Best time to book for Las Vegas

[jtdl]

When is it that you get the best deals for Las Vegas vacation packages? Last minute seems to be more expensive than booking a month in advance. How far ahead do you book to get the best deal? Where do you book to get good deals?

 

[salmoneous]

Vegas rates tend to be the most variable and hard to predict of anyplace I've ever seen. It's usually best to make a fully refundable reservation as soon as you start thinking about going, then keeping an eye out for deals and updating/switching whenever a better deal comes along.

This is a my favorite site for tracking deals: http://www.vegashotelspecial.com/ (which seems to be down at the moment)

The best deal might come 9 months out, it might come the day before you leave. But the most common time I've seen is about 6 weeks out.

 

[jlima]

A Vegas hotel will have dirt cheap rates when it has a pressing need to fill rooms. The situations I have seen with REALLY cheap rates:

If a hotel is less than 50% occupied; or

If a convention doesn't pick up all the rooms it booked; i.e., a convention that booked 900 rooms on its peak nights is only going to use 600 rooms . . . then the hotel suddenly has 300 rooms to sell on those nights. Typically this situation happens 3 - 4 weeks prior to a group's arrival, when a rooming list comes in.

This is when you will see Vegas hotels with rates as low as $59 and $69, or buy 2 nights get one night free, or 2-night package deals with lots of inclusions.

But of course, the average person has no way of knowing the drama that happens in a Strip property's revenue management department.

I would sign up for newsletters from Vegas websites; or just look at individual property websites for packages. You never know what you are going to get.