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

I'm 1/7th of the way booked for Vegas Xmas. Not sure why I didn't think of this before, but using up my "free" Identity Strerling comped night at Cosmo (free being in parentheses here as I paid dearly for it in June) to cover the Thursday, arrival night on the 21st. It's use it or lose it, so why not. It'll save me some dosh on the overall trip as now I will just have to cover 6 nights with MGM somewhere, presumably. It's a Terrace Studio, which is a step above the base City rooms, they're quite nice I've stayed in them before. It does mean having to jump resorts on the trip which I don't like to do if I can help it, but since it's the first, short night I can just leave everything in the bag and easily mosey over to the other resort the next morning, hopefully nice and early. As always it's a privilege to stay at the lovely Cosmo even if only for a night, especially when it's free. Now for the other 6 nights. Good deals up and down...

No room yet. I do have a room booked, however, as a backup plan. CET came through with a $7/night room at Caesars Palace, in a Julius tower room. Smallish room in a old tower, not recently renovated but it is Caesars, so if nothing really good pops up at MGM spots, I've got a fallback. Thought about doing a newly reno'ed room at Bellagio, and still might, but had I pulled that trigger it would have been $700+ which there's really no reason to pay when I can get a larger room with MGM for under $300. An Elite King at MB, for example. Every resort has some drawback with MGM but there's still time to find the best resort/price/location fit. Most likely will end up with them due to no resort fees, RC and FP package and points maxxage. Encore/Wynn too pricey. Venetian same. Cosmo has no offers for December yet, that could work as those points would transfer to MGM in February but that doesn't help me this year in my Quest For Gold. So we'll see. No rush really - may ...

I'm booked for the Xmas trip. Flying United. Had about $55 of various flight credit from them, and flight prices haven't dropped since I started tracking them 2 month ago so I pulled the trigger. Still pretty expensive at a little over $300 even with the credit; the flight in on the 21st was the big boy. Almost $200 by itself. Holidays, they're a flight bitch. But at least it's out of the way and I will have it paid off well before I go. Economy, so I get a bag and a selected seat. If I'm feeling frisky I may upgrade the seats as I get closer but as it is I'm mid-cabin so having overhead for the carry-on shouldn't be a problem. I flew United quite a bit in the last year between Vegas and the former job, and they were pretty reliable so I'm good with them. Nothing booked yet on the hotel tip, but my August offers, despite not gambling much at MGM spots in June, have bumped up, I'm now $20 more on FP and $50 more on RC so $50/$100. The RC plus my point...

Stuck in the Vegas no-go zone. I'm more or less mentally recovered from the posterizing Vegas gave me in June. The wallet, on the other hand, is still barking. The loss of the nearly $5K cash and the sodomizing of the MGM CC is nearly recovered, at great literal cost. By the end of this Friday I will have paid off $5100 in charges on the card since late June, again mostly from the trip. I can finally now, starting in August, begin to start recovering enough to entertain another trip in my head. However, the spectacular financial failure of JuneVegas has me now in the desert , just not literally, for a while. I can't responsibly even think about another trip now until Xmas. Assuming that will be a 7-night trip, which is how much time I've asked for at work, it'll be a $6500-ish save meaning I will need the entire Aug-Sept-Nov-Dec span to build the funds up again. No opportunity to squeeze in even a weekender trip unless some unexpected windfall comes my way, which is hig...

Oof. Can't lie, that pretty much sucked. Not much to say about this one but that. Some quick impressions I guess. Flights: No issues, both on time and was actually able to get an a hour earlier flight on the out so that was all good. Rooms:   Mostly OK, got into the Aria room right away on the Saturday, got upgraded to a Strip View, fine but boring as always there. The check in line for Cosmo was hellacious on the Sunday, stood there sweating for nearly an hour before finally getting up to the room. Room was fine, PH view, little smaller than I remembered from the first stay but still a very nice room. Housekeeping was a constant issue at Cosmo, one time didn't show up until 9p. Other than that a good base for 5 nights. Food: Almost non-existent. I think I only had 2 sit-down meals the whole time I was there. Flaked on the one reservation I had. Ended up living on Chex Mix and Snickers a couple days. Really bad. Drinking: A lot. Body: Barely hung on. Several nights I came home ...

  2 days ya bishes. Not much left to do. The laundry's done, bag is nearly packed, devices charging, the balls are shaved...pretty much all that's left is to pull a little money out of the bank Friday and GO. That money will be fine. Paid down the MGM CC so it'll be under $1K on go day, meaning I'll have over $7K of available credit for the trip. Not that I'll remotely need it. Just need to hit the bank Friday and pull out $1600 so I can have the usual $1000 per full day plus $700 for the short Saturday night. Leaves me with over a grand in the bank. Hopefully can add some back when I return. If nothing else the save was painless, thanks to April. I'm checked into the room for Saturday. Aria. Will check when I get there to see if I have a Gold upgrade but on a sold out (to plebes) Saturday it's not likely. Have to do actual physical check-in on Sunday at Cosmo but hoping it's painless, again will take advantage of late check out at Aria and try to get th...

Quite a good haul this time on savings. Shall we? -5 nights at Cosmopolitan in a Terrace One Bedroom Suite, special rate w/no resort fees: $1055, would be $2600 with no Identity rate, savings of $1545. -1 night at Aria in a Deluxe King, comped, no resort fees, night's not avail to book so not sure how much savings, another Saturday in June is $409 so we'll charitably call it $360 for the 10th, I added late check out so we'll say a $300 savings. -$50/$50 Freeplay/Resort Credit in the Aria booking package, $100 savings. -$117 in Freeplay built up from MGM Rewards, $117 value. -$57 in MGM Rewards Points (Resort Credit) available to use, $57 value but will increase with play by the time I use them Wednesday, call it $75. So that's a grand total of $2119 saved. And people ask me why I always go to Vegas on vacations. I also saved some $ by using some miles on the United flight but I can't be arsed to look it up, and also still have that $55 in Buffalo Wild Wing's GC ...