I’m old enough to remember when Las Vegas was as much about cheap as it was about sin. The sin itself might cost you, but everything else was a bargain. Cheap room rates. Cheap all-you-can-eat prime rib buffets. Free cocktails. Penny slots. And free parking.
Those were the days when gambling profits subsidized everything else. The good ol’ days.
As interest in, and profits from, gambling waned, Sin City reinvented itself as Fun City. And in Fun City, there were few bargains to be had. Those $19 room rates, gone. Cheapo buffets have been displaced by pricey eateries helmed by the culinary world’s super stars. Onerous resort fees. But at least until recently, free hotel parking remained the standard.
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That vestige of the city’s previous era began its disappearing act this summer, when MGM Resorts International started charging as much as $10 for self-parking, and up to $18 for valet parking, at its 14 Las Vegas hotels (ARIA, Bellagio, Circus Circus, Excalibur, Luxor, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, The Mirage, New York-New York, and several others).
At the time, the official company line was that the fees would be used to upgrade the hotels’ “outdated and inefficient facilities.” The real reason, of course, was almost certainly simple business economics. Parking was one of the hotels’ few remaining untapped revenue sources. Why give it away for free when there are millions to be made from parking fees?
MGM wasn’t the only Vegas hotelier that found the ancillary revenue argument compelling.
Caesars Entertainment this week announced its plans to charge fees for valet and self-parking at eight of its nine Las Vegas properties (Caesars Palace, Harrah’s, Bally’s, Flamingo, The Cromwell, The LINQ, Paris Las Vegas, Planet Hollywood).
The fees will be phased in beginning later this month, and will cost visitors as much as $18 per day for valet parking at Caesars’ more expensive hotels. Local residents and high-value members of Caesars’ Total Rewards program can still park for free.
Here’s the company’s rationale for the new fees:
Living in Los Angeles, I make the four-hour drive to Las Vegas on a semi-regular basis, most recently in January of this year. And I have not found the parking spaces to be “increasingly scarce,” as Caesars contends. Nor have I heard any such complaints from other Vegas visitors. The new fees, in short, are a money grab.
And as such grabs tend to be, this one is contagious. The Las Vegas Review-Journal this week reported that Wynn Resorts will also begin charging for valet parking, at its Wynn and Encore properties in mid-December. Self-parking will remain free, but with a qualifier: “at this time.”
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It’s a summer of savings as low-cost airlines continue to roll out the deals. Spirit Airlines' “Save On Your Next Getaway” fare sale is currently offering discounted tickets starting at $45. The fares, which include taxes and fees, serve popular routes and destinations such as Las Vegas, Orlando, and Nashville. Travel + Leisure looked into it and found popular one-way flight deals including:
Labor Day is right around the corner, and what better way is there to kiss summer goodbye than with one last adventure? Right now, a handful of travel companies are coming in clutch with late summer deals, while others are looking ahead to fall, winter, and beyond to make sure you have something to look forward to when the temperatures start dropping.
How much will you be charged for that hotel stay? The answer, of course, should be obvious: You’ll pay the published rate, plus government-imposed taxes and fees. Whatever that total turns out to be is your price.
Vegas has come a long way, baby. No longer a Mecca for gambling and other less licit activities, the city has become synonymous with family fun, world-class dining, and big-name entertainment.
Update from IHG, including effect date for new prices: “All reservations booked beginning Jan. 16, 2018, will use the new Reward Nights point prices. This is part of an annual review into the number of points needed for a Reward Night, and we’ll communicate to members through our regular channels, including email and our website.”
At a time when the distaste of consumers and the scrutiny of lawmakers would seem sufficient to shame hotels into ending their widely derided resort fees, Caesars Entertainment is doing the opposite.
I just returned from a holiday-weekend stay at the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas. Predictably, there was nickel-and-diming aplenty, beginning with the hotel’s nasty, indefensible resort fee of $29 a night, for rooms that featured neither a mini-fridge (better to drive guests to eat at one of the hotel’s 13 restaurants) nor a coffee maker (better to drive guests to caffeinate at one of the hotel’s three Starbucks).
Paris Hilton hasn’t been much in the limelight lately, and now we know why. The 35-year-old socialite and media magnet has been busy developing a new line of luxury hotels to open in Dubai, New York, and Las Vegas.