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

Where my head is at with Mlife/MGM right NAH. In order of "perceived poshness", where I will or won't stay in the MGM pantheon. All (except Signature) currently offering me 2-4 nights/$50 RC/$50 FP. -Bellagio: I just...eh. I really don't like this place. I used to really hate it. My stance has changed a bit after the last 2 trips during which I spent quite a bit of time there, mostly because it is next to where I was staying and it was open. I had decent gambling luck there in June, August not so much but on a smaller scale. It's just so stuffy. I don't like the clientele, it's usually packed, poorly laid out and seems to just be resting on laurels earned in the 90's. I can get two nights comped though so we're going to give it a whirl for 3 nights over Xmas. See if my mind changes. -Aria: Not really my cup of java either. It's beautiful and has one of the best restaurant lineups on the strip, but the place is a "vibe dead zone". Ther...

It's 3 months until Vegas Xmas. Ugh. This is always the toughest time of year for me. The stretch every year from August or September, whenever my last summer trip was, to December, is always rough. A numbing sort of rut sets in, especially now since I can't even go out on weekend in the City to take the no-fun edge off. It's 7:05a alarm every week day, trundle off to work, come home, stare at a computer screen, rinse, repeat. Then weekends post-COVID are sit around staring at the screen even more. And 3 more months of this til I can get my party on. Getting the new car has added a little yay and a little boo to the proceedings. It's nice to look forward to the commute time again, but I suspect that will be short lived and there will be sacrifice financially for having gotten it. With some cutting back I should be OK, but next month when the bigger save amounts kick in there could be some "make a loaf of bread last a week" weeks. Maybe I can get a few "Su...

Since I am now new car boy, I have decided, in a rare fit of good judgement, to scale back my accommodations for the upcoming Xmas trip. I  had  booked Encore, as it's very nice, and I had never stayed there but, at the time of booking, hadn't taken on an additional $400+ a month in debt payment load. I have cancelled that would-have-been $900+ booking (just too much now), and have gone (sorta) bargain hunting. Turns out I'm not really going to be slumming it though. Back again at the lovely and fabulous Cosmopolitan for 3 nights to kick off the trip, all nights comped just paying the resort fees. Then I make the hellacious trek of about 100 yards to Bellagio for the last 3 nights, all in there on a great Mlife rate $60 plus resort fees, so my total outlay for 6 nights in 5-star resorts is $354. Rad. There are also points and perks considerations. Even if my tier credits will expire end of December, I'm still gaining rewards points with the Bellagio stay which can be tu...

Whelp. I got a brand new car. The TT was starting to give me some trouble, and I didn't want to spend a penny to fix it, so I did some research on reasonable but fun small cars and chose a 2021 Toyota Corolla SE Nightshade. 3 year lease. It was time to grow up, car-wise. I need a dependable daily commuter, not a 16 year old "luxury" sports car. The TT was a good car, don't get me wrong, but it needed a lot of work and I wasn't going to throw $3K into it to keep it running when I knew I wasn't going to keep it long term. The plan was to pay off my remaining $3K on the 0% interest CC I have, THEN buy a new car but the TT forced my hand. It had been having overheating issues the last few weeks and that's almost never a cheap fix. As it stands the Corolla will cost me $370/month for the lease, and an additional $50/month in insurance cost. Not too painful. It may make the Vegas save more interesting, especially as the higher save amounts come due in November/D...

Where things stand in the race for rewards in the near future. Mlife: Newly re-minted Gold member, and will be until January of 2022, at minimum. Rules changes due to COVID extending the eligibility period once a tier earned. Thanks COVID? As far as I can tell, though, the 70K+ tier points I have now will expire a few days after I leave in December, with absolutely zero chance to get to Platinum, so despite being at Bellagio, no need to play at MGM spots at all on the Xmas trip. I may take a run at Platinum next year, depending on the number of trips I take, but in reality it's probably a pipe dream. Starting from zero on Jan 1 to get to 160,000 points is probably out of my league, no matter how much I focus play at MGM resorts. I will need to get back on the Mlife horse next year to earn enough points to keep Gold for 2022 though. Speaking of Express Comps, I won't have too many of those when I arrive, maybe $50 max, so not even a splurge meal by Ex's alone this time. Comb...

Back. Another weird trip in a weird year. Despite a couple events it wasn't really very eventful, so rather than the day by day blow by blow I will just summarize some of the themes. Flights: Both fine and on time, Alaska doing a good job this time. Had no seat mates either trip and all smooth. SF airport still dead on the out, LAS a little livelier on the back in. Pretty surreal flying over the fires in CA on the out flight. Rooms: Cosmo mostly fine this time for the 6 nights, had the good Terrace Studio, this time with the south facing view, which was fine. I did have to change rooms on check in, they initially put me right next to the elevators and right above the pool. No. Had to wait an hour to get into the better room, but other than that the stay was good. Room was quiet and housekeeping service was mostly on point. Got late checkout free for the fly out day which was nice. Better experience than in June for sure. Gambling: Up and down, mostly down. I hit 1K on VP on the ...

In 24 hours I'll be on the plane to Vegas. The work is done for the week. The OOO reply is set on work email. The money's out of the bank, the laundry's done, the bag's 80% packed, I'm checked into my flight, yadda yadda. Nothing left to do but shave my balls, get a good nights sleep, drive to work, park the car, Uber to the airport and hopefully take off on time to Paradise, NV. What's in store in Paradise? Dunno. I'm going to try to be like this chick (dude?) at Venetian in the pic above. Roll with the no-bar punches, try to stay positive, and be zen about the experience, whatever it may be. It's my choice not to delay the trip for lack of bars, so it's also my choice how I approach it. As previously stated, maybe getting out of my bars-all-day comfort zone will be a positive. Vegas without bar tops is still (mostly) Vegas, so let's keep an open mind. So that's it then. I'll check in on the far side in a week or so.