bethjb1

anyone have experience getting a deal for one nite at a casino hotel by arriving late in the evening?

I hear they may be willing to give you a decent rate if there is a higher vacancy rate that nite...is this true..?

if so what hotels are best to try? what is the "right thing to say" when you show up on their doorstep.

My dad and i are heading to vegas in june...the flights are cheapest if you arrive on saturday, but the hotel for the extra nite brings up the cost of the package by hundreds per person. we we going to book our sun-thursday hotel separate and hope fo the best saturday nite as we dont get in until late anyway...

thanks

jlm_mi

I haven't done it, but one thing to consider is that the Saturday night hotel price may be so expensive because of two things:

1) You are arriving on a saturday. Some hotels won't allow this at all, and others may charge more for it if you do. Not sure about the charging more, but it's not out of the realm of possibility.

2) The hotel(s) may be quite full for that night. If that's true, you may have no luck getting a good deal last minute.

That said, I can think of two possibilities:

1) Try priceline for Saturday night. The only caution here is that you may end up with a room with one bed, which may not work for you. Of course, if you're getting two rooms anyway this is a moot point.

2) Try to get the room the way you've planned. The worst possible scenario is that you don't get a room and have no place to sleep Saturday night. Vegas is probably the best place for this to happen! You should still be able to leave your luggage at the hotel that you're staying in Sunday night, and just check into your room as early as they'll let you on Sunday.

I wouldn't do it if staying up all night on Saturday or paying through the nose for a room on Saturday would be a hardship.

AAFrequentFlyer

It is true that some of the major properties do not allow just one night bookings on Saturday night, but I don't think it applies for walk-ins. If there is vacancy you should not have any problems.

There are ALWAYS rooms available in Vegas, it's just a matter of how much they will be or how bad or good the property will be?

Vegas has changed in recent years. Most of the major properties have set rates and usually it's not something they will change. It's possible that few start discounting rooms when it gets late but I don't know of any to recommend.

Your best bet is to show up in the same hotel you are booked for the remaining 4 nights and tell them that you would like to add another night if it's the same rate. It could work.

The only problem I see is this. If it is a busy weekend and you are not happy with the answers at the first few properties, the taxi charges will start adding up very quickly. Vegas taxis are expensive and on Saturday evening the Strip is just a one big parking lot, and since you will need to go from one property to the next one, the driver will have no choice but to drive on the strip. (can't remember the street name).

BarbaraS

I disagree that rooms are always available in Vegas. I would not go to Vegas on a Saturday night without a reservation. I have been burned once and will not travel to Vegas again without a reservation. Although we did end up finding a room, the frustration was definitely not worth it.

AAFrequentFlyer

You still found a room, didn't you???

I did say that it may be frustrating and costly, but I will stand by my original statement - There is ALWAYS a room available in Vegas!

bethjb1

here are soem interesting prices to ponder..i chose the flamingo just as an example....

thru expedia..

sat-thursday room each nite with flight-551
sun-thursday, room each nite with flight-497
sat-thursday, hotell only sun-thurs with flight 452
per person

so anything under 200(100/pp) for just saturday, we would come out ahead, i would think i could get that on hotwire or priceline...flamingo's website had saturday as 170 for just that saturday, so even that is cheaper....and hotwire has a five-* for 183..probably venetian...

anyway jsut some research to add

Ryan

Have you tried a quick search on Orbitz/Yahoo Travel/Expedia? There are numerous smaller hotels in Vegas, the like Hampton Inn and Days Inn, that are likely to have a one-night rate that is less than $100.

In terms of which are the best to try, I'd say it's likely to be the same one's that offer the low rates now, like Binion's and the Stratosphere.

If you wanted a reasonably priced room, I think you can probably find one ahead of time that may not be much more than you'd pay at that same hotel by trying the late arrival "what kind of rate will you give me?" tactic. Besides, how much value do you place on not having to drag your stuff around from place to place?

Of course, you could just pull an all nighter and stay awake.

jlm_mi

bethjb1 - I don't know where you're flying from, but when I was researching a trip to Vegas I found that I could definitely do better buying airfare and hotel separately, rather than a package deal. It certainly does happen that great package prices come around, but you might want to price shop a bit.

For example, for your dates you could stay at the Flamingo for all 5 nights for a total of $540 (not including taxes). The package would cost you $1102 for the flight and all 5 hotel nights, leaving you $281 per person (again, I think before taxes) for airfare. Vegas is a destination that often has airfare sales so you may be able to fly there for considerably less than that.