Resort Credits in Vegas: Beware

These days many Vegas resort packages or resort offers come with large amounts of ‘resort credits’, such as $50, $100, $150 or even more!  These ‘credits’ make the offer look very appealing as very good ‘value’ deals.   But, before you try to do your math (room rate + resort fee – resort credit = net cost), you need to know that the resort credit is not really as good as ‘real money’; though what it entails varies from resort to resort and from time to time, it is often only applicable to food and beverage; moreover, to make matters worse, many of the resorts’ stores, restaurants or cafes are not covered in by resort credit!  This means that you may only be able to spend you resort credit for the resort’s buffet and, if you are lucky, one or two other food & beverage outlets IF they are fully part of the resort (and not just independent stores, restaurants or cafes renting space from the resort).  For example, I was never able to use my resort credit in any of the resort’s retail stores at Excalibur even if they sold water.  If you are staying in a resort which has a terrible buffet and you plan to eat elsewhere, you may end up not knowing where to spend your resort credit!

So, what to do?  You need to phone (yes, phone) the resort and ask specifically.  Ask to speak to front desk and/or to the reservations department.  If they sound unsure ask another department.  I was staying at Aria recently; I had $50 dollars resort credit which I had not used (for good reasons) and I was checking out the following morning.  I was told by a nice lady at front desk that I could deduct my resort credit from the (outrageous) resort fee:  I suspected that the information I was given was wrong but I thought they might have just changed their policy; I trusted one sole source and , when I check out, I was ‘hit’ by the reality that I had been given wrong information.  So, after hard negotiations I managed to let them keep my account open so I could use the resort credit for the rest of the afternoon even though I had already checked out.  I found myself having to eat at the Aria buffet again (luckily it’s a good buffet but it forced me to change my restaurant plans for the day).  Therefore, when you are considering a Vegas offer with resort credit, ask and… Ask again! 

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