For the $50 rewards at this bar, is there a cover charge? It will be many months until we go, and things do change over time. I have read that at times there is. Didn't state what times. Might be there after a concert about 10:00 PM on a Thursday.
If I'm remembering right they usually start charging cover $25 for a table & $10 to get in, I'm not sure of the times, but probably like 9 pm and after. You'll also be there on a weekday though, I'm sure it's much cheaper. Look up Yelp reviews if you have a chance. Some describe how much they could get with the $50 myVegas credit, even.
Hey jbee, I can share my experience using this reward recently. I used this reward back in March on a Saturday night. My fiance and I just sat up at one of the bartop VP machines that line the outside of the bar around 9:30-10:00PM. It looked pretty busy near where the pianos were so I can't really comment on any cover charge or seating available inside the bar itself. I told the bartender right away that we had the $50 voucher and asked if I needed to give him a credit card to keep the tab open. He said he'd only need it once we went over our $50 credit. Figuring that we were in Vegas, I didn't expect $50 to go very far with two people drinking. We put $20 into the VP machine and just lazily bet $.25 here and there, just to keep ourselves entertained while listening to the live music from the dueling pianos and enjoying our "free" drinks. After ordering my 3rd beer and 3rd hard cider for my fiance, I asked the bartender how much of the tab was remaining and he said that we didn't even touch the tab yet. What?!?! After giving him a confused look, he explained that since my fiance and I were sitting at the VP machine, all of the drinks we had been consuming were "comped" for our play. Score! We ended up staying for about 4 hours until we couldn't drink any more. Then we bought 2 strangers a drink to use up the balance of the $50 credit and we stumbled back to our room at Aria. Clearly we just got a great bartender who hooked us up as I know they wouldn't normally be comping 2 drinks for 1 player, especially at the pathetic rate we were playing at. I'm sure he knew what he was doing as we made sure to leave him a pretty hefty tip for his generosity. I'm not saying you'll have the same experience as we did, but it was certainly the best "bang for the buck" myvegas reward we've ever used!
So something interesting that I ran into with my last trip a couple of weeks ago is that the credit must be used by midnight. My friend and I showed up at NYNY around 11:30 on a Tuesday night and walked over to the Mlife desk. They mentioned that we would either have to use the credit by midnight, or wait until after midnight and we could use it that night. So we ended up just waiting the 30 minutes and then went to the piano bar. I honestly can't remember if I paid a cover charge or not this time. If I did, it was like $5. This was my second time using the reward, it's always a fun time there.
We didn't redeem the reward but, last year we just sat at the Video Poker machines like Trumie 04. We sat there and played all night and never got charged for a drink.
During Holiday or Fight weekends. Guys are $20 a head/ Ladies $10 a head. Tables could 4 and were $35. I tried using during Saturday night of Presidents day weekend. The bar was so busy that they were shutting the entrance to get in!
We recently used this reward. Didn't even have to go in - we were able to use it at the outside VP bar. No hassle at all and no cover.
Our experience was pretty similar. The wife and I sat at the bar and enjoyed drinks and we slow played some VP and chatted it up with the bartender. Mind you, it was only 5-6 PM at this point therefore nothing was really going on. We ordered some nachos and drank for at least 2 hours. I kept thinking it was weird that he never mentioned the tab. I was tipping generously, especially after a few. I then told him we were leaving and I wanted to settle up because there was NO way we were under $50. He then hands me back my sheet with the info and tells me just keep it and use it again? Wow, we were very surprised. I ended up tipping him again just for that! Sadly though, we didn't make it back to try to use it again. He was really friendly and we had a great evening.