Hoping the board can give some tips for an upcoming trip I'm planning this summer. A little bit of background first: I'm a middle range player at both CET and mLIFE. I typically get rooms + some food + FP whenever I stay...or I can stay in a suite and take no food or FP. I'm planning a trip with a potentially large group of guys and girls. At the moment, we've got around 10 people saying they are going, but another 15-25 that have interest. I was thinking about getting a suite and having a few people stay there, plus trying to get a casino rate for any of the other rooms that join. Do you know if something like this is possible? Anyone have better thoughts when organizing a big group? Is it easier to do every man for themselves? Any thoughts/suggestions are appreciated. I'm good at planning my own trips, but it gets complex when having to deal with so many other people... Ray
Call group reservations. They will set you up with a pretty good rate for the people that will be paying for their room. They will give you a code to enter from the website that will give the guests access to the rates. That way everyone makes their own arrangements with their own credit cards, and one person isn't on the hook for everyone. If you wanted then one bigger room for a party or hanging out in then you can call VIP services and book that room for yourself. I have done something similar before at MGM and it was pretty straight forward.
I am usually the one in our group that plans all the trips. It can become a real pain. I used to try to take care of everything and then have people pay me, but when you have 10 people saying they are going, and 15-25 that have interest, it becomes a challenge. with that said, in recent years I've used a "core" group to assist with setting the dates, location, etc (say 4 ppl). once that is set, we book it for the 'core people.' We know at that point we have 4 people committed. Then we send out a blast to all friends that have interest and give them the details (flight, hotel, travel agent to call, if applicable, and so on). It becomes every man for himself at that point, but the research, etc has been done for them. most love this approach. all they need to do is make a couple of calls, pay, and pack we may lose a couple of bucks on any group discounts, but in the end it's not worth it to me to go through the headache of dealing with 7-12 couples and getting payment, etc.
With MLife, you can book up to 9 rooms on your tier discounted rate, and I've done that several times before. (Great way to get a lot of Tier Credits, by the way.) If that will be enough room to satisfy your group's needs, then you should be good to go. I've also gone out with a group that was so large, I just did a group reservation and block of rooms at Aria.