myVegas Baby! Day 4 & 5: Mirage and Home

Cleaning the Mirage Aquarium

Wednesday is High Tea at Bellagio day. We grabbed coffee and pastries at The Roasted Bean in the Mirage retail area and then decide to wander around and try to hit it big. On the way to parking ramp we notice the divers cleaning the Mirage aquarium. Pretty cool.

We buzz over to the Hard Rock, play a little, and browse around their memorabilia displays for a while. As always, I'm amazed by the number of Gretsch White Falcon guitars scattered among the Les Pauls, Strat's and occasional PRS. Unfortunately as a definitely non-professional player, I've never been able to come up with an adequate excuse for buying one.

Around noon we head back to the Mirage, drop off the car and stroll down to Bellagio. As usual our myVegas redemption goes smoothly and we waste some time playing various random machines until our 2:00 reservation time.

In addition to tea of course (each of us gets an individual pot) there are the sandwiches:

The pastries:

and the scones:

Of course there are butter, clotted cream, and jam for the scones. It was terrific. I haven't really gotten too worked up (like some people) about the myVegas changes lately, but I will definitely miss this one on our trip next year.

Now, if, like me, you happen to know that the Bellagio fountain shows start at 3 o'clock, and if, like me you made your tea reservation for 2:00 chances are good you'll be walking out of the Bellagio just as the first show of the day begins:

No Crowds!

Thursday is our last full day and we've got Nine Fine Irishmen reservations at 7:00 so the day is wide open for for losing money. Miraculously, we don't. We don't really win anything, but after almost a week of looking at our losing-est  trip ever, it pretty nice to be entertained for a change.

As dinner time starts to approach we decide to make a concerted search for Viva myVegas QR codes. The one in the Mirage is easy to find - it's right outside the high limit slot room. We grab our car and head down to New York New York. And BOOM! There's another QR code in the parking lot right at the entrance to the hotel.

All of a sudden we're seeing them everywhere: the "Center Bar", in front of registration, and at the entrance to the Zumanity theater. Since we have some time we decide to walk over to Excalibur and see if we can find any there. Sure enough, there's one in front of the Dick's Last Resort Margarita window. We don't see any others and it's timeto head back to Nine Fine Irishmen anyway.

In the past we've really enjoyed Nine Fine Irishmen. Service was slow, and the food graded out about C-. Beth's Chicken Pot Pie was good, if bland, with plenty of chicken chunks and vegetables. My Shepard's Pie was a disaster - basically hamburger in gravy with few traces of vegetation under a cap of over-beaten mashed potatoes. A second Guinness eases the disappointment and settle up and make our way back to the car and the Mirage for our final night.

Once there we log int to the somewhat unreliable Mirage WIFI to see what we got from the QR Codes. We didn't score any non-chip prizes, but the chip rewards did come to 31,000 chips. I did manage to make note of one of the prize wheels so you can get an idea of what's available to win:

Cognac Tasting at Andre's
10K Chips
50 Loyalty Points
250 Chips
500 Chips
1 Criss Angel ticket
10K Chips
250 Loyalty Points
2500 Chips

Friday's flight back to Philly isn't until 11:30 so we have plenty of time for breakfast. We head down to the Pepper Mill, a Las Vegas classic that we've just never seemed to make time for. I can say their reputation for friendly service and huge portions is well deserved.

Ham, Eggs, Hashbrowns

French Toast, Eggs, Bacon & Sausage

I almost finished my ham and managed about half the rest. Our waitress cheerfully kept the coffee coming and after an hour or so of battle, we gave in and grabbed a cab back to the Mirage to check out:

All told and including the room downgrade at Mirage we cashed in about $1566.00 in free stuff. The more restrictive myVegas rules and loss of the high end rooms means we probably won't be able to manage this a second time. But it sure was fun! We'll just have to wait and see what they have available next April when we head back to Las Vegas from the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekender.

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3

MyVegas Baby! Part 1

It's gonna be free baby! (almost)

So late last year we took a short vacation in Las Vegas and got some free food courtesy a Facebook game called myVegas. We got more free stuff this time... a lot more. Here's how it went down:

November 2012

We get back from our vacation and Beth signs up for Facebook and starts playing myVegas. We both become daily players to maximize the number of "loyalty points" (the myVegas equivalent of cash) we'd be able to accumulate.

December 2012

Over the holiday break (I had to use up a week of vacation time) I get bored and buy some chips with real money. $39 worth. You can play for free - there's no requirement to spend money. This would have an interesting side effect a soon.

January 2013

By the 15th (remember the date) I've accumulated enough loyalty points to purchase three nights in a Mirage Tower Suite. I "purchase" them (in the form of two rewards: a 2 night and a 1 night stay) using up almost all my accumulated loyalty points and we begin to plan our vacation. Our usual trip runs five nights, so we want two more nights.

February 2013

I finally accumulate enough points to purchase two nights in a Mandalay Bay Spa Suite and do so. Meanwhile MGM Resorts International has realized people have become myVegas maniacs and they begin to make it more difficult to accumulate chips to play the games.

March 2013

Bad News: myVegas makes it even harder to accumulate chips to play the games and announces that for all reward purchases made after January 15 players will only be able to redeem three in any 30 day period. Good News: I can purchase 2 more since I bought my first 2 before the the deadline.

By now Beth has a ton of loyalty points saved up and we decide she'll purchase food. We buy $150 steak house meals at Tender in the Luxor and The Steakhouse at Camelot in Excalibur. I use some of my accumulated points to buy two passes to the Bellagio lunch buffet.

Then:

myVegas introduces another new twist on the game. If you've purchased chips, you can redeem not three but as many as ten rewards in any 30 day period. Now I have two more rewards instead of one and we buy Beth $5 worth of chips so she can purchase two more rewards.

I use my accumulated loyalty points to buy 2 $170.50 tickets to the Cirque du Soleil show Love. I still have one more reward to purchase and Beth has two. I book our hotel reservations by the old fashioned telephone method.

April 2013

We wrap up our reward purchases. Beth buys a $50 dining credit at Nine Fine Irishmen in New York New York and we each buy High Tea (technically afternoon tea, but they didn't ask me when they named it) at the Petrossian Bar in Bellagio. I make restaurant reservations and we're all set.

At this point we've purchased:

3 nights at Mirage	$945
2 nights at Mandalay Bay	$366
2 Steakhouse Dinners	$300
Bellagio High Tea (2)	$70
Dinner at Nine Fine Irishmen	$50
Bellagio Lunch Buffet for 2	$43
2 Tickets to Love	$341
Total	$2115

All for a grand total of $45 in actual money ($39 and $5 chip purchases) and maybe an hour total each day playing the myVegas game.

Coming Soon:

We go to Las Vegas! Cheap Flights! Gambling!  Food! Shows! (and a small bummer)

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Days 4 & 5