Probably the best tip you'll leave on your trip
The
$20 trick is a known ploy used by ‘people in the know’ to try and
grab yourself a ‘free’ upgrade to a superior hotel room that
would otherwise have cost a fair amount more to pre-book. This
surreptitious trick at the hotel front desk is widely accepted by many of the
strip hotels and whilst it won’t guarantee that you get an upgrade,
there’s certainly no harm in trying. The trick works like this:
- Before reaching the hotel’s front desk for check-in, place $20 inside your passport by the photo page ensuring that it sticks out from the top. When reaching the front desk the assistant will greet you and ask to see your id. As you hand over your passport politely ask; “I was wondering whether you may have any complimentary upgrades available?” At this point the assistant should notice that there’s $20 peaking out of your passport, and with any luck they’ll respond with something along the lines of; “oh, well I’ll certainly see what I can do for you sir/madam”.
- At this point you’ve cleared the first hurdle in that they’ve already acknowledged that they’re trying to help with your request.
At this stage, you can start being a bit more direct and
request something specific. For example, I recently stayed at the
Mirage where we’d just booked a standard King size room. Now if
I’d not mentioned anything at check-in, there’s a good chance
that we’d have been allocated a room on a low floor facing the
highway to the back of the strip. Having asked whether there were
any upgrades available I then proceeded to ask if there were any good strip view rooms available which would have cost at least
a further $200 over the 5 nights we were there. Bearing in mind this
was a Saturday - typically the busiest day at the hotel where there
was likely to be little availability - the lady proceeded to inform
us there was a poolside view room available which was available immediately (this was at around midday), or
if we were willing to wait a couple of hours she could allocate us a
room on 14th floor with a panoramic view giving great
views both north and south on the strip. We opted for this option
which meant all we had to do was leave our baggage with the left
luggage attendant before calling back a couple of hours later to pick
up our key. This was a really good result and meant we ended up in a
room with a great view which would have cost substantially more had
we have booked it directly upfront.
Of
course, it is worth mentioning that there’s no guarantee that the
$20 trick will work, but there really is nothing to lose. If they’re
unable to offer you an upgrade – either because of a lack of
availability or due to hotel policy – then you’ll simply be politely declined and given
your money back.
It’s
also worth pointing out that it may be advisable to offer more than
$20 depending on how long you’ll be staying in that hotel. In the
example above, as we were checking in on a Saturday and staying for 5
nights I believe I offered either $30 or $40 in my passport.
In
summary, if you’re planning to try the $20 trick just bear in mind:
- Do your homework in advance of what type of room you’d like. E.g. a high-floor, strip view, pool view etc.
- If the check-in assistant is playing ball, don’t be afraid to ask for the specific room type you’d like, but be reasonable.......
- You’re only likely to be upgraded by one room type category, i.e. if you’ve booked a standard king size room, don’t be expecting to be upgraded to a high-end suite!
- There are of course no guarantees that the $20 trick will get you any upgrade, let alone the room you want. If you had your heart set on a lake view room at the Bellagio and you’d be bitterly disappointed if you didn’t get it, then you may wish to consider booking that room type outright.
- It is well know that the $20 trick does not work in all hotels, e.g. the MGM Grand is known for not playing ball.
- If there are no room upgrades available, ask if there is anything else that they may be able to offer. E.g. we once had our resort fee waived at Encore whilst getting some free drinks vouchers – again, this more than outweighed the $30 we ‘donated’.
For
more details of the $20 trick you can visit the Twenty Dollar Trick website
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