$20 trick<\/a>. Las Vegas casinos all have their own loyalty programs (mostly based off gaming\/play), but a lot of partnerships have formed over the past couple of years. MGM (which includes Aria, Bellagio, Vdara, Mandalay Bay, Circus Circus, theHotel, Delano, Monte Carlo, Excalibur, Luxor, and several others) had partnered with Hyatt hotels last year. Part of the benefits of that partnership is reciprocal status.<\/p>\nTo make things even more interesting, Hyatt offers their highest tiered status (Diamond) upfront as part of a challenge to achieve the higher tier in a shorter period of time, and less stays than normally required. During that time, you can experience the benefits of Diamond status. So I signed myself up, called Hyatt\/Mlife to have my accounts matched, then had my Mlife account upgraded to Platinum (which is their highest).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I went to pick up my Platinum card before checking in at the invited guest only, hoping it would help, but still, no upgrades were available. Shucks. <\/p>\n
The room was as expected and the view was fantastic. After checking in the room\u00a0I received a really nice welcome gift, chocolate covered strawberries and pastries from the general manager. Nice touch Aria.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I rarely get a chance to involve sneakers & basketball into my blog, but to my surprise, Nike\u00a0&\u00a0the Cosmopolitan casino & hotel were hosting a huge launch event for the Air Jordan 29 sneaker release. Several NBA players were in town (Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony, JR Smith) to coach AAU teams from around the country to compete at a court constructed inside the Chelsea ballroom. The court featured Jordan cement print accents. I was like a kid in a candy store.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(insert juicy details that stay in Vegas here)… \/ the end. Now back to your normal non juicy programming.<\/p>\n
Okay, I went to the pool for a bit.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
On the way home, TSA got me through security check\u00a0nice & quickly again, but I had to take an air train to concourse D to get back to the AMEX Centurion lounge. It was only a couple minutes away, but very well\u00a0worth it. On the air train ride back to concourse E, Kendall Marshall (NBA point guard who signed with the\u00a0Milwalkee Bucks this off season) hopped on next to me and we had a short conversation about his upcoming season. I wished him luck in Milwaukee.<\/p>\n
It was a red eye flight back so I didn’t really take advantage of the snacks\/movies\/drinks, but it was helpful to board first, and deplane first.<\/p>\n
I’m not going to lie, Las Vegas was still an expensive vacation, but I’d rather spend money on going out to eat and enjoying time with friends rather than airfare and hotel.<\/p>\n
Another Vegas trip in the books, and another one booked for later this year.\u00a0I can not\u00a0wait. I’ll likely take advantage of the lounge access & any Mlife benefits I get from having platinum status. I might even try the $20 trick next time. I kind of feel like staying at a resort\/casino I’ve never stayed at before. Any suggestions on something I should do in Vegas in December? Some friends said to reserve a cabana for a pool party, but I have a feeling that isn’t a good idea. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n
Jet, you were there with me in spirit buddy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A few weeks\u00a0ago, I mentioned Las Vegas several times on my social media accounts (Facebook\/Twitter), & posted pictures during my trip. Now that I’m back home, I wanted to detail how the trip went, and\u00a0give you all the non-juicy details on travel benefits I took advantage of while I was …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20,3,23,25,7,12],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/point2steve.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/aria-4.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/point2steve.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/point2steve.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/point2steve.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/point2steve.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/point2steve.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1817"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/point2steve.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2037,"href":"https:\/\/point2steve.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817\/revisions\/2037"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/point2steve.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/point2steve.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/point2steve.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/point2steve.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}