Las Vegas deals up deals

By Kitty Bean Yancey, USA TODAY

LAS VEGAS - "Two nights in Vegas for nearly nothing!"

That's a promotion just dealt by Station Casinos, with room rates that work out to $12.50 a night. Pay $125 for two nights, get $100 to spend on food and drink. At Station's upscale Red Rock Casino, Resort & Spa, pay $250 for two nights, with $200 in credits toward food, spa and drinks. Taxes and fees are extra.

And how's this for a jaw-dropper? An award-winning dinner buffet with shrimp, roast beef and more than 100 dishes, such as crème brûlée and chocolate soufflé- is just $22.95 Monday to Thursday at The M Resort Spa & Casino in Henderson, about 10 miles from the Strip. That covers unlimited beer and wine, plus espresso spiked with Sambuca or other liqueur.

As Las Vegas struggles to stem a losing streak of fewer hotel guests, conventions and declining gaming revenue, the house doesn't always win anymore. It's visitors who are hitting the jackpot. With rooms under $20, discounted shows and mouth-watering restaurant offers, they're getting the most bang for a buck in years.

"Everyone in Vegas is giving it away," says Las Vegas Advisor publisher Anthony Curtis, savoring 8-month-old M Resort's sushi in its modern-chic buffet with show kitchen. Pig out for $2 less by joining the free M players' club, says Curtis, whose Advisor (lasvegasadvisor.com) gives subscribers the scoop on deals.

Free casino parking

Arrive at McCarran airport on a slow weekday and you'll encounter limo drivers begging for riders. Hour-long lines at Dollar Rent A Car, whose rates can beat cabbing it, signal that visitors are opting for free casino self-parking.

Take a walk down the Strip and see a city on sale. Vegas hotel rates slid 24.7% January through September, vs. the same period in 2008, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority says. Though visitors rose 4.3% in September over that month in '08, prices are sinking in the slow period till Christmas. New offers pop up almost daily now (though rates usually rise on weekends).

The Mirage is marking its 20th anniversary with $86 remodeled rooms, when available. Treasure Island resort (TI) has redone rooms for $69 some days. Even the upscale Encore and Wynn Las Vegas are discounting (Wynn was $129 on a recent night) and offering resort credits to keep up occupancy.

Rooms at popular properties such as the Hilton can be less than $50. If you're willing to stay in basic digs, lay your head at the Sahara, Circus Circus or Hooters for $20-$30 at off-peak times. But this reporter, who weathered scuffed walls and threadbare sheets at the Sahara last year, bailed out of a $24.99 booking at Palace Station (where O.J. Simpson got in trouble) after passing a gun-toting security guard patroling the outdoor parking lot before dark and dealing with a surly front-desk staffer who refused to let a room be previewed before check-in.

The classier, but pricier, alternative: Trump International Hotel & Tower, one of the high-end resorts that now are wallet-friendly. Last year, a $179 promo price was a score. Now, you can get chic suites with Sub-Zero fridges and marble baths with whirlpool tubs and TVs that play on the mirrors for a fire-sale $89. (Add a pesky $15 resort fee, though.)

Enjoying a drink at Trump's honey-colored onyx bar, Realtor Kevin O'Connell of Bountiful, Utah, paid $83 via Priceline.

Though Vegas gaming revenue has slid (down 12.5% January through September on the Strip, the Visitors Authority says), you'll see more $5 tables. Hooters advertises $3 blackjack tables 24/7.

Show tickets have stopped their uptick. Cirque du Soleil is even discounting. The Monte Carlo has a two-for-one deal for magician Lance Burton, with a two-night booking. Tickets can be cheaper via discounters such as Tix 4 Tonight (just know what they usually cost). On a recent Wednesday, bargain-hunters stood under Tix screens on the Strip that scrolled offers, hoping to see Wayne Newton for $79.80 in a usually $100-plus seat (too late, he was sold out).

Spas - considered non-essential by the cash-crunched and an ostentatious indulgence by image-conscious conventioneers - are massaging business with lower prices, too.

Booking the Palms Casino Resort spa's "You-Pick-It" nets two treatments for $185. The menu includes 50-minute massages (usually $145), body wraps ($150) and facials ($125). Savings of more than $100 are possible.

Restaurants are trying to fill tables with dinner/show specials, fixed-price menus and happy-hour deals. Upscale Society Café at Encore, where dinner for two can run $150, has $6 half-price mojitos from 4 to 7 p.m. A trio of nouvelle-comfort-food appetizers (such as mac and cheese bites or the chef's wife's grandma's meatballs) costs $14.

Daily buffet passes

Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist-about-town Norm Clarke settles into a chair in the bistro-style bar area, and talks about how his "recession deal of the week" turned into a near-daily feature because the town is "scuffling" for business, he says.

Clarke has heard that rates at luxe hotels are so low that "even kids from Europe with backpacks are staying instead of at a hostel." Staffers at Trump - where suites come with utensils and cooktops - allow that they have spied a backpacker or two.

No need to eat in. The Gold Coast's lunch buffet is $7.95 for players' club members. Downtown's Golden Gate (now with $34 rooms) still serves its famed 99-cent shrimp cocktail in a sundae glass, though it's now $1.99 without a free players' club card.

Diego, an upmarket Mexican resaurant at the MGM Grand, has a $32 special that includes a (magnífica) margarita, tasty main dish such as chicken mole and salad with manchego cheese dressing. Usually, they'd total $47.

Some hotels have introduced all-you-can-eat daily buffet passes (the Luxor's is $29.99, adults, on weekdays; $10 more with unlimited beer or wine).

The Badda Bing! Gentlemen's Club lures customers with a free spread of pasta on Tuesday nights. But around 9 on a recent, slow Tuesday, most women strutting a circular catwalk or undulating, topless, on a pole are not rewarded with bills tucked into G-strings or tossed onstage. Lap dances aren't selling.

Indeed, times are so tough in Sin City, even strippers are losing more than their clothes.