It's Not A Bender, It's A Lifestyle.

The MGM Rewards card anniversary bitchslap of points and resort credit has arrived. -$100 Tier Celebration Credit for retaining Gold last month. -$200 anniversary Iconic Resort Credit. -$250 "free room night" credit, which is just more RC. -10,000 bonus tier points for getting to Gold. Add all this to the $100 of RC that is part of my booking package for September, and we have a veritable shitstorm of resort credit booted up. $650. If I exclusively eat at MGM resorts, I won't have to spend a dime for food on this trip, and probably the next one. Crazy. I only have 2 food reservations at the moment, and will probably keep it that way as I like to keep my options open most trip days, but I certainly can B+L+D on the MGM restaurant tip the whole time I'm there. Useful. No extra FP for Slot Dollars from the anniversary thing, but I racked up about $130 last month; add whatever comes in from August and September (which hits while I'm there), add the $120 from the booki...

  A bit financially fucked going into August. I was able to put the down payment on the trip away, $1500, yesterday. However, with buying the plane ticket on the CC in July and having to buy a new chair and dispose of my old broken one, I now have something of a heavy month to pay back the CC and not run any interest. I may not be able to put dollar one away for SeptemberVegas in August, leaving me with 3 checks to come up with the last $3K I need to make the cash save number. I've been in this position before, SO many times. Back in the "still digging out of financial hell and not making that much money" phase of my life, say around 2011-2015, I regularly had to budget the fuck out of my life to make the Vegas save. Denying myself weekends out, skrimping on food, sticking to a strict budget. It's been a while, and I'm out of practice, but I may need to adopt a modified skrimp the next two months. There are ways I could cheat. I could float some of the CC debt and...

  I use what I call the "algorithm" to decide where to stay in Vegas. The algorithm consists of several factors, more or less evenly weighted. Resort:  Do I want to stay in this place from an amenity and poshness standpoint. Is there enough food/bev/VP onsite to make this the place I want to start and end my day every day. Do I like the vibe? Have I stayed here in the past and enjoyed myself? Am I going to have "fun" here over the course of 5 days, relatively speaking?  Room: Standard room for full comp or suite for $300/night? Strip view for $50 more a night? Is this an "occasion" trip like a birthday, and therefore I want to go baller, or just a run of the mill June trip where I can save some $$ on the room. Also, is this a resort or room I want to tick off my "been there" list? Location: Where on the strip is this, relative to dead center strip, i.e. Bellagio. Am I going to have to cab or walk a lot to get here on a daily basis, and what...

  SeptemberVegas. Happening. Decided to make this a 4 trip year. Going to wrap a few PTO days around a weekend and fit in a 5-night, 4-day semi-quickie at the end of September. I'll fly in after the day of work on a Thursday then have 4 full days in town. As of now I have a bog standard room at MGM Grand booked for around $100 all in, but that may change as offers and time roll in/on. $120 FP, $100 RC. So MGM is giving me $120 to come to Vegas again. FB is giving me 2 nights and no resort fees but that's still $500 all in, we'll see what I can coax out of RW when those offers come in. I'll have nailed down MGM Gold a couple weeks from now, so I can be a free agent if I want. As always it'll be hard to beat the dirt cheap MGM rates, and for fuck's sake I've earned them, but it's nice to have a little flexibility the rest of the year if I want it. Thought about driving but with no cool down days before going back to work I thought better of it. A 9 hour dr...

Yep. Vegas. Flights: Fine, no issues. About a half hour delay on the in, 10 mins on the out. Room: Cosmo Terrace Studio, Boulevard, 69th floor, Aria view. Good room, clean, good view, little loud at night. Tons of emergency vehicles all the time. Also was about a half hour late getting into it on the Sunday. But otherwise no issues. Resort: I love the 'Mo, always have always will. Spent a ton of time in there at the start and end of days, never let me down. Spent a lot of time and money at Vesper. Strip: Slow week, and didn't see much of it. Mostly shuttled between Cosmo and FB. Got to Rematch a couple times, a couple Fuels, RW for about an hour, but no new ground covered really. Easy to get around, started getting busier on the 2nd for the holiday WE. Drinking: I don't want to talk about it. Food: Pretty good, had the steak at Jean Georges, the Conos at Jaleo, and made it down for the Bolognese at Carama, all fantastic. Got a couple lunches in there too so overall ate OK, ...

And so it (nearly) begins. Tomorrow is Las Vegas. Really happy I'm doing the vacation the way I am. The trips where I leave and come back mid-week are dildos. You get off of work and head straight to the airport, then on the come back you're right back to work the next day after 5 days of punishment. This way I have a night and a half to relax, clear my mind, and have time to prep for the trip, then when I'm back next Friday, I have 2 days to recover. Civilized. I checked into the flight this morning. Despite buying a row 2 seat, I still had to pay another $16 for priority boarding. Southwest you fucking whores. Whatever, sunk cost at this point, whatever gets me in and out of the airport as expeditiously as possible is worth it.  Woke up this morning and immediately started a flurry of activity, got the dopp kit set up, got all my drugs, legal and otherwise, collected, charging all the electronics, etc. The bag is 90% packed, I'm checked into the Cosmo and ...