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

Getting incrementally closer to a Vegas again. Little less than 2 months out. No changes to the arrangements, aside from less days on the calendar between then and now. With the first trip of the year closing in, I need to start mapping out my rewards strategy. Trip one of the year will definitely be almost 100% Identity play. I'm only 5600 points out from Gold so a solid VP/slots trip in April should get me there. 2 comped nights a year, comped resort fees, early check-in, late check-out, it's the best mid-level rewards package you'll find on the strip. Once I get to Gold it's not a crazy stretch to Platinum which adds on room upgrades, airport pickup, annual resort credit, etc. There's nothing in the Mlife world that compares to that, it's a crazy point jump from where I am (Gold) to the next level. Like, unattainable. So this year may well be the last that I focus on Mlife at all, rewards-wise. With the Mlife CC I'm guaranteed no less than Pearl, but if I...

Save for Vegas trip just became a laugher. Wasn't really expecting it because I thought the IRS was going to pirate it, but I got my Fed and state tax refunds today, nearly $1900. Good in a way in that I got it, bad in a way in that I'm probably still going to owe a significant amount of back taxes from 2018. My "buy some time" tactic of challenging the levy may have worked too well, I was just trying to get through the holidays w/o having to deal with it. They're still looking at it. WAY outside chance that they may drop it, much more likely that it'll come due soon enough. If I can string it out until July when my debt is paid off then it won't be too painful. In any case, once I get paid Friday I'll have well over $5K in the bank, with another $2K coming from the March work bonus and hopefully another $1200 in Bidenbux. I may not have to do any kind of traditional Vegas save at all for April, which would be nice. Speaking of Vegas April, Southwest i...

Took advantage of low rates still in place due to the coof, and booked the summer Vegas trip. Going to do almost a carbon copy trip of the April one, going in on the 15th of July, a Thursday, and bouncing on Tuesday the 20th, so five nights again, like April. Booked up at Aria again, if they continue to give me weekend room rates of less than $30/night for a strip view room I'll continue to take them. Again total room overhead with resort fees just over $400, for a 5-star joint center strip. Depending on how I do on Identity on the April trip I may do some or all nights at Cosmo if they are comped, but otherwise being right next door is fine. No flights booked yet, round trips with a bag are around $200 right now so we'll see if they drop a bit before booking. I could use Allegiant vouchers for one of the legs if need be, but flying out of Oakland is never ideal, especially since I'm a 10 minute Uber ride from SFO from work. Speaking of work, since I'm going over a week...

10 years.  I landed on day one of trip one of my Vegas journey 10 years ago. I fucking hate the Grateful Dead, but what a long, strange trip it's been. Highlights, lowlights, hundreds of drinks, dozens of steaks, a couple hookers, and a priceless decade of memories. I've seen bars and restaurants come and go, and I've seen some places stay mostly the same (never change, Cosmopolitan) and others transform or disappear. I've stayed at 28 different properties on or near the strip. A handful of them have become like homes away from home. I've tipped some of the same bartenders for 10 years over 37 trips, an average of 3.7 trips a year. I've had outstanding service and horrible service, great and turgid rooms, amazing and awful meals. Nearly all of them locked away in the memory banks. I can't even begin to tally up the amount of money I've spent on 37 trips. From the room and flight overhead, clothes, gadgets and luggage, gambling losses, food, drink, tips, ...

Some personal lessons learned during the past year of "challenged" pandemic Vegas trips. If some of these help out the intrepid COVID Vegas traveler reading this, so much the better. Go on weekends: Vegas is dildoes during the week in-pandemic. 75% of the strip, especially during the daylight hours, is closed or severely restricted. The town comes more alive Friday to Sunday, so I'll play the game for a while. The next trip on the docket is April and it's a Thursday to Monday trip. The bean counters were already diminishing things for day drinkers to do even before COVID and now it's doubly as bad. Adapt and adjust. Don't assume anything will be open: Relates to the above. On the June trip, I walked down to to the The District food area at MGM on a Tuesday at lunch time and nothing, nothing non-food court was open. What a joke. You can't reopen the casinos and not reopen amenities to serve the people in the casinos. Or the people will not go into your c...

GTM. Going Through the Motions. As it stands now, a peck of a heck of a haul of a time from the next Vegas trip. Not really in any kind of hype mode yet, it's so far away I'm just trying to keep it in the back of my head. I suppose if my tax refund comes through before being pirated by the IRS, or if some sweet Biden Bux come through, I may be able to squeeze in a quick weekender trip before April. I actually came within a nipple hair of booking a last second trip last weekend for the MLK Day holiday, but flights would have been too buku and I didn't want to drive on what would have been a two full day trip. Most likely though I'll hold off. I'm already in the save regimen for the April trip, so I don't think I'd want to blow $2K on a quickie. Those trips are just too short, I need a good 3-4 days minimum to work my way into a trip. It's fine right now to let the town come back to "normal" a little anyway. 25% of Vegas was pretty skint over Xm...

  Going to let the Vegas breathe a bit after the long Xmas trip.  Already starting to get the bug again, just 1 week back, but I'm going to let my better senses calm that a bit and give myself a few months to build up the hype. Secondary reason is to let the vaccine hopefully do it's work and allow me to get back to a Vegas that looks more like Vegas, unlike the Xmas trip. I had considered doing a "10th anniversary" trip in February to commemorate my first trip 10 years ago, but instead I'm going to be prudent and stretch that out to a birthday trip in April. Nearly a 4 month gap between trips but again that gives things time to calm down from the winter virus hit, and hopefully some more things will be up and running by the time April rolls around. I have tentatively booked Aria in a basic strip view room for the 21st-26th. Going over a weekend saves on PTO used at work and will likely be a better experience in terms of people on strip and things open for them. T...