The term “you get what you pay for” is often very true. But whenever possible, we like to get what we don’t pay for! It’s not always a straightforward process though, and it’s not always something you can plan for. But if you keep an open mind and know to recognize a deal when it’s in front of you, there are deals to be had…
At the beginning of the year we decided to plan a trip to Las Vegas for July. We’ve been to Las Vegas before at various times of the year, and over time we’ve come to the conclusion that we like it hot. And Vegas doesn’t get much hotter than July!
After doing some research for the best deals we could find online, we decided to book 4 nights (July 1-5) at The Orleans followed by 4 nights (July 5-9) at Bally’s. Being off-strip The Orleans has pretty good nightly rates. These 4 nights averaged out to $61.25 per night. And because we are Total Rewards members from previous trips to Las Vegas, Bally’s offered us all four nights for free. So right from the start we had eight nights booked in Las Vegas for only $245 total. We were pretty happy with that. So by the end of March we had our trip all booked.
Total Rewards membership tracks your playing history at about half of the big casinos on the Las Vegas strip. When you book your next reservations online using your Total Rewards membership, there are often deals and freebies available. Players Club covers the other half of the big casinos on the strip. They also offer special deals, but you have to wait for offers to arrive in the mail.
In April, that’s exactly what happened. In our mailbox was a promo piece from Bellagio. Most times we just throw away these Players Club promo mailings. They tend to be a discount deal taking a luxury room & spa or room & golf package from absurdly-expensive down to still-way-too-expensive. Or they are only valid for a block of days when we’re not going to be there. We can usually find better room-only deals in our price range elsewhere. But this time we brought it in to look at just because it was from Bellagio. Bellagio never has deals on anything (that we’ve ever seen before) so we thought it might be fun to look. We’re so glad we did!
Bellagio was offering three free nights stay AND $100 of free play in their casino AND two free buffet meals. AND the valid date range was right when we were already booked to be there. So we called them and booked July 1-4 to stay for free at Bellagio.
So now we had to do some adjusting… We would have to cancel our reservation at The Orleans - no point paying for a room there when we can stay at Bellagio for free. But then that would leave us with no room for one night (July 4). Talking with the reservation desk at Bellagio when we were booking our free nights, we asked them how much to add one extra day. It was $169. We said thank you, but no. We had checked Bally’s online and that same night was listed for $70. So we called Bally’s to add one extra night to our reservation there. When we asked how much it would be - to make sure they don’t charge us more than the internet posted rate - they said no problem, they’ll comp that night too.
Woo hoo! So, now we’ve got eight nights in Las Vegas for free! But it gets better…
In June, another offer from Players Club shows up in our mailbox. This time from the brand new Aria Resort & Casino. They were offering three nights free stay AND $50 of free play in their casino AND two free buffet meals. And again, in the date range when we were going to be there.
More adjusting… We booked Aria for July 6-9. We didn’t change our Bally’s reservation - it was all free anyways.
So in July we stayed three nights for free at Bellagio, then two nights for free at Bally’s, then three nights for free at Aria. And we got free play in two of the casinos, and we got some free buffets!
So… Who has the best free deal? This is the way we see it…
Bellagio
Wow, what a nice place! Clean, comfortable, fresh-smelling room. Not much of a view from Room 4072, but that’s not why we were there. At least we were looking towards the strip, and not out across the freeway.
Staff that you encounter in the hallways look directly at you, greet you, and smile. Everyone seems happy. Buffet is incredible… good selection of freshly-prepared food items. Tried to do a light meal one day at Café Bellagio, but we were unimpressed with their menu choices so we ended up going somewhere else. Chocolate croissants from Palio made a great breakfast, and an assortment of mini sandwich sliders from Café Gelato were pretty good for lunch. We shared a sugar-free Napoleon from Jean Phillipe Patisserie for a nice treat.
Bally’s
Bally’s has been around a while, and it is definitely showing its age.
Room 581 was very basic, and the room and hallways were kind of musty smelling. The view from our room windows was of the Flamingo Monorail Station, and the track came straight toward us and curved right in front of our window. If the windows could open, the passing monorail cars seemed close enough to be able to touch them.
Whenever we encountered staff in the hallway (which was very seldom) they always seemed annoyed that a guest was occupying space that they needed to work in. The room had a safe in the closet where you could keep any valuables while you were out of the room… but there was a daily fee to use it! Bellagio and Aria both offered use of their room safe for free. For dinner one night we had Nachos & Beer at the Tequila Bar & Grill. Really good, pretty cheap, and so much food that we couldn’t even come close to finishing it.
Aria
First thing we noticed when we arrived was how far back off the strip we had to walk to get to the hotel. It looks like one big complex, but there is a huge shopping center between the strip and the hotel. Everything still smelled very new. The view from Room 28167 wasn’t much to speak of - but again that’s not why we were there. The room was very “high tech” with automatic lighting, automatic curtains, and remote control of just about everything. It should come with an instruction manual!
But although everything looked super-modern, it was very superficial. There were so many things that irked us about this place that we actually made a list of notes so that we could include them here.
The shower stall is made of smooth glossy tile, even on the floor. When it is wet, it is super-slippery! I’m sure it won’t be long before a guest slips and cracks their skull on the edge of the tub - which oddly enough is in the same enclosure as the shower.
The towels provided were very plush-looking. But when you use them it’s like trying to dry yourself with extra-coarse corduroy.
There were two ceiling lights in the shower/tub enclosure that had yellow “stuff” that had oozed out and hardened. It looked slimy, but had the consistency of hardened hot-melt glue.
Housekeeping did not remove several long black hairs (which were not ours!!) from the bathroom floor, did not empty one of the garbage cans, did not empty meltwater from the ice bucket, and did not replace one used drinking glass.
There are no electrical outlets beside the bed. We both have iPhones that we charge overnight, and we use them as our alarm clocks and as phones if anyone needs to get in touch with us. We like to have them beside the bed when we sleep. This is the first hotel where we haven’t been able to do that. The bedside lamps don’t even plug into the wall… the wires disappear behind the headboard somewhere to connect to the automated room control system.
Staff in the hallways avoid eye contact, as if they were given strict instructions not to interact in any way with the guests.
The buffet was pretty disappointing too. The décor was that of a high-school cafeteria, and the food seemed very limited in selection.
To top it off, they made a billing error when we checked out. The “free” room got charged full price to our credit card. It was the middle of August before they finally were able to come close to properly reversing the charge.
Conclusion
Bellagio is easily the winner here! And we probably won’t stay at Bally’s again (even for free) until after they renovate to bring themselves into the modern world. Aria just seems like they built it all too fast, without consideration of the whole guest experience, and haven’t worked the bugs out of the system yet. In overall atmosphere Aria feels like it is catering to people who want to feel upper-class and more important, and Bellagio is for people who actually are.
