Comp-a-palooza, Day two

 The view from the room.

7:00 AM, awake.  It would be 10:00 AM at home, so I guess I slept in.  I was going to put in a decent day of play at Plaza plus The D, so it was going to be a pretty busy day.

I loaded up today's $175 in FP, giving me $350 to start.  The did last a while, but then things went south.  It didn't help that I only hit two quads during this session, which was a few hours.  At $1, it wasn't good at all.  I did earn the "free" mini-waffle at Hash House a GoGo for earning 100 points, so I decided it was a good time to stop for breakfast.

The mini-waffle was a decent size, it could have been a meal on its own with a side, but I got the basic breakfast with it.

It was a tasty breakfast, and it was $18.53.  I put it on the room in case I could get it comped off (I ded have enough earned comps to pay, but in the end, it wasn't comped off).

So, recharged after breakfast, I went back for more play.  I was playing on slant tops near the South Tower elevator, but this time I took a seat at the end of the bar.  I also started on Bonus Deluxe (I had played 9/6 Jacks or Better earlier) since I did well on that last night.  Well, things started to open up:

Four quads in half an hour, and that brings me a little above even from earlier this morning (that's how bad it went).  I switched back to JoB and gave some of it back, but did hit two more quads.

Ah well, that's how it goes.  I also played some 50c NSUD, and lost a couple of hundred there, so I turned a big loss into a moderate one. . .

I had a 6x point multiplier, but it was on reel slots only, so I tried 1c Dynamite Dash, not so lucky, earned 348 points but lost $78.

Scott and I decided to have lunch at Whiskey Liquor Up.  We both have a lot of comps, but I also had the comps I earned from the slot app they had.  The expiration date to redeem them was today (11/30), so I got my $25 comp to Binion's Cafe and $50 to Benny's BBQ.  Since we were planning on going to WLU and the BBQ was only open in the evening, I asked if I could use the comp at WLU.  The attendant asked the manager, who replied that she didn't care.  Well, good for me.

We were going to use our November comps for dinner at Barry's ($525 total), so we didn't load up here, although we did have to use at least the $50 comp I had.  We each got a beer and I ordered two table apps and Scott got a salad.  We ended up at $62 (the sliders were $12, ah well).  We saw Mark there and chatted with him a bit.  We didn't go to WLU during the summer because the comp system was down.

Mmm, KBS!

Cheese curds and BBQ sliders!

Now off to The D.  I picked up another $50 in match plays for my Southwest boarding pass.  I know have a ridiculous number of match plays that I promise to use on my next trip (in 12 days).

Hopefully I'll be using my match plays on my next trip!

I redeemed my $100 FP, converting it to $80 cash, and headed up to Vue Bar, pretty much my favorite place to play.

The beer selection usually isn't too good, but I did get an Alaska Amber:

I hit a number of quads (14) and still managed to lose.

We went down to El Cortez to catch the All Casino Action livestream at 6:00 PM.  We then headed up to Circa for dinner at Barry's.

While waiting for one of our guests, I took a photo of the scenery.

Here's looking up at you, Vegas Vickie!

With $525 to use today, we splurged on a bottle of wine:

Chateau Croizet-Bages, Pauillac 2004

I didn't choose the wine, but it was fine.  Was it $150 fine?

I got what I got the last time I was here, lobster bisque and the rib cap.  I think they do have the best lobster bisque Downtown, but the steak was just okay.

For dessert, Sarah ordered a Baked Alaska, which I took a video and will uploaded it when I figure out how to do that!

So, we ordered a lot of things and went over our monthlies by. . . say a bottle of wine and two desserts?  Also, it didn't look like they took the tax off the meal and a mysterious "Add On Tax", but we all had extra earned comps to use.  Oh well, the dinner was really good though. . .

Comp-a-palooza, Day one

Duplicating photos, since the first photo shows as the cover. . .

So apparently there are two things I'm continuing.

First is writing a trip report just before I'm heading out on another one.  Second was booking a trip before I started a current trip.

I hadn't left for my trip on September 26 when I booked my flight for this trip on September 21.  The airfare wasn't super outstanding (303.45 from BWI, but one stop, no plane change in STL going out and N/S coming back).  I did later modify that flight to 255.97, departing DCA with a stop in DAL, and returning to IAD with a stop in MDW, and then modified it again up to 310.96, to leave at 4:10 PM instead of 6:00 PM, so I would get to LAS a little earlier.  The reason I had to get back early is because we had already purchased tickets to see Enchant! at Nationals Park on 12/03 at 5:30 PM, so I had to take the super early flight to get back home in time to get to the show.

I had flight credits from the flight I ended up cancelling from earlier in the year, and thankfully Southwest ended the expirations on their flight credits.

The main reason for going is that ClubOne (The D, Golden Gate, and Circa) increased my F&B comps from $150/mo to $300/mo.  That and I was getting 4 comped nights at Plaza in a suite with $150 in F&B comps.  I was also getting a total of $200 in FP at The D, $120 at Golden Gate, and $700 at Plaza, so in theory, it should have been a good deal.

I parked at my office and took the Metro to DCA.  I got there early enough to have pizza at Page and watched some of the soccer game.

Looks similar to the pie I had last time!

The flight was pretty uneventful, I can't even remember if it was a full flight.  But I had a two hour delay when I got to Kansas City.  Not being familiar with the terminal, I accidently exited the secured area and had to go through security again, which was a bit inconvenient, but fortunately I had plenty of time.  I did have to pour the water out of my water bottle though.

Since I did have time, I decided to have dinner, and went up to Pork and Pickle, but they were closing the dining area, so I had to get it to go.  It wasn't the best, but it served it's purpose.

I was told this is a pretty sad representation of KC BBQ.

I only ended up being around 35 minutes delayed from my original arrival time to LAS.  Since I wasn't planning on going anywhere, I didn't rent a car, but Scott was already in town and said he would pick me up at the airport, which he did around 10:15.

We drove up the Strip, and I got a picture of the relatively new to me City of Las Vegas sign near the Strat.

We're not welcoming you, you've been here a while. . .

I forget where we were going to try to go, but it was pretty late and Scott had just arrived there that morning, so he just dropped me off at Plaza.  I didn't ask for a suite, although my offer said I would get one.  What I did get was one of the Luxe rooms, which was pretty nice.

A view into the Lux room. . .

It was a decent size, the bathroom actually had a sliding door, and there was a refrigerator and coffee machine in the room.

I went down to the casino floor to load my free play (I get $175 each day for four days).  Of course, I couldn't not play on my first night, so I went to the bar to check the machines.  They installed all new machines on the bar, and it appears that all of the machines now have full-pay vp available (before about only half the bar did).

I decided to take a shot on 25c Not So Ugly Deuces and lost $20.  I couldn't stop like that, so I put in a $20 in 25c Bonus Poker Deluxe and things were going poorly until I hit:

Quads good on Bonus Deluxe!

A few hands later, I struck again!

Huzzah!

I wanted to get to $200, but it just wouldn't happen, and I cashed out at $180, so a nice $140 profit on my first night.  Although on the way back to the room, I passed an old Top Dollar slot.  I guess I should say I didn't pass it, I put a $20 in and hit a bonus round and cashed out for $41, so another $21 profit!  If only every night would be like this!