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

Um, huh. I just got an $11K salary bump at my work. I just started this new job. It's going more or less fine. It's a healthcare start up, it's a really good idea. Really good ideas in healthcare tend to get acquired. That just happened, only a month after I started, and everyone from our company is getting a salary bump. Now they could have just said "hey man you've only been here a month let's just go with your current salary", and honestly I would have been fine with that because it was a bump from my last job anyway. But no. They decided to give me a considerable salary bump, a small signing bonus, and 13K stock options in the company. A company that's worth $4B and has been "exploring" going public. Obviously the options don't all vest at once, I'd have to be with them for 4 years for that to happen but even a 25% vest after a year of employment could be a life-changer. This is all a bit shocking. Even the salary bump alone will ...

  Another very respectable set of savings for the July Vegas. -5 nights at Aria, $409 all in. Would be $2339 (!) if I was booking with no status. Savings of $1930. -$50 in Freeplay and $50 in resort credit from the booking package, $100 value. -$73 Mlife points from the Mlife CC that will be converted to Express Comps for resort credit. Probably a few $$ more accumulated in-trip. Call it $80 value. -1 night at Cromwell, $106 all in, would be $152 if booking with Caesars, saved $46. Altogether $2156 saved over Joe Imanobodywithnostatus. That room saving is the tits. Rates everywhere now are insane, glad I locked in the great packages back when they were practically giving away rooms. Less than $100/night at a 5-star in Vegas in the middle of a bitch-ass busy summer, hard to beat that. Solid rate at Cromwell for the fly-in night too through Priceline. So I belly-ache on this blog from time to time about Mlife but in truth they take pretty good care of my low-rolling ass. $2000+ of sa...

1 month. Now it begins to get real. The final planning, if any, starts. The daily hands of practice video poker begin. The deciding on food reservations happens. I start to count down the days in my head. I start to scour the Vegas news sites pre-trip for juicy nuggets. The posts on this goofy blog get more frequent. All who read it suffer. Since I am moneycashboy I decided to sneak in an extra night by just coming in the Wednesday instead of Thursday. I have Thursday off anyway and will just leave a little early from work on the Wed so no big whoop. Gives me a full 5 days on the ground. I booked the added night at Cromwell. Got a really good deal on Priceline, $30 less than booking direct. $105 all in. Always have wanted to stay there and the location is good to stroll across to Aria the next day. I thought about just cancelling my Aria res and re-booking but it looks like weekend rates went way up, so don't want to risk losing the great rate I booked early in the year. The fligh...

Starting to question my choice of trying to chase status at Cosmopolitan. I'm close to getting to Gold in Identity there, and probably will attain it on the July trip. I've piled most of the spend from gambling for the last two years into that place. But the rates, sweet Jeebus the rates. I have, through Mlife, 5 nights in July at Aria, a 5-star, very nice resort, for a little over $400 all in. If I booked the same standard room with Cosmo, it would cost me over $2300 . Fuckity fuck? For 5 nights in a base room? On a nothing, non-holiday weekend? Christ crackers. I know Vegas is "back", but I've thrown in a combined $30K coin in over 2020 and 2021 thus far. And I'm UP through that spend. You would think they would want to comp me a damn room so I'd give them back some of their money. As far as I can tell I'm not even really getting a significant discount for all that spend. Even if I do get to Gold, get the 2 free nights a year and the comped resort fe...

Booked a maybe trip for Thanksgiving. Taking advantage of my restored decent booking packages with Mlife, and scored 4 nights for a little over $200 all in. I will likely be off for the 4 days from work anyway, so might as well do something fun instead of just sitting around doing nothing in my hobbit hole. Mandalay Bay for this one if it happens. 4 nights, 3 full days. Only a touch over $10/night for a standard no view room. It's far south, would need to take taxis everywhere yadda yadda but I love the MB complex and it was the best room/resort quality to rate ratio to be had. The fly in/out would probably be nightmarish, in Wednesday out Sunday like the rest of humanity in the airports, but would probably just mean getting to SFO a little earlier. Not even going to look at flights yet until the summer fare rush peters out. Driving would be out as I may not have a car by then and it would be even worse on the roads anyway. If flights are outrageous I can always cancel, but this wo...

  Already just 6 weeks out from yet another Vegas trip. Feels like I'm still recovering from the last one. I have zero hype built up yet. But alas, I need to start getting amped up and prepped up soon for trip 3 of the year already.  The logistics are set and are very unlikely to change. It's a weekend trip and I long ago locked in a great rate and package from Mlife for Aria, so it's very unlikely I'll be moving out of that, for financial reasons. $409 all in for 5 nights over a weekend, ain't nobody beating that right now with Vegas coming back like it is. It's been pre-COVID busy for months now, and with all restrictions and capacities dropping today, it's only going to get busier and more expensive. Aria a bit of a come-down from the glory of Encore but hey, it's hundreds less. I can get decent weekday rates through places like V/P but the weekend days would kill me at $250+. Maybe next trip. After the weekend trip I had in April I have concerns abo...

Back from the Vegas. Some impressions of a pretty good trip. The Flights: Frontier came through. No issues no complaints. Both on time and no retarded seat mates which on Frontier is a coup. Parking was fine at Crown Plaza in Burlingame too. The Resort: Encore is a beautiful place. Just a very pretty and luxurious spot to stay 4 nights. The room was all it was billed as, spotless, perfectly maintained, and comfortable. Big soft bed, tablet room controls, plenty of lounging room for people (which would actually happen on this trip). Bathroom nice, tub used, shower power a little anemic but that was the only complaint. Wynncore's only issue was it was barely open for the time I was there, no sports bar, few restos, very few bars or food in general. I would have spent more time there honestly if more had been open. It's a glorious resort complex though that I would have 0 issues staying at again. The Food: Nothing special. Plans fell apart for everything I had set up beforehand, h...