Las Vegas Strip Trip Overview

By Ramon

Ramon is the creator of Travelling Companion. He focuses on flight review, hotel reviews, and helping stretch your travel dollars, miles, and points further. ​​

​Las Vegas Strip Trip Report
Las Vegas Strip Trip Overview
Aria Resort and Casino Deluxe Queen Room Review
Aria Resort and Casino Dining and Activities  Review
Exploring the Las Vegas Strip
American Airlines Boeing 737-800 LAS-DCA Review

Las Vegas Strip

Introduction 
During the summer of last year, I headed without Christina, to Las Vegas for a bachelor party. This was as my third time in the city, my first trip to Las Vegas during the summer, and my best trip to Las Vegas yet. However, I left the city having had a fun time but with the feeling that I don't want to go back to Vegas for a while. This feeling was driven by the several factors including the fact that this was my second year in a row going to Las Vegas, the dire summer heat, the high prices of going out in Las Vegas.

In my last post I talked about the benefits and the process for booking hotels through the Luxury Hotel and Resort Collection. In this trip report I will show you how we were able to save a significant amount of money booking the Aria through the Luxury Hotel and Resort Collection. I plan to focus this trip report on my review of the hotel and my overall impressions of Las Vegas, and the experience flying out Las Vegas McCaran (LAS) airport. 

Booking Hotel
In my last tips post I talked about the benefits and the process for booking hotels through the Luxury Hotel and Resort Collection. In this trip report I will show you how we were able to save a significant amount of money booking the Aria through the Luxury Hotel and Resort Collection. Having been to Las Vegas two previous times I knew the importance of staying on the strip because of savings in both time and money. Las Vegas blocks are large and staying as close to the center of the strip as possible was particularly important in the summer heat. 

On my previous trips to the city I stayed at Bally's, which was cheap but unimpressive, and at the Cosmopolitan, where we got a great group rate and I was impressed. However, on this trip I was looking forward to putting the benefits of the Luxury Hotel and Resort Collection to use.  I searched for hotel's located center strip with good benefits through the program. I ended up going with the Aria which was a fantastic decision. We ended up paying $549 per person over the course of our three night stay. While this price was on the higher end for Las Vegas hotels we were dead center on the strip, staying a luxury resort with lots of amenities, and were able to save money by booking rooms with two beds and using the Luxury Hotel and Resort collection benefits. Booking through the program offered an array of the benefits  including free breakfast for two daily (maximum $30 per person), and $100 food and beverage credit per stay. I found all of these to be very valuable and the benefits ended up savings us about $140 per person on dining over the course of our stay. In my upcoming posts I will walk through how to maximize each of these benefits. At check-in I also added my World of Hyatt number hoping to earn Hyatt points through the MLife and World of Hyatt partnership. In the end the stayed booked through Luxury Hotel and Resort Collection was eligible for World of Hyatt points and  I earned 9,631 base points on my eligible spending for both rooms and 963 bonus points due to my Hyatt Discoverist status.   

Booking Flights
​Heading to Las Vegas on a summer weekend from Washington D.C. can be quite expensive and since I had been burned the year before waiting for a price decrease that never came I booked about three months out this time around when I found a reasonable price. There are non-stop flights to LAS from Baltimore Washington International on Spirit and Southwest, Washington Dulles on United, and Ronald Regan Washington National (DCA) on American Airlines. Since DCA is my home airport and I had elite status with American Airlines I decided to go with the non-stop flight on American Airlines for $560 roundtrip. While this was a lot for a domestic economy ticket it actually was a good deal on this route since it was about $150 cheaper than my ticket the year earlier to Las Vegas, which included stops. Moreover, during the summer non-stop tickets with American Airlines on this route can be over $700 even when purchased months in advance. I ended up earning 2,475 AAdvantage base miles plus 990 bonus miles due to my American Airlines Gold elite status. 

DCA-LAS-DCA (Flight Routing Map generated using the Great Circle Mapper-copyright Karl) L. Swartz

Summary
In this trip report I plan to utilized the tips I shared in my post on the Luxury Hotel and Resort Collection in order to demonstrate how you can get value from the program. I also plan to share my thoughts on Las Vegas as a destination, share the activities I participated in while in Las Vegas, and my thoughts on flying non-stop out of LAS to DCA. I hope will you enjoy coming along with me on my adventure to Las Vegas.