Frugality

Doing Vegas on the Cheap

by

Earlier this year, I took an almost free Vegas vacation by using credit card bonuses. I still think that is the easiest way to get a cheap or free Vegas vacation, but I recently discovered a couple of new ways to reduce the cost of a Vegas Vacation. A post on the Mr. Money Mustache forum informed me of the MyVegas Rewards and Social Rewards programs that can be used to earn things such as free rooms, free buffets, free show tickets, and more.

MyVegas Rewards is a program set up by MLife which is the rewards program for MGM resorts. The basic idea of MyVegas rewards is that you can earn real comps by playing slots and table games on the MyVegas Facebook page. Playing the games rewards you with loyalty points which can be redeemed for free rooms, free meals, free show tickets and other rewards. After about a month of playing I have about 36,000 loyalty points which I could use for three nights at Circus Circus, two nights at Excalibur, or one night at New York New York or Monte Carlo.

I would suggest you join a group such as MyVegas Friends which will help you earn points faster and has guides on how to optimize your play. You might want to consider setting up a separate Facebook account for playing the game since all of the postings from the game can clutter up your news feed. Setting up a second account for games is a violation of Facebook rules so you will have to decide whether it is worth the risk that Facebook might possibly shut down the new account. Another thing to consider is that you still have to pay resort fees when you redeem for a free night. Excalibur charges about $20 a night in resort fees. Last time I was in Vegas I stayed in a non-casino hotel and paid about $35 a night so a free room is only saving me about $15 a night. I do enjoy playing the MyVegas games though so I think the rewards are a pretty good deal.

Social Rewards is a much simpler program. It is affiliated with TotalRewards which is the rewards program for Caesars Entertainment. Between these two programs you have most of the casinos on the strip covered. You get rewards for this program by sharing information about Caesars resorts and casinos on your social media accounts. You are limited to three shares a day so it is quick and easy to do this program each day. I’ve earned a little over $20 in free rewards since starting to use this program about a month ago.

Another thing to consider that I haven’t tried is legal online gaming while you are in Las Vegas. Some of the Las Vegas casinos now also have legal online casinos.   The interesting thing about these casinos is that some offer a bonus for signing up online and making a deposit. The catch here is that you have to be located in New Jersey or Nevada when playing online. I think you would be able to play online while visiting New Jersey or Nevada, but I’m not sure. This is something you might want to explore for yourself.

Although these programs aren’t as great as I first thought they are still a pretty good deal in my opinion. Since IS enjoy playing MyVegas slots and Social Rewards doesn’t take much time I’ll keep using these programs. Rewards from these programs should make my next Vegas vacation very inexpensive.

Save on Airfare with the Southwest Hidden City Trick

by

The hidden city trick to save on airfare has been around a long time and it works especially well on Southwest Airlines.  The idea behind the hidden city trick is that sometimes it is cheaper to book a flight from City A to City C with a stopover in City B then it is to book a direct flight from City A to City B. For example, in June I traveled from Kansas City to Las Vegas.  It was cheaper for me to book a flight from Kansas City to Salt Lake City that changed planes in Las Vegas and just stay in Las Vegas then it was to book a flight (including the same flight that went on to SLC) direct from Kansas City to Las Vegas.  I saved a couple thousand points by booking the flight this way.  When the flight landed in Vegas I just told the gate agent at the new gate that I wasn’t going to get on the flight.  The agent was fine with that, the airline employees do like to know when you are not going to get on a flight since they have to do a passenger count.   Some airlines don’t like hidden city ticketing and have rules against it.  If you violate their rules there is a chance they could suspend your frequent flyer account or impose other penalties. Southwest used to explicitly allow hidden city ticketing.  Although they no longer explicitly allow hidden city ticketing they don’t have a rule against it and don’t seem to mind it being used.

If you do use the hidden city trick you need to make sure you carry on your luggage since otherwise your luggage will end up in City C while you are in City B.  Also, it is best to book two one-way fares rather than a round-trip when using the hidden city trick since some airlines will cancel your return flight if you don’t complete the outgoing flight.  You should always book one-way flights on Southwest anyway since their round-trip fares are just a combination of two one-way fares. By booking two one-way flights you have more flexibility if you need to rebook your flight.  For example, if you see that the return fare has gone down you could cancel and rebook just the return fare to save money. If you had a round-trip fare you would have to cancel and rebook both the outgoing and return fare which doesn’t always work since the outgoing fare may have gone up in price.  By booking two one-ways if either of the legs of the trip go down in price you can save money by canceling and rebooking.  This doesn’t work on most airlines, but it does on Southwest which is why the hidden city trick works especially well on Southwest.  There are lots of other tricks to saving money on airfare.  What are some of your tips and tricks for saving on airfare?

Vegas Vacation Recap

by

Welcome_to_fabulous_las_vegas_sign Last week I had a five-day vacation in Las Vegas. Although I lost money gambling, the total cost of the vacation ended up being very little. I got the flight, hotel room, and rental car for free. I did not note how much cash I had before starting but I think I had roughly $85 in cash with me and had $9 left at the end of the trip. So the trip cost me approximately $80 since I didn’t take out any cash and any credit card purchases were reimbursed.

The flight was free because I have the Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Card. The card has a sign up bonus of 50,000 points which is good for at least two round trip flights. I think I’ll end up getting two round trip flights plus a one-way for my points since I got some cheaper flights. One drawback to this card is that they don’t waive the annual fee for the first year. If you would like to sign up for this card you can leave a comment and I’ll send you a referral link. If you sign up through the referral link you will get the 50,000 point bonus offer and I’ll get 5000 points for referring you. If you don’t want to sign up through my referral link it is easy to find the same offer on the web.

The hotel and rental car were free because I used points from my Capital One Venture card. This card gave me 50,000 points worth $500 in travel when I signed up. This card does waive the annual fee for the first year. The link to the Cap 1 card is not an affiliate link and the bonus is smaller at this time.  I also recommend the Barclaycard Arrival Plus World MasterCard® which pays an effective $440 bonus.

We didn’t spend any money on visiting any attractions. It was my girlfriend’s first time to Vegas so there was plenty to see. We toured a lot of the casinos and watched the light show at Bellagio and the volcano at the Mirage, but there was still a lot more we didn’t have time to see. I didn’t count money spent on food as a trip expense since it was about the same as it would have been if I were at home.  I did eat at In-N-Out Burger a couple of times which I considered to be special meals, but other than that I just had ordinary food. Since I covered the expense of the hotel and rental car my girlfriend covered the $20 in gas for the rental car and the $35 for airport parking.

Overall, I managed to spend four nights and five days in Las Vegas and only spent about $80. I consider that a bargain.  My next trip will probably be more expensive, but I’m hoping I’ll have enough credit card points and SW miles to keep it cheap.

Cruise Recap Part 2

by

cruiseship This is the last of three posts about the cruise I took last month.  The firs post was about the cost of the cruise and the second post was about the room and the food on the cruise.  This post will be about the ship activities and the port excursions.

Ship Activities

There was quite a variety of activities available on the ship.   Many of our fellow passengers favorite activity seemed to be drinking and getting drunk.  I’m not much of a drinker and the drink prices on the ship were ridiculously high so I did not partake of that activity. Since the motion of the ship made me queasy drinking probably wouldn’t have been a good idea.

The main activities we attended were the shows.  There were only two nights where they had what I would consider a real show being performed.  Those were the shows with singing and dancing and actual sets.  I did enjoy those shows although they were somewhat short and seemed like a random collection of musical numbers rather than a cohesive show.

The standup comedians were my favorite entertainment on the boat.  They also only performed two out of the five nights.  The other nights had amateur shows.  These were basically the ship’s entertainment staff performing on stage without any set other than some chairs.  These shows were actually fairly entertaining despite the lack of production value.

We were on ship for Halloween night and a lot of people dressed up and there were some great costumes.  There was a Halloween costume contest that was won by a couple of guys dressed up as KISS.  They did have authentic costumes and could have easily passed as actual members of KISS.  The runner up was a group of guys dressed as the Avengers. The man in the Iron Man costume made the costume himself from metal and spent over $800.  The costume looked great, but I don’t know if it was $800 great.  Our costumes were much cheaper.  We went as Pornstache and a prisoner from the show “Orange Is The New Black.”

pornstache

Not many people knew we were portraying people from a TV show, but they did still like the guard and prisoner costumers.  We were smart enough not to use blackface to make the costume more authentic.

Ports and Excursions

The cruise left and returned from New Orleans.  It would have been nice to add a couple days in New Orleans to the beginning or ending of the cruise, but we didn’t really have time for that and it would have increased the cost of the vacation a fair amount.

The ship stopped in the ports of Progreso and Cozumel during the cruise.  In Progreso we had booked a tour of the ruins at Dzibilchaltun before we embarked.  This allowed us to pay less than half than what the tour would have cost if we had booked through the cruise line.  The guided portion of the tour was only about a half hour and after that we had time to further explore the ruins and/or swim in a nearby cenote(sinkhole) for the remainder of the tour time.  Since it was hot we opted for the swimming.  The total time of the tour including transportation to and from the ruins was a little under about 4 hours.  This was just about right since it gave us a little time to explore Progreso before going on the tour and allowed us plenty of time after the tour to get back on the ship.  There isn’t a lot to see in Progreso so I’d recommend booking a tour for that port.

In Cozumel we didn’t have a tour booked and decided to just wing it.  The tour guide in Progreso suggested that we go to Chankanaab.  Admission was $21 each and basically all we got for that was access to the beach.  I wasn’t impressed with that recommendation.  We still had a good time swimming in the ocean and relaxing on the beach, but I think we could have done that for less.  If there is a next time, I’ll either book a tour ahead of time or at least do some prior research.

That wraps up the cruise posts.  Going on a cruise was something I’d wanted to do for a long time and I’m glad I did it.  Although I did enjoy this cruise, if I ever go on another cruise it will need to be an even better deal and go somewhere I haven’t been.

 

 

First Cruise Recap

by

cruiseship  In case you don’t already know, my girlfriend and I took a cruise at the end of October. I already shared the financial cost of the cruise in my Cruise Cost Breakdown post, in this post I am sharing my general thoughts about the cruise. Since this was my first cruise I can’t compare this cruise to any other cruises.  Any comparisons will be to other similar vacation options.

The Room

We had an interior cabin which was the cheapest option.  Several people had told me that the room would be really small.  The room was indeed quite small, but it was as big as it needed to be.  The size of the room was not an issue for me.  The lack of a window also was not a big deal.  I think a window might have actually been a negative since looking out through the window probably would have made me queasy.

The room was a little outdated.  It was apparent that the room fixtures hadn’t been changed out in a long time.  The TV cabinet was made to hold a tube TV and now held a flat screen TV.  The closet had been broken at some point and the repair job was rather apparent.  The king size bed was two twin beds pushed together.  The bed was very comfortable as long as you didn’t roll into the middle of the bed.  None of these things were a big deal and not unexpected given that this was basically a budget motel room.

On the plus side, the room was very clean.  Our room attendant was very friendly.  It was really nice to have a clean room when we came back from breakfast and to have the bed turned down and a new towel animal when we returned from dinner.  The shower was great.  I was a little worried that the shower pressure would be weak given that we were on a ship.  The shower actually had better shower pressure than our shower at home and the water was piping hot.   The endless hot water led to me taking even longer showers than usual which makes for some pretty long showers.  I do love my showers and the shower was one of my favorite parts of the cruise.

The Food

Whenever I mentioned that I was going on a cruise, previous cruise goers always talked about the variety and quantity of food available on a cruise.   The food on the cruise was okay, but I can’t say I was impressed by it.  Many people telling me about their cruises commented on how much they liked that food was available 24 hours a day.  That doesn’t seem like a big deal to me since if you live in a city with 24 hour drive-thrus and grocery stores you also have food available 24 hours a day. It isn’t too hard for me to indulge my food cravings at home anytime of day so the cruise didn’t seem like that big of a difference to me.  The main difference is that on the cruise you don’t have to directly pay for each meal.  The first night I wanted to get a late night snack around 11pm and all the restaurants were closed.  My free food options were self-serve ice cream or pizza. There was a long line for pizza so I chose to forego my late night snack.    The fact that I didn’t gain any weight on the cruise shows that I didn’t indulge anymore than normal.  Of course, my normal level of indulgence is pretty high so it might be hard for it to get any worse.

We did make it a point to eat in the dining room every night.  I tried to expand my palate a little by having a different item every night and only had my default burger one night.  The menu featured a different “exotic” appetizer choice every night.  The options I remember were frog legs, snails, sushi, alligator.  Since I’d had sushi before and didn’t like it, I didn’t try it again. Growing up in the Ozarks, I’d also had frog legs several times when I was a kid and didn’t have any desire to have them again.  I’d never had snails, but I still didn’t want to try them.  The only exotic appetizer I tried was the alligator.  It had so much breading and seasoning though that I couldn’t even taste any alligator.

The servers provided excellent service and also provided entertainment with a short song and dance routine towards the end of mealtime.  Even though eating in the dining room was a nice experience I probably would have been happier just eating from the buffet most nights.  My favorite meals were the cheeseburger and fries I had for lunch everyday.  I even liked the buffet burger better than the dining room burger.  I guess my unrefined palate just prefers the cheap food so I don’t really get an added value from the fancier food.

This post is already long enough so I will finish writing about my thoughts on my first cruise in Wednesday’s post.