A bunch of friends from high school (all women) are planning a preliminary ladies' week-end in Las Vegas next year. We'd like to stay in the Bellagio, but some of us are on a tighter budget than others. Figure six to eight women, needing 3 or 4 rooms. Just curious--what are the best rates for the Bellagio that any Fodorites have found? It will probably be summer travel over a week-end (three or four nights) as some of us have kids in school, but we might also try for spring.
If the Bellagio doesn't work out, what would be next best? (Not the Hard Rock).
Thanks!

Generally speaking, the rate on the hotel's own web site will be the best rate. Check the biggies like Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz, though. Most hotels have a lowest rate guarantee and will try to match the rate. My husband and I are staying at Paris this fall and received a small discount ($15 per night) for being AAA members. If you're a Costco member you might want to check on their prices, but I've never actually heard a first-hand experience with Costco and Vegas travel. You should also sign up to get e-mails from Bellagio to be notified of specials, but I don't think you'll hear about any for next summer for a while. Although weekends are more expensive, summer specials aren't unusual for Vegas, and spring break time might be quite busy.

You might want to keep an eye on the convention schedule for Vegas, as conventions affect rates at the host hotels.

http://www.lvcva.com/finder/conventioncalendar/meetings

The only other five star hotel on the Strip is the Venetian. I've personally stayed at the Rio and THEhotel at Mandalay Bay, both of which are known for having big rooms, which might be good for a group, although the locations aren't central.

We got great rates at the Venetian through a local travel group that does charters, etc. I noticed the price in the Sunday Travel Section.

You can go to the Bellagio website and see what the current rates are for August. Saturday night rates are typically the highest, and they range from $260 to $400 for this month.

You can see a hotel map at www.vegas.com/map.html to see the locations of some of the hotels. Where you should stay depends somewhat on what you want to do and what your budget per room is. Do you want easy access to all the strip, or a hotel that will have most of what you want so that you don't have to go out much? Are there particular hotels/casinos you want to visit?

I think the cheapest rate you will get at Bellagio is $159 during the week - weekends are always higher. These rates can be found on Bellagio's website. Personally, if I were you I would look into The Venetian - rooms would be quite a bit larger than Bellagio - more comfortable for friends sharing rooms.

Have fun!

Actually you can get the Venetian for $99 this summer on Priceline for many weekday nights, I think some weekends people have gotten the Venetian for $159-179? You are virtually guaranteed either the Bellagio or Venetian on Priceline as they are the only two 5* hotels that have ever come up as strip hotels in that category.

If you can work it out, leave on a Sunday and get the cheap weekday nights in the summer!

Just check the convention schedule, sign up with Bellagio and Venetian for mailings on their websites and good luck!

Your best "bet" is to go to the Bellagio website and click on the link to sign their guestbook in order to receive their email promotions. Unfortunately, most of these promotions are for weekdays, but you might get "lucky."

Priceline allows you to bid up to 4 rooms at a time for hotels, which is just what you need.

I keep thinking of things, , if you bid Priceline and need the weekend nights, bid them separately from the weekday nights. Such as bid Friday and Saturday separately from SUN-MON or WED-THURS. Since you are bidding for a 5* the worst that could happen is that you will get the Venetian for two nights and the Bellagio for two nights -- not such a bad thing. This way of bidding allows you to bid higher for the weekend nights and then the lower rate for the weekday nights.

Now you could end up with rooms for the weekend and not able to get rooms at the hotels for the other two nights if conventions are booked there so it does take some planning and research to see what might factor in to a bid at these hotels.

Thanks all, will keep all this info in mind. I will suggest a week-day stay, but I'm pretty sure we will be staying over Saturday night for airfare reasons.
I know the group won't want to move hotels and at least two of us prefer not to use Priceline. But we will keep that option in mind.
Thanks again.

Definitely sign up to receive offers from Bellagio. I received an offer on May 25 for great rates over our Labor Day weekend (Sep 2 - Sep 5). My confirmation email no longer shows the price break-down per night, but the average nightly cost (tax included) works out to $253 -- a very good deal for Bellagio.

I also recommend Venetian, but for our Sept trip even Venetian was more expensive than Bellagio. Mandalay Bay is also great, but someone already mentioned the only con -- end of strip location.

In the "not quite as nice but still really nice" category, I recommend Paris.

Just got back from the Bellagio last night! We had a rate of 259.00 for Sat.night, and 149 for the remaining 3 nights. We booked 1 month in advance, which I think is the key, or was for us anyways. I found any of the online places like travelocity, etc. to be pricier than my own research. Their online websites seem to offer a good rates, plus, I phoned a lot to be sure I got the best rate. For the same time the Venetian was offering midweek rooms for 159...we chose the Bellagio for both the location and the pool area(much better) The Bellagio was fantastic..would go back again in a heartbeat..just be prepared for higher than average prices foodwise, but the quality is right there for the most part...We had to stay at the Flamingo for the first night because of flight changes and would never return..If next summer is anything like this summer, a lot of the hotels prices were almost or just as high during some of the weeks..go on their sites, check out "special offers" and they will show you their calendar for August pricewise to get an idea.

I did not take a tour package and saved a lot of money..booked hotel and flight separately and saved 1000.00 dollars. Southwest has good internet rates if you book soon enough. As well, agree with above person..Paris is a step down but quite nice.

Thanks again, esp. for giving the hard numbers. At $250 a night, I think everyone could afford it, with two to a room (taxes extra, I assume). If it goes much higher, perhaps not. I would much rather stay at the Bellagio, but not if it means some of the group are stretched (and stressed) financially.

I just rec'd an e-mail offer today for the $149 Sun-Thurs rate...only $250 for the suite.

* This all takes effect Aug 19th per the e-mail

My self, my sister and our 2 freinds (all in our mid 20s) stayed at Belagio in May and loved it.

I went through Orbitz and got 3 nights plus airfare (from Chicago on United) for $425/person which was an amazing deal.

Keep checking out those travel websites.

As for other hotels, if you are going to stay at a 4 star, in my opinion (ive stayed at Luxor and Mirage) most of the acutal rooms will be the same.