Did Price Hikes Coincide with CET's No-Resort-Fees Campaign?

I saw a facebook page saying that even with resort fees, MGM properties tend to be cheaper than CET.

I thought.

That can't be right. I usually see rates around $20, $35 and $40 for CET lower properties, and MGM props tend to start at $40.

So I did my own little research, and lo and behold, with probably the exception of IP and Bellagio, which are two outliers, MGM properties did tend to be cheaper.

I must be missing something. When did CET get so high? I can get Harrahs and Excalibur for the same price. Worse yet, Flamingo GO room creeps a little higher than MGM Grand standard, for example. wth....lol.

Did it increase or was I missing something?

 

Much agreed!!! I check numerous propertys any time we do not have a comp we are using and aside from the props you mentioned room for room MGMs places beat out CETs time and again. It's not recent either my statement is going back 4 years.

 

Sonya if ya don't mind what dates? I just checked PH and MC out and for the dates I used, 3-18 check in for 3 days, you could get a Monaco at MC w/fees for over $70 less than the Hip at PH. May wanna check again the rates may be lower now than when ya booked possibly.

 

It didn't coincide with the promotion. CET is popular right now and their room rates more naturally reflect supply and demand. When MGM can't demand a higher room rate, they raise the resort fee. I don't know if people are coming to CET hotels because of the resort fee advertising or if it's something else but I keep seeing blog posts stating that CET has had the most success in raising ADRs for it's rooms. Don't believe that MGM wouldn't charge more if it could.

You also have to remember that they have a ton of gamblers being funneled in from their other casinos on comps and discount offers. It always seemed to me that CET probably overcharges their retail customers when it comes to room rates and that was the case way before the resort fees hit the strip.

 

I guess I am not seeing MGM props come in lower, for an Aug 28-31 trip I have coming up. It appears across the board that the CET properties come in a bit lower to comparable MGM properties even without the additional resort fees.

Something to note when comparing room rates is resort fees are not typically included in the quoted rates and are added on at time of checkout. So if you book on a website such as Expedia the price you pay is room and taxes only, resort fees will be collected at the hotel typically.

Example: Property (Room type)

CET Prop
IP (Deluxe) 23.19
Bally's (Classic) 30.00 / (Deluxe) 52.00
Harrah's (Classic) 32.00 / (Deluxe) 52.00
Flamingo (Fab) 36.00
PH (Hollywood Hip) 56.00
Paris (Luxury) 64.00

MGM
Circus Circus (Skyrise) 31.00 + 8.95resort
Excaliber (Standard) 32.00 + 15.00 resort / (Widescreen) 52.00 + 15.00 resort
Luxor (Pyarmid) 40.00 + 18.00resort
NYNY (Park Ave) 52.00 + 18.00resort
Monte Carlo (Deluxe) 53.00 + 20.00resort
MGM Grand (Petite) 60.00 + 25.00resort
Mirage (550 Deluxe) 75.00 + 25.00resort

 

There are people that are very insistent that mLife is always cheaper. I have experimented & found it both directions - all depends on dates, events, etc.

 

Ditto. Esp if you don't have any (or, very very little) CET play on your Total Rewards card. Just booking off email or FB rates, they're all over the place.....

 

If you are merely comparing rack rates for rooms, this is probably true. Who pays full price for rooms in Vegas??

 

This kind of dovetails with my theory - which is that CET gives out a lot more free & discounted rooms to people who are much lower down the "food chain", all feeding into their Vegas hotels with comps to burn from their network of local casinos throughout the country - so CET's overall supply of rooms available to the "general [i.e. non-regular gambling] public" is more constrained than MGM's is because they're giving out more cheap or comped rooms to a far larger pool of gamblers, which then jacks up the price of their remaining rooms.

MGM [and LVS & Wynn too for that matter] fills far more of their room supply with conventioneers and lower-end gamblers who don't get comped but are willing to pay for rooms at their resorts [plus, I think MGM also has far more rooms to fill in Vegas than CET does overall, because more of MGM's Vegas properties are of the 90's & later "mega resort" variety than CET's].