest videos, where she works through 10 must know tips for Las Vegas. But the real tip is many of these work outside of Las Vegas too.
I want to highlight a couple of her suggestions in today’s post, as well as add additional thoughts above and beyond her tips in the video.
Regularly Check Room Rates Against Your Reservation
One of her great tips that can work anywhere is to regularly check hotel pricing for the room you booked. In Las Vegas it can theoretically get a bit more complicated, because room comps can be in play, so I’m going to take her tip and break out a bit of additional advice on this, based on whether you’re comped or not.
Paid Room Rates
Ruby’s tip about checking to see if room prices have gone down is a great one, especially when booking direct with the hotels. Pricing is highly variable in Las Vegas, and things can evolve over time. So sometimes prices can go down, and if it does, you can contact the hotel and update your booking to get the lower rate, or cancel and rebook online.
The same can be said just about anywhere though – I often book direct through Marriott for rooms when I travel for cruises or to see family and friends. I will periodically check to see if the rates change; I have had examples of room rates going down, and being able to update my reservation to take advantage of that change.
Comped Rooms
If your room is already comped, why would you check back in? Well, in Las Vegas, many times comped rooms are part of a larger offer. And these offers can sometimes get updated. For instance, MGM began offering bonus mid-week free play for bookings made after a certain date.
When I visited Las Vegas in September/October, I had revised one of my bookings after that date, and the other I hadn’t. As it turns out I only got the mid-week resort credit on the one I had revised, because it now qualified for the new offer.
So it helps to check your offers and see if your offers have improved, and rebook if they have.
Similarly, if room rates are drifting downward, you may qualify for comped rooms in properties that have availability that you didn’t previously. Or you may qualify for a better room type.
This is a bit easier to do with Caesars than MGM, because you can see your rates even if you have something booked already. MGM is a bit tougher, but you can get a sense of how things are evolving from the room rate calendar, as it won’t show comps but it will show your price.
Avoid Overplanning Your Trip
I’ve talked about this in my suggestions about surviving longer trips to Vegas, but one of the biggest mistakes many make is overplanning their trip, and then tuckering themselves out and not accomplishing everything they’ve planned.
I now work with a wish list of things I want to do (I’m almost a dozen trips into Vegas, so my list now drifts beyond many of the basics into things that I just haven’t been able to make time for so far). I always aim to do at least one new thing in Vegas, whether stay at a new property, try a new experience, find new food options to enjoy or check out something I haven’t seen before, whether a museum, a show or whatnot.
But I also try not to put too many specifics down, preferring instead to have general ideas and play some of it by ear. At this point I have friends in Vegas, almost always seem to know someone who’s there when I am, and ultimately want to make time to hang with friends (which can be a great tip for slowing down gambling in the process).
Some people plan short trips because Vegas is “exhausting,” but it’s only exhausting if you overschedule yourself and run yourself ragged on your vacation. Of course, if all you can swing is a couple of nights, I get it, but as someone who’s never gone for less than a week, I always treat Vegas like a marathon, not a sprint.
Comparing Transportation Options
I previously shared my incomplete list of transportation options in Las Vegas, but there’s plenty of ways to get around, and if you’re not price comparing, you’re likely going to overpay a percentage of the time. Even just between Uber and Lyft the price differences can be striking.
There are lots of ways to get around, though, and depending on how quickly you want to get places, and how much walking you’re willing to do, there’s everything from free trams to rental cars, monorails to buses, so you can figure out what makes sense for you.
Of course this advice can work anywhere as well, although the transit options may differ. One visit to Miami I took a train up to visit someone in Fort Lauderdale, so knowing what transit options are available can be quite helpful.
Check out her video, as well as her channel in general, for a variety of great tips and suggestions!
