My Frugal Miser's Week in Review

My partner and I have been on vacation since Tuesday evening.  We started with four days in Las Vegas and are finishing with a couple days in Denver.  I keep an eye on airfares and have noticed the price to Las Vegas from Tampa has dropped just a bit.  We paid $144 each for our one-way tickets, which is about $50 less than what I paid last year.  We arrived home early this morning.

I chose Fox Car Rental, which has always been a hit-or-miss experience.  This time was definitely a miss.  I waited an hour and 20 minutes to reach the counter, and then my requested car was sold out.  They gave us a huge mini-van and asked us to come back in a few hours, and even offered a one-day credit if I would do a swap, as they needed the mini-van for someone else.  They applied the credit, but somehow goofed up the paperwork.  Later in the day, an employee called to ask why I had two cars rented.  Then when I returned the car, there was an error on the bill.  Rather than waiting to resolve the issue and miss our flight, I am to call Monday.

We spent four nights in Las Vegas, and three of them were free:  two nights at the Suncoast and a points redemption from Choice Hotels to BlueGreen Vacations Club.  That room was amazing:  for 12,000 points we received a unit larger than my house:  it had two large bedrooms, two bathrooms with three showers (including a walk-in shower that had dual faucets), two kitchens, two living rooms, and four flat-screen televisions.  I paid for one night at the El Cortez, which was around $30.  I'm hopeful that our paid stay there will result in free room offers moving ahead.

Besides the free rooms, all our food was free.  I'm not a heavy gambler; just a savvy one.  The South Point had an offer where, if you earned 600 points, you received a lunch and dinner buffet, plus got to keep your points.  You only have to run $600 through video poker to earn 600 points.  The expected loss on that gambling is less than $3, which is certainly worth two meals!  The Suncoast offered a free buffet with 300 points, and I had two free buffets at Palace Station courtesy of MyVegas.

MyVegas is a great tool to earn comps in Las Vegas.  We received two premium tickets to Zumanity as well as the buffet.

We didn't win in the casino; I lost a little more than $200 this trip.  That's a cheap price to pay for free drinks, food and hotel rooms.

Saturday we flew to Denver.  Our tickets were $49 each and I received a $75 voucher towards a future flight because Frontier canceled our early morning flight and moved us to a later one.  I redeemed Choice Privileges points for the two nights we are at the Sleep Inn.