Two ways to save hundreds of travel dollars at SND Vegas
- Easy, get a roommate to split the costs.
- Stay somewhere else, anywhere else.
Click on this interactive map to see the alternate travel bargains I found in minutes.
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A couple of international clients of mine have been twisting my arm to come to Las Vegas for APME and SND events and I think I probably can accept their invitation soon but I cannot accept the hotel rate for the conference. (I am scheduled to be directing a film documentary in Alexandria, Egypt but may finish in time to make the APME congress.)
I take saving my client’s money very seriously and I have found a couple of ways to save thousands of dollars on this visit to sin city. I have published travel stories on touring Las Vegas before, including a cover feature on the Thrill Rides of Las Vegas for the Chicago Sun-Times a few years ago.
Hopefully I can pass on ideas to save you some money as well.
Consider first the official hotel “deal.”
Red Rock Casino - $860.40
(Does not include airline flights, transfer or rental car)
$179 a night plus a $19.99 resort fee, as well as 9% hotel tax.
The price for the hotel bill for four days at Red Rocks comes to: $860.40.
Add in a five day car rental ($250) and return flight to Chicago ($317) and you would be spending over $1,400+ just to be there breathing the desert air.
I did 20 minutes of combing the travel offers that frequently come to me and I found some really sweet deals that might tempt you to sleep somewhere other than Red Rocks each night.
Renting a car is a bargain in Vegas and will save a load of money on cab fares as well as providing you the best control over your travel plans - esp if you plan on touring The Strip or the fabulous Red Rocks National Park. Las Vegas is pretty suburban and car-centric.
The conference resort is planted at the edge of the far west suburban Summerlin, about a 25 minute drive from the airport and 12 miles from the Strip.
The savings for staying at an alternate site are staggering. You could, for example, stay instead at The Flamingo - a very hot Strip location right across from The Bellagio and Caesar’s Palace for several hundreds of dollars less.
All of the packages I found include one round trip (return) airline ticket, one room for four nights, and a five day car rental. The packages below are priced for return airfare from Chicago and for the four nights 6-10 September. (Your offer details may vary)
I found these deals on Hotwire and Cheap Tickets.
UK and Europe friends may want to try Kayak to find bargain packages.
Sahara - $685
($685 total price including all taxes and fees)
Package price includes: One roundtrip airline ticket, one room for four nights, rental car for the entire period.
Circus Circus $718
Circus Circus Hotel & Casino package is $718 on Hotwire and the price includes all taxes and fees. Package price includes: One roundtrip airline ticket, one room for four nights, rental car for the entire period.
Stratosphere $778
Package price includes: One roundtrip airline ticket, one room for four nights, rental car for the entire period. You can zoom up the lighted spire at night for a stellar thrill ride.
Flamingo $910
(includes car, roundtrip ticket and hotel room)
For $910 you can get a four night package plus round-trip ticket and car rental. Package price includes all taxes and fees. And you are in a great location - right across way from Caesar’s, The Bellagio and many other up market attractions.
Luxor - $979
Found on Cheap Tickets and includes rental car from Avis, non-stop return tickets on American and a Pyramid hotel room with King bed.
The total price of $979 includes all taxes and fees.
Robb is right that there are better deals out there than the Red Rock. I don’t think we’ve ever promoted our conference rate as a “deal.” However, Robb is wrong about the rate — at least about the resort fee. Despite what the web site says when you reserve online, the fee is included in the room rate. We didn’t want any surprise fees tacked on at check-in so we insisted Red Rock bake it into the publicized room rate. The hotel didn’t/couldn’t/wouldn’t reprogram the site from it’s boilerplate language just for us.
So a four-night stay is $784.76 including tax. It’s not a big difference from Robb’s math above and we recognize that it’s still expensive. But there are also benefits to being in the workshop hotel and we’re exploring ways to cut costs in the hotel (there are ways to avoid a rental car expense, for instance) and we’ll be listing alternate hotels on sndvegas.com later this week.
We’ve already given hotel advice to many who have called in requiring a cheaper rate above all. If you’re going to do the 40-45 minutes from Red Rock to Strip/Downtown (getting to your car at one end, getting to the room at the other) you could go retro-chic at a hotel a couple of our members are staying at for cheaper than anything listed above. Or there’s a good alternative just 10 minutes away.
It sounds like Robb plans to register with APME. The cost to register with either group is the same. But one of the benefits of this particular workshop is that regardless of who you register with, you can go to any session either group is putting on.
There are exceptions, however. That exchange doesn’t include any session/function where food & beverage are involved. APME attendees cannot attend SND’s opening party, Monday keynote session (breakfast involved) or Monday night awards banquet (unless they buy a separate dinner ticket). Likewise SND attendees cannot attend APME’s opening party or luncheon sessions on Tuesday or Wednesday.
We realize this is a big investment. And we’re encouraged by the response we’ve seen both in Red Rock and Workshop reservations. Again, please see sndvegas.com beginning Wednesday for tips on saving money. Or feel free to contact me directly at bill.gaspard@lasvegassun.com
We’ll see many of you in just a few short weeks.
Thanks for the update Bill,
– I am glad to hear the resort fee has been waived.
– I registered for the Congress through the SND Web site last week.
– Option 1 (’Get a roommate’) is still the best way to roll.
I have also posted a live RSS feed on the home page of Visual Editors that lists the best airfare deals to Las Vegas from wherever you will be arriving from.