Hotel pricing varies in Vegas more than other U.S. cities due to high occupancy rates and large swings in visitor counts. If you have any schedule flexibility, it can mean literally thousands of percent savings from a seasonal low to high point in hotel rates and even triple digit savings within the same month.

VegasMadeEasy.com surveyed 19 hotels on August 22 comparing each hotel for a busy weekend versus a mid-week stay and both were 2 day stays. The numbers shown are average daily rates for the 2 days—not total costs which would be double what you see. If the daily rates varied, we took the average.

If you compare pricing season to season and holiday to non-holiday, the variance becomes truly extreme. MGM Skylofts during slow periods will go for as low as $510 a night. The New Year’s rate this past year was $10,000.

Room rates also increase when large conventions are in town or when a particular hotel hosts an event. The Riviera was the hotel for the DEFCON convention and their rates moved up about 300% during that conference for example.

Below is a list of conventions, 20,000 attendance or more, in Vegas this past year. Conexpo is held every 3 years but most are annual. CC is an abbreviation for the Las Vegas Convention Center. Please check our Conventions page for more information.

There are 2 factors that determine the best season to visit Vegas:

• Weather
• Crowds

Please see our Weather section for a full discussion.  Spring and Fall are very pleasant in Las Vegas and even summer is better than you would expect due to low humidity.   Winters can be cool but are very mild compared to most of the U.S.  VegasMadeEasy.com recommends March-April and September-October as the best periods but overall Vegas has good weather year round.

Average daily visitor counts are higher in Spring than Fall.  If you are trying to get the best deal on a room but still enjoy great weather, the Fall is better.  If you are trying to get the best absolute deal, Winter is best.  However, some shows go dark during Winter in Las Vegas.

The Big 3 travel websites are Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity. The Big 2 discounters are Hotwire and Priceline. Many people use these services because of guarantees, advertising, and history of discounting after 9/11/01 when the packages they offered were ACTUALLY cheaper than the hotels and airlines themselves.

VegasMadeEasy.com has been spot testing the travel websites for about 11 months and do not recommend any of them. Over the past few years, hotels in Las Vegas have become more aggressive about cutting out the middle man—the travel websites. Most Vegas hotels guarantee to match or beat prices for their own rooms (with some exceptions). See partial list below.

There are 3 major hidden costs:

• Hidden charges on Travel Sites
• Sneaky Airlines
• Driving Costs

Hidden Charges

One of the travel sites we tested appeared to be by far the cheapest source of domestic flights into Las Vegas. They were undercutting Kayak, Priceline, etc. by about 38% on roundtrip flights from LAX.

However, when we tried to book the flight we found they had a hidden fee of over $60 which actually made them more expensive. The major travel websites don’t compare themselves to direct booking but they usually do a good job of telling you what the fees are. The travel website with the huge hidden fees was a less well-known travel site.

When you are booking a hotel online, there will be a space to enter in a code that is usually towards the bottom of the web page.  These codes can save hundreds of dollars.  Some Las Vegas hotels offer online booking savings anyway.

Very often the codes are both a room rate savings and a set of goodies.  These goodies may be free spa entrance, dining discounts, shopping discounts, room upgrade discounts, etc. Often these goodies are offered only by the hotel with the Travel websites not included.

If goodies are going to sway your decision, you should figure out what they may be worth to you.  For example, if you plan to eat out at the hotel restaurants anyway, then dining discounts are worth their nominal value.  $100 off dining is worth $100.  If you will never go to spas, a $20 off spa certificate has no value to you.

Sometimes it is difficult to value promo codes unless you compare their goodies side by side.  If you read a text description of a deal, you have to memorize the goodies list when you compare that deal to another deal.

VegasMadeEasy.com has promo codes and side by side comparisons of goodies that make it easier to value promos.  Please click the red colored link below to check out some current hotel promo codes.

Current Hotel Deals