Las
Vegas Hotel Deals
Stay
for free on your next
visit
Here's our best tip for Las Vegas hotels for
cheap: Casinos will send you offers for free or
deeply discounted rooms for your next visit if you
simply sign up for a free Player's Card and use it
a little when you're playing slots or table games.
Sometimes they'll make these offers even if you
never use the card at all. As I write this I'm
staying for three nights for free, on a weekend, at
a casino that I think I played maybe an hour or two
of blackjack in two years ago. Sign up for a
Player's Card at every casino you visit, whether
you're staying there or not, and whether you expect
to gamble there or not. If you do gamble,
either table games or slots, be sure to use the
card.
This doesn't help you for the visit you're about
to make, but it's the #1 way to get a great deal on
your next visit.
Timing is
Everything
Weekday vs.
Weekend. Friday/Saturday rates are
often two and a half times as much as
Sunday-thru-Thursday rates! If you're able to
stay on non-weekend nights (Sunday through Thursday
nights), by all means do so. Not only will you save
on your room, but you'll also find lower limits on
table games, and the casinos and restaurants won't
be as crowded so you'll be able to enjoy yourself
more.
Cheap Times of the
Year. Whenever business is slow, hotels
drop the rates to induce more business. These are
the best times of the year to score deals:
- December before Christmas. Rooms at
some classy hotels go for as little as $20, even
on weekends!
- July & August. It's 100 degrees
outside, so that discourages some tourists.
Expensive Times of the
Year.
- Major holidays, like Memorial Day
(late May), July 4th, Labor Day (early Sept.),
and New Year's Eve.
- Superbowl Sunday (usually the whole
weekend of the Sunday in January)
- Convention times (CES in
mid-November, and Comdex in early January)
Location
matters
The Strip -- Strip hotels are generally
the most expensive, but Stratosphere, Circus
Circus, and Sahara often have rock-bottom prices,
as low as $30/night.
Downtown -- Downtown digs are generally
cheaper than the Strip, and downtown is only 1.5
miles from the Strip (and there's a bus that runs
24/7), so you'll never be far from the action.
Budget downtown hotels include Vegas Club, Plaza,
and Golden Gate.
Off-Strip. There are many hotel-casinos
near the strip but not quite on it. Of
these, Tuscany, Greek Isle, and Palace Station have
some of the best rates.
Get
a room upgrade for $20
A little-known secret is that you can often
get a nice room upgrade by tipping $20 to the front
desk. Put the $20 between your ID and your
credit card, then casually ask if there are any
complimentary room upgrades available. Most front
desk staff reportedly will give the $20 back if
they can't help you. More about this at FrontDeskTip.com.
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Vegas Hotel
Search Engines
These are my favorites:
They don't all find the same deals -- often one
service shows a much better price for the same
hotel, so your best bet is to try all of them. Here
are some Vegas
maps so you can see where these hotels are.
Cheap &
Sleazy for as little as
$23/night
There are a bunch of motels that advertise
$23/night Sunday through Thursday, on Las Vegas
Blvd. on the one-mile stretch between the Strip and
downtown, and also on Fremont St. downtown,
west of Las Vegas Blvd. Of course their weekend
rates are higher, but still less than what you'd
find at any hotel-casino.
Lots of the motels won't accept reservations,
and they're not listed in the online search engines
anyway -- it's walk-in only. If you haven't
gotten a room before you arrive in Vegas you can be
fairly certain that you can get one by checking the
motels in the areas mentioned above. Once during
the Superbowl the only rooms in Vegas showing
online were $175+ per night, but downtown motels
still had clean rooms for $45/night (and I got
one).
Death of
the $16 room at the
Western
For years, my favorite deal was the $16 room
at The
Western (downtown), the sleaziest
and most dangerous casino in all of Vegas. I took
advantege of a $16 room there as late as 2001. It
was $16 even on the weekends! However, by 2007 the
price has gone up to $35/night weekday and
$55/night weekends. The Western's sister casino in
sleaze, the Gold
Spike, has the same rates.
(Last verified:
Jan. 2007)
Obviously you don't get luxury even at the new
improved rates, but if you just need a place to
sleep, and you're not easily intimidated by shady
characters, this is it. The Western redefines
sleaze. But that's one of the reasons we find it so
charming. When in Vegas we've never missed an
opportunity to play $1 blackjack in a dump that's
the exact opposite of Bellagio. Here's the
hilarity that ensued when we tried to make a
reservation by phon. We enjoyed the humorous
writeup about The Western in Las
Vegas on $19 a day.
I wrote a humorous
article about the above hotels for the Wizard
of Odds newsletter.
Note that these hotels are all Downtown, not on
the Strip. Before you grab one of these rooms, make
sure to check the tips below; sometimes you can get
a room in a nice hotel on the Strip
for $39 or less. (I once got a room at the
Stratosphere for $19 during the week.)
The cheapest
hotel-casino in Vegas
While the Western takes the prize for the
sleaziest casino, it's no longer the cheapest.
That honor belongs to the El
Cortez, just a couple of blocks away on the
same downtown street, Fremont. Their regular
weekday rate is only $32.
(Last verified:
Jan. 2007)
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The
Gold Spike Diner
A friend relayed this story to me:
I
used to occasionally stay at the Gold
Spike when the rooms were still $22, even
on weekends. The rooms are better than you
might expect after seeing the casino. With
your $22 room you also got a coupon good
for a free breakfast at the snack bar.
Unfortunately, the snack bar is located in
the casino. My first time there, I looked
over the snack bar and decided that I'd
pass on the free breakfast.
As I walked
out the door, I was accosted by a
panhandler. In a moment of generosity
(unusual for me), I gave him my breakfast
coupon.
- He
examined it closely, and then handed it
back to me and said, "Thanks, man, but
I ain't that hungry."
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