Anni Adventures

EDIT. Sorry but this was long overdue. I'm already back from my trip and am busy planning my NEXT trip!

In exactly one week time, I will be headed off to VEGAS! I am pretty excited. I haven't been there for years and this time I will be able to have a lot more fun because I will be of age this time around.

One of my objects for this trip was to do as much as we could while being smart about where we're spending our money. After tons and tons of research. I've managed to save quite a bit. It is not without help from friends and families though.

One of the best ways to get free comps when in Vegas is to play MyVegas on Facebook. I was told about this last year by a friend and never really started to play until I finally set a date for Vegas. Which was only about a month and a half ago. In the short amount of time played. I managed to save up enough for a free KA Cirque Du Soleil ticket and NYNY roller coaster ride. There's still a week left so I may still be able to get even more comps. MyVegas has other rewards in Vegas such as free hotel room, free show tickets, free buffet tickets and more. This is DEFINITELY worth the time put in. But you also have to be smart about it.
There are various groups on Facebook and online that dedicates to sharing links to more coins to play with. There are even the monthly free 1000 LP points.

The Facebook group to join: myVEGAS Gifts, Guides & Giveaways

For our other show, Penn and Teller, we were able to get cheaper tickets through Travelzoo, which is similar to Groupon. the tickets ended up being $65 per person.

For food in Vegas, there were a few websites that we looked at. They provided some of the best deals and had many options to choose from.

http://www.vegas.com/restaurant/specials-and-deals/
http://www.tix4tonight.com/las-vegas-restaurant-coupons.html

For our buffet dinner however we found our deal off Groupon. The day we bought it, there was a discount code for an additional 15% off. Which worked in our favor.

Hopefully, all this gives those of you planning on going to Vegas an idea of how to save when you're there. A little time put in beforehand can really save you a lot of money~!

I am going to VEGAS baby!! I am super stoked for the trip as I will be meeting some University friends there. It will be the second time travelling to another country, even if it IS just the US, with friends. 

It is a fairly last minute trip considering we only started to plan in the beginning of March, and the trip is during Easter long weekend. We chose this weekend because although it would be expensive, we wouldn't have to book extra days off work. 

We started off researching what kind of hotels and flight options were available. Since we lived so closed to the Canada-USA border, we had the choice of flying from Vancouver or Bellingham. These were some of the options that came up on Google Travels:

Flight on Delta Airlines

April 17th 2014
YVR - LAS with layover at LAX
4:00 PM - 9:36 PM

April 21st 2014
LAS - YVR (direct flight)
9:55 PM - 12:41 AM

$622 RT/Person

Flight on Alaska Airlines

April 17th 2014
BLI - LAS (direct flight)
4:35 PM - 7:02 PM 

April 21st 2014
LAS - BLI (direct flight)
11:20 AM - 2:03 PM

$530 RT/Person

It was good to see what kind of range we were looking at. 

A friend later recommended Allegiant Air, which is a discount airline that caters to smaller cities and airports. A quick search resulted in a deal that had round trip direct flights from Bellingham, and hotel rooms at Treasure Island for $595 per person (excluding resort fees and baggage fees). We were only in our research stage then and hesitated a tad too long and missed out on this pricing. Which worked out in the end because... 

Having stalked the Allegiant Air website and various other websites as well that even included promotions such as $10 Petro card for booking through them, I finally managed to find Allegiant's price drop for the first leg from $239 to $189. I knew I had to snatch it up before it rose again, but the return flight was still dead set at $305. At this point, we had three options. either buy it all at once, buy the first leg + hotel together and still get a decent price, and wait on the return flight to drop or buy everything individually, which would give us more freedom to choose which hotel to book. 

Option 1. BUY IT NOW. $508.50 RT/Person

April 17th 2014
BLI - LAS
2:45 PM - 5:16 PM

Riviera Hotel and Casino
4/17 - 4/19

April 21st 2014
LAS - BLI
12:20 PM - 3:01 PM

Option 2. BUY ONE WAY + HOTEL NOW. RETURN FLIGHT LATER. $268.20/Person (excluding return)

April 17th 2014
BLI - LAS
2:45 PM - 5:16 PM

Riviera Hotel and Casino
4/17 - 4/19

Option 3. BUY INDIVIDUALLY. $206 + $65.31/Person

April 17th 2014
BLI - LAS
2:45 PM - 5:16 PM

Riviera Hotel and Casino via Expedia.ca
4/17 - 4/19

We ended up taking a risk and decided to book everything separately, on the assumption that the price WILL drop. 

There was also other options to further bring down the pricing though, even for just a bit such as booking Expedia through www.ebates.ca. 

We only booked partially because my cousin lives in Henderson and has offered for us to stay with her for part of our trip. Which works out nicely because we will be taking a day trip to Grand Canyon. 

For the deals we found for shows and dinners etc, stay tuned :)