When I wrote about MGM Hotels in Las Vegas no longer allowing check-in on the app, I was referring to my own first-hand experience. That prompted a late-evening dilemma and a serendipitous road trip to Las Vegas with my son.
Serendipitous Road Trip To Las Vegas
I’m behind on my World of Hyatt Globalist elite qualification nights this year…I need 60 nights, we are nearing the end of August, I am not currently a Chase customer (so no elite nights via credit card spending), and I’m only about halfway there.
So I figured I would do something that many of you have done for years and books some cheap nights at the Excalibur in Las Vegas ($25/night and resort fee waived via MGM Gold status) and get five elite nights that way. My plan was to check-in on the app…and check-out on the app five days later.
But apparently that sort of thing is not looked kindly upon by the folks at Hyatt and MGM and as of just a few weeks ago (as the Hyatt-MGM relationship ends at the end of September), you can no longer check-in via the MGM app: in-person check-in is required (at least at the lower-end MGM properties).
> Read More: No Mobile Check-In At MGM Hotels For World Of Hyatt Members
It was 9:00 pm and I booked for the week, then attempted to check-in on the app. No dice. I messaged my friend who does this sort of thing often and she dropped the news: no more online check-in!
Now I faced a dilemma: forfeit the week (I was within the cancellation period) or go to Las Vegas and check-in myself?
I looked into flights and United was $144 for a walk-up one-way ticket on the 10:35 pm flight. There was time to make it. But I had promised Augustine I would take him along and spending $300 on one-way tickets to Vegas certainly would have defeated the purpose of the cheap elite nights: we might as well just have reviewed a number of Hyatts in the LA area.
Lost Wages, NV is a four hour drive from my house. The Tesla wasn’t fully charged, but after consulting with Heidi I decided that Augustine and I would jump in the car and drive up to Vegas…
I will “live” blog in the sense that I will post a number of small updates approximating real-time, as I did for my Ukraine trip report. For my own safety, the reports will be slightly delayed.
So here we go.
The things people will do for status …
You are one brave man….driving to Lost Wages as a tropical storm is headed towards us in LA and LW, not to mention spending more than 24 hours in that nasty city. I can only imagine all the filth floating around it after all of the rain from Hilary.
This trip sounds more like punishment than any type of pleasure. Good luck!
If you needed 5 nights that badly, why not sign up for the WoH card? Lackluster sign-up bonus aside, seems much better than doing this and 4x Hyatt points on your Hyatt spend is also pretty good.
As I said in the post, I’m not a Chase customer.
I know where you can get a referral.
Jokes aside, that might really be the way to go. As a business owner myself I get about half my 60-70 nights through business spend on my Hyatt card.
I’ll email you.