Vegas Tips 1

The $20 Trick
The $20 trick is a well known ploy used in Vegas to try and grab yourself a ‘free’ upgrade to a superior hotel room that would otherwise have cost more to pre-book.  This under the counter trick is widely acknowledged by most of the hotels and whilst it won’t guarantee that you get an upgrade, there’s certainly no harm in trying. 

The trick works like this:

• Before reaching the hotel’s front desk for check-in, place $20 inside your passport by the photo page ensuring that it sticks out from the top.
• When reaching the front desk the assistant will ask to see you passport as id.  As you hand over your passport politely ask “I was wondering whether you have any complimentary upgrades available?” At this point the assistant should notice that there’s $20 peaking out of your passport, and with any luck they’ll agree to try and upgrade you to a better room (e.g. a strip view or a larger room). 
• Provided they can assist you, they’ll take the $20 as a tip for themselves. However, if they are unable to offer you an upgrade (e.g. if they’re fully booked over a busy weekend), they should politely say that there aren’t any upgrades available and hand back the $20.

Whilst the $20 trick will work at a large number of hotels, some hotels do have a policy of not allowing front desk assistants to take these tips.  For example, it’s well known that the $20 trick will not work at the MGM Grand. It’s also a good idea to ask for the specific type of upgrade you’re after.  For example, if you’re checking into the Bellagio, there’s no harm in asking whether they have any lake view rooms available.  This might avoid the risk of getting a nicer room, but with a poor view – especially if your aim was to get a nicer view.

From out experience we’ve successfully used the $20 at the Mirage where we were upgraded from our standard room (which in all likelihood would have had a view over to the highway) to a fantastic strip view room which would otherwise have cost us another £100 over 3 nights we stayed there.

We also tried the trick at Encore where again we were upgraded to a high strip view room, but in addition we weren’t asked to pay the $20 per night resort fee.  This alone saved us over $80 for the 4 nights we stayed there; however, I’m not entirely sure whether this resort fee waiver was intentional or whether the check-in assistant simply forgot to charge it.  One final note, please don’t expect that any of the hotels will magically upgrade you from a standard room to their penthouse suite.  In all likelihood the check-in assistant will only be able to upgrade you to one class of room higher than you originally booked, or to the same type of room that has a better view.

 A lake view room at the Bellagio