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

Things looking settled for the Xmas trip, so time to settle up the discounts and freebies. -Comped, no resort fee night at Cosmopolitan on night one, cost $0, would be $242, saves $242. -6 nights at Delano in a King Suite, 3 nights comped, $318 all in. Would be $1392 with no comps and resort fees, saves $1074. -$84 of resort credit at Cosmopolitan, value $84. -$25 Freeplay and $50 RC from the Delano booking, $75 value. -Will have $292 Freeplay and $65 in Resort Credit from MGM Rewards account, value $365. -VIP ticket to Atomic Saloon show, $50, would have been $189 normally, savings of $139. That's $1979 saved over someone without any tertiary comps earned. Not shabby. With all that resort credit here and there I won't have to pay for meals much, especially if I reach 75K Rewards points with MGM and earn the additional $100 resort credit for getting there. I'll be slightly over 52K points when I arrive so with the points accelerator active it should be a if not a slam dunk ...

It has begun. The little twitters of my mind that are telling me: a Vegas trip is not terribly far away. It usually starts about 2 months out from a trip, which is, believe it or not, where we are, finally. Since I got back from the June trip the Xmas trip has been so distant I haven't even really thought about it much, aside from trying to get the overhead of flights and booking handled. Now that they are, the mental countdown can begin. It's subtle things, mostly. Not overt things like how much money I have saved (which is going well at $3K), but little things like "oh I have enough prescription drugs now to get me past the next trip, or "oh I have enough deodorant now to get me past the next trip". Yes, this is level of obsessed with Vegas I am. It's no small thing. I have to admit that the summer/early fall has been a downer. Firstly, the way the June trip went felt like a bit of a betrayal. As if I'd been slept around on my a partner. Then just the s...

MGM rewards are back. Everything looks right I think. I was at 35K points in July now am at 44.8K, which with 3 months of points accrual from the CC is around 3K per month so that figures. Almost $220 in slot dollars too which is nice, and will be even nicer by the time I get to town. With a needed 75K points to stay Gold I have at least an outside chance of hitting it in December as long as I points max at MGM spots. Food, bars, gambles at MGM joints, along with the hotel stay and tier accelerator in place for the trip. Speaking of the stay, nothing final yet. Since the website came back from the hack not much has changed, rates-wise. Of the places I'd actually stay, Aria, MB, Delano, NYNY all have bookable rates now. MB, Delano would have upper-tier rooms that are within the algorithm, but I'd really rather not be that far south. I'm angling for a reno'd room at Bellagio but right now $540 for the 6 nights is a tad high still. As usual, at the first sign of prices goi...

Nothing exciting on the Xmas trip booking front, or any front for that matter. MGM Rewards booking is back up. Not MGM Rewards, though, strangely. The quoted rates are more or less exactly what they were before the hack. A couple good deals ($37/night at Aria, about the same at MB for an Elite King, $12/night at Delano, $6 at NYNY, etc.) but I'm thinking they just reloaded whatever was there before the hack and rates may change when the full system is back.  So I'm going to hold off, which may or may not be a good move...at some point as we actually start to get close the rates will by nature start to bump up. And I've already lost out on better rates from a couple months ago so I'm not going to wait much longer. Still kinda hoping for a reno'd room at Bellagio to come back in range. Would be the best option for a short hop from Cosmo on the first night and it's perfect location-wise in general. Otherwise, just due to the finely tuned room/rate/location algorith...

This is not a countdown. Nowhere near Vegas. This has to be one of the longest droughts in my Vegas history, at least since 2012. When it's over it'll end up being 6 months. Work-related. If it hadn't been for the expense of the car I certainly would have been able to sneak in another fall trip. Ironic, as I'm making more than I ever have but alas, here we are. I'm just not able to save much money now. Added to the car, I'm just spending too damn much day to day. Things were ironically cheaper when I didn't have full-time access to a Target. 3 Target runs a week = 3 x $45 = ah fuck it I don't want to do the math. That and I go out every Saturday and drop $250-$300 per, and it's no secret where the money goes. Door Dash, drugs, etc. Ah well, 1st world man's burden. Still no final-final room for the 6 unbooked days. I have gotten a full comp at Caesars on a Julius room, 6 nights for less than $350 so I booked that as a fall back, but I'm still ...

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 ...