Vegas Hotels Advice
It’s pretty typical for someone to ask advice on where to stay in Vegas on the poker forums that I oversee. I’ve been to Vegas I think about 20 times and have stayed at nearly every significant property on the strip. In fact, I think the MGM Grand is the only major property I’ve never stayed at. For some reason, the rates at that place are always pretty high and I’ve never gotten a comp. Anyway, I thought a post with advice on choosing a Vegas hotel might be pretty useful to some people, so here you go:
Don’t Just Book the Cheapest Room
Getting a hotel room is not like buying airfare. It would be inadvisable to just go to hotels.com and pick the cheapest available room. I think you can make a general classification for Vegas hotels in one of three categories:
- High end
- Adequate
- Dump
I advocate getting a room at an adequate property. The “high end” properties are Venetian (and Palazzo), Wynn (and Encore), Bellagio, and Caesars Palace. There are a couple of other places like Mandalay Bay and Paris that could probably be considered high end as well. While rooms at these properties are very nice, I believe it’s not worth the money. A typical rate at these places will be something like $200 a night. In Vegas, you typically spend very little time in your room anyway, so why spend a bunch of extra money on a room that isn’t that much better than the middle-tier properties?
Conversely, you don’t want to be a cheap-ass and book a room in a dumpy hotel. There are tons of dumps in Vegas. On the Strip, there’s the Imperial Palace, Excalibur, Luxor, Stratosphere, Riveria, Sahara, Harrah’s, and several more. Plus there’s all of the downtown properties (never stay downtown). The rates for these places will sometimes be very cheap (like maybe $30 a night). If you have a high tolerance for crummy hotels, you can gamble on one of these places, but I wouldn’t advise it. Anyone with allergies or a sense of hygeine would do well to stay away.
Best Middle-of-the-Road Options
There are a handful of properties on the Strip that fall into that perfect zone of not too extravagant and not too crappy. You can usually book a room at one of these places for perhaps as low as $70 during the week and $100 on the weekend. The rooms are clean and comfortable. My favorite Vegas hotel, from a value standpoint, is Treasure Island. It’s in a perfect location and the rooms are nice, yet almost never more than $120. Treasure Island is within walking distance of the Venetian, Wynn, Bellagio, Ceasars Palace, and my favorite hole-in-the-wall joint, Casino Royale.
Other hotels that fall into the perfect zone are New York-New York, Planet Hollywood, Palms (though it’s off the Strip), and Mirage. There are a few other places like Ballys, Monte Carlo and Rio that aren’t bad options either.
Staying at Local Casinos
The only decent rooms you can get for under $50 in Vegas are at local casinos like South Point, M Resort or a Station Casino. The problem with staying at a local casino is that you’ll be a few miles away from the strip. Usually the savings you enjoy from staying at these places are lost on added transportation expenses.
Getting Comped
Getting a complimentary hotel room in Las Vegas will be either easy or impossible depending on how much you gamble. If you exclusively play poker, you can forget about it. Some places will offer a “poker player rate” but it’s almost not even worth looking for one of these versus just booking something through hotels.com.
There are two ways people get comped in Vegas: on site or up front. I find it pretty tough to get comped at a place on site. You have to gamble for significant money and play several hours before a casino will give you a free room on the spot. Usually they’ll try to get you to pay retail price for the room with the promise that after your stay is over, they’ll look at your play to see what they can do. If you’re trying to get a comped room, I would avoid all Harrah’s properties. Harrah’s sucks. MGM can be pretty decent, but the best places to try to get comped are the casinos that are not a part of a large casino group. This really narrows down your options though.
If you’re not much of a big timer, try the Palms, Planet Hollywood or Treasure Island. If you gamble a little heavier (like $100 a hand blackjack and up), you can take a shot at getting comped at Wynn or Venetian. One trick is to look at hotel rates on hotels.com to see which one is cheaper. If Wynn is $400 a night and Venetian is $200 a night, you can safely assume that it will be easier to get comped at the Venetian.
The main thing to keep in mind though is that it can be pretty tough to get a free hotel room in Vegas right on site. A more likely way of getting comped is to hope it happens on your next trip. Go gamble for a while at a place like the Venetian. Don’t ask them for anything, but on your next trip to the city, call them up and see what they can offer you. I’ve had several instances of a place rejecting my request for a free room on site, but give me an offer by mail or phone for a few free nights on my next trip.
I hope this guide was of some help, and enjoy your trip to Vice Central!
