Booking Casino Rate Vs Third-Party Site

OK, I was able to pay $95 *after taxes and fees* to book a Flamingo room with a free GO room upgrade and 2 free breakfast buffets (including an additional $50 instant rebate) on bookit.com for three nights that happen to cost $120 for the FAB room and $170 for the GO room total *before taxes and fees* on My TR for CET (without the additional "value" added). I equally booked Wynn at a $145/night rate for 2 nights including a $75 resort credit for nights that would have cost $159 *before taxes and fees* in my offer (again without the additional value added). The caveat: (1) to cancel the third-party site may or may not cost and (2) if you want to be comped for a room on the back end it will not be possible.

It made me come to the conclusion (though I may be seriously late) to compare all my "discounted" casino rate offers to other discounts/deals/specials on third-party websites *before* booking. I am essentially getting "complimentaries" with these deals that my player's club is not offering. I also remember the awesome Mandalay room deal in the past with free LOVE tickets!

Please do share your experiences with booking a third-party website over a discounted rate offered by your player's club (even if you are comparing two different clubs/hotels).

 

The bias on these Vegas boards is to book directly with the hotel for the possibility of comps at the end of the stay. If you're not comped, I think you need to look at all the avenues including 3rd party sites.

Consider if the hotel has a low price guarantee where you can call them, direct them to the site and get that rate with the hotel. Or the ability to rebook if the price goes down.

It's worth noting that quite a some board members from the UK book air-hotel and sometimes air-hotel-car packages from 3rd party vendors or travel agents at the very cheapest hotel offered and then get their own hotel, either comped or otherwise and for them it's still cheaper than the flight booked alone.

In my case, I look at all the possible combos in terms of air, hotel and car rental from 3rd party sites and directly with the hotel, airline or car rental companies.

Dates and length of stay have a huge influence on the price. If you can be flexible with your dates, you can save a lot of money. Our most recent trip we took the last 2 weeks in September as vacation time even though we only went to Vegas for 1 week. That gave us flexibility in our dates. I know not everybody can make that work but it saved us money.

 

I once booked through travelocity and then gambled more that enough where I could have gotten the room comped off of the back end. because I had used the third party site there could be no room comp.

 

You're doing everything right in my book.

Casino status is not a win/win proposition in the long run, since it requires you to gamble at poor odds. Even with good rules BJ Pros go through large negative swings and they usually play anonymously (unrated).

That guy that won millions in a NJ casino playing BJ, worked a deal for himself with the casino before he sat and played.

Work the deals.

Cheers

 

I booked our first two trips to Las Vegas through Expedia and since then I've always booked directly with the hotel: Even if the rates I was getting by booking directly with the hotel weren't as good as I could through a third party site I still booked directly because of the possibility of getting the room comped at the end of a trip.

So for me I will always be booking directly with the hotel and while with the first few trips I was always comparing prices on travel sites or using sites like TravelAxe, I don't even look at third party sites any more.

However, that doesn't mean its the best solution for everybody: there are people we've seen come through here that have a gambling budget of $50-60 a day and they can't understand why they never get comps or offers and others who have a daily budget of $300-400+ and they just assume that they aren't High Roller enough to warrant comps...

And that touches on two key elements: you have to gamble enough to warrant comps, but you also have to be able to go and ask for them - and that last part might sound silly, but there are lots of people who just don't feel comfortable going up to the slot club booth and asking for comps or trying to get in touch with a casino host, and so they never do and so they never get end of trip comps applied to their bill.

 

when i booked El Cortez JR Cabana Suite last trip (which i canceled because my connection came through with a room)

it was cheaper to book third party then casino.

Casino offered some slot play and food credit

third party offered book 3 nights get 4th free

even though i was leaving on the 3rd day it was an extra 3 bucks in taxes to get the 4th night and id have a room for late check out so it was well worth it.

The only hotel i book directly is Circus Circus seems like the rates there are always cheap even when booking direct and i get an added discount for AAA

 

repost delete..;..

 

First, everyone who says that you can't get your room comped if you go through a third party is right.

However you can still get comps if you earn them. If you book your room through a third party and you gamble a good bit, make sure to charge some meals to your room so that you can get those comped off. Show tickets, too, if applicable. For me, my food and entertainment bill is often more than the price of the room anyway.

 

I don't think there is anything wrong with using a 3rd party site.

To me, the main issue would simply be that it can't be canceled. Which means I would never book hotel on such an offer until I had airfare booked.

 

I'm one of the people who would never have a room comped so I search various sites. Freebies thrown in by booking sites are a definite plus, but they weren't being offered during my last trip.