 Vegas June 2018 (WSOP) |
| Why I booked the June trip in October |
| Last Updated: 2017-12-22 11:45:24 |
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| We are tentatively hitting the World Series of Poker the second and third full weeks of June. Staying at Aria as we always do on this trip.
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| This is the earliest booking I've ever done for the summer trip. Which is before I've even gone on my FALL trip. What can I say, I can't help myself sometimes.
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| How did that happen?
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| We are Gold with M-life, MGM's rewards program. We got an M-Life credit card over the summer thinking it would help get us to Platinum because it offered all kinds of bonus "points" for spending on the card. It didn't help, we didn't get Platinum. Turns out we didn't understand the distinction between "points" and "tier credits". We needed the latter to get Platinum, we got lots of the former. As a result Joann and I were talking about whether we'd ever use the card again, so I ended up doing a little research to figure out how much we'd have to spend at MGM hotels on the card over a year to hit Platinum.
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| I reminded myself how we earn tier credits (25 credits per dollar spent), our 20% bonus for being gold (another 5) and credit card use (you get 3 more by using the M-Life card to pay for your stay). So a really big number divided by 33 came out to a pretty big dollar amount is all I'll say.
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| I said to Joann: "Even if I got in fall and spring trips, we stayed there two weeks in June and took the kids out there for a long weekend [the kids have been asking] we're not hitting that number."
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| I then said facetiously: "We would probably have to stay in a suite just to have a shot".
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| Joann: "Well how much would that be?"
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| Since she asked, I brought up the rate calendar just to find out what a suite would cost. The calendar quotes the lowest room rates, you don't see the additional cost of a suite until you pick some dates...I picked some June dates that are around when we would most likely be going...
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| And this is how we get a June Vegas trip booked in October.
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| NO I have not booked a suite! But booking this far in advance the June weekend rates are about as low as I've ever seen. Absolutely no question they will be higher...possibly MUCH higher...once EDC is scheduled, summer UFC and boxing events start getting scheduled, etc. And the fact of the matter is that it's not that hard to ballpark when we'll be going out there. The WSOP has been consistent in scheduling their big four weekends (Collossus first weekend, Seniors events Father's Day weekend, etc) and it seems that every week there are at least a couple of bracelet events I'd want to play in.
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| So...seeing the rates I decided I needed to lock in weekends while I could...and boom we have a reservation!!!
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| It's a long one since it covers three weekends. Dunno if we'll really go for that long, probably not. But you never know. Once I know when we're really going to be out there I can add and delete dates at the beginning and end if necessary. The most important thing is that I have three of the four weekends in June locked in. Weeknights don't change much and might even get better between now and then. One of the nice things about MGM is that they allow you to call and get a better rate on some days without penalizing you on others if their rates go up on other days. In other words I don't have to take all current rates on all days if some are better and some are worse, I can just update the specific days that are better. So the trip can get cheaper, but it can't get more expensive.
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| But for now the trip is June 8-25. Yup.
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| Oh and the suite? Over the course of those 17 nights would add about a grand to the hotel cost. There are a lot of other things we could do with that money. If we were only going for a week or less, I'd probably go for it just to do it once. But that's a lot for something that probably wouldn't make it that much better of a trip. |
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