Has anyone travelled to Las Vegas from anywhere in the UK or Ireland?

[DrPhil]

And if so, can you give me any hints on where to fly from and with what airline / company?

I'm planning to go to Vegas for the UFC event on the 11th of July. (11th of July is not confirmed but widely suspected). I'll be looking to arrive in Vegas on Thursday the 9th and leave on Sunday the 12th. I don't care about having to stop over etc, as long as it's cheap!

Need accomodation too but that's not too hard to find yet.

I live in Ireland so Belfast or Dublin would be an ideal departure point but realistically I'll probably have to connect to another airport in mainland UK so I can go from anywhere, whichever is cheapest to leave from.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Owen824]

virgin does direct flights to vegas from either london gatwick or heathrow. cant remember which. I believe BA also fly there from london.

[boltoa]

Originally Posted by Owen824

virgin does direct flights to vegas from either london gatwick or heathrow. cant remember which. I believe BA also fly there from london.

Everybody on a poker forum I lurk on flies Virgin direct when visiting Vegas. Some people attempt to get better prices by stopping over somewhere, but the vast majority return with advice to fly direct .

July 11th coincides with day 4 of the WSOP main event this year. The place will be absolutely heaving with poker players (usually around 8000 in the event itself, plus vast numbers of railers & people who've played earlier events).

[carling]

Be careful when checking hotel prices. Friday and Saturday nights are WAY more expensive than other nights of the week, double the price easily.
If there's an event on the probably even more so. Booking early might get the best price, leave it until that week and you might not be able to find any rooms at any price.
Check some of the online hotel sites and places like Super8.

travelsupermarket.com gives some rooms from £16 per night!

[DrPhil]

Expedia have flight and hotel packages for about £630. I've seen Virgin's direct flights but they're really pricey, maybe £800 for flight only. It's true that the hotel rooms are double the price for the Saturday night.

I can get a room in the Mandalay Bay hotel, which is where the UFC event is on, for about $550 for the 3 nights, for myself and my friend, which is not too bad considering it's the event hotel and presumably where all the fighters will be staying.

My main concern is the flights. I just wondered if there was an airline I might not have heard of that does cheap ones. BA is about £800! US Airlines is the cheapest I've found so far at £540. That's from London so I'll have to connect from Belfast to there and then in Philadelphia on route to the states.

[Owen824]

its what i flew back in april last year. long flight but worth it once you get there.

if the wsop is on then expect hotels to already be pretty expensive. with big fight and wsop, vegas will be looking to make back some of the large amounts of money they have lost on tourism in the last 6-8months.

[Owen824]

quick look on virgin at your dates and it is £643. not bad considering the distance you are going. 6000 miles each way. also height of tourist season as well there!

and if you have any virgin airmiles, then 2000 miles knocks it down to £588.

stay till the monday and you are down to £628. doubt you will get much better than that for whats is happening that weekend. airlines will jack there prices up when big events are on.

[Decadence]

I think BMI also fly direct on certain days. The times I have flown there I have wither gone direct, changed in Chicago or changed in Los Angeles. Don't do the LA one, it's a killer! Chicago is ok but because of the distance between arrivals and departures you may find yourself running to get to the connecting flight.

[Kieron]

Originally Posted by Decadence

I think BMI also fly direct on certain days. The times I have flown there I have wither gone direct, changed in Chicago or changed in Los Angeles. Don't do the LA one, it's a killer! Chicago is ok but because of the distance between arrivals and departures you may find yourself running to get to the connecting flight.

BMI are not flying direct from Manchester anymore as of April if Man was an option.

In the past we've used BMI from Man or...

United from Heathrow with change at Phil.

The advantage to changing at Phil is that their customs area is huge. The Vegas customs area is tiny in comparison.

We were in and out of Phil in minutes. Flights were quiet too so plenty of room to spread out.

We go every Nov/Dec, fabulous place.

[mossym]

go to ces for work most years, aer lingus shannon chicago then down from there on united/american...works pretty well

btw, mandalay bay is one of hte most expensive hotels there. if you want cheap but close to mandalay bay, check out excalibur for really cheap, perfectly okay, but in the low league of strip hotels, or new york new york or MGM for very nice but cheaper than mandaly bay. luxor is also down that end..

been in vegas 15+ times, stayed in most of the hotels by now

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by mossym

go to ces for work most years, aerlins shannon chicage then down from there on united/american...works pretty well

btw, mandalay bay is one of hte most expensive hotels there. if you want cheap but close to mandalay bay, check out excalibur for really cheap, perfectly okay, but in the low league of strip hotels, or new york new york or MGM for very nice but cheaper than mandaly bay. luxor is also down that end..

been in vegas 15+ times, stayed in most of the hotels by now

Was only looking at the Mandalay bay because it's where the fight is on that Saturday. I'll check out the others.

Thanks for all the replies, keep em coming!

[prakb]

I went to Vegas 3 weeks back. We flew with northwest to Minneapolis from Heathrow (9 hours) and laid over for about 4hours before connecting onwards to Vegas (3.5 hours) Minneapolis was quite a well equpied airport with plenty of restaurants which included bars. on the way back the layover was around 2 hours.

We stayed at excalibur which was one of the cheaper strip hotels but comfortable and with decent facilities, from there there is a free elavted tram which take you to and mandaly bay.

[DrPhil]

Excalibur for my dates is $273 plus taxes, the Mandalay Bay is $499 plus tax so I think the Excalibur is a good bet!

I may try to get a direct flight, but just pains me to pay £640! Suppose there's no point doing things half hearted!

[mossym]

the casino you stay in is really only a room to sleep in. it also dictates wht pool you can use, but it pretty easy to sneak into any of the other hotels pools as well. excalibur is only a few minutes walk from mandaly bay, and when you walk across to the mgm you can get teh monorail to all the other strip casino's, like ceasers paris and the venetian(all 3 of these are must sees BTW)

[DrPhil]

Yeah, the main reason I was looking at the Mandalay Bay was because it's where the fight is and probably where the fighters will stay so might bump into a few of them at the hotel.

Too expensive though. I'm going to look to book my flights and hotel now and worry about tickets later. I'm a UFC Fight Club member so I get early access to tickets.

Hotel for me and my friend is just under $300 including taxes and the flight if I go direct with Virgin is £640. Ticket will set me back about £200 so around £1000 total but it'll be worth it.