Hi and welcome to HT!

£400 is a good price to go from Manchester. I take it that is with Thomas Cook direct?

March can be busy and expensive due to Spring Break and March Madness so I would go for end of April when it will also be warmer, warm enough to sunbathe although the pools may be cold.

If you are on a limited budget then I would suggest the Imperial Palace as it is cheap and very central. Read my reviews in the Hotel Reviews section. Book direct with the hotel at a price you are happy with and if you see a lower rate you can call and get it adjusted.

Lots of info if you put Vegas into the Search facility, but THIS TOPIC will get you started.

luci

can't disagree with what Luci said

TC

Thanks for your reply luci, some very interesting reading and great tips there.

The flights I saw are with US Airways, £399 each, with 2 stops and a journey time of approx 15hrs 30mins. Does that sound ok?

I'm surprised the journey time isn't a lot longer if you have 2 stops. We are usually 17-18 hours with 2 stops.

Check how much Thomas Cook would be as they fly non-stop. £399 may not be a bad price as I'm not sure how the fuel price increases have affected the price of flights.

luci

Is it two changes or just two stops? It will be cutting it fine if there are two flight changes in 15 hours 30 mins. We did MAN - PHL - LAS with US Airways in May and had a total travel time of 14 hours 15 mins. Our flights were £430 each.

Hope that helps a little.

I just checked Thomas Cook Luci, They were around £650 for a fly drive.

Thomas Cook flight only 22-29th of April (my birthday ) are showing up at £535. Don't know if you think it is worth paying the extra for a direct flight? 11 hrs there and 10 hrs back = extra Vegas time lol!!

Suzy

Flight 1 Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Departure: 11:00 Manchester, United Kingdom - Manchester International, terminal 2
Arrival: 13:45 Philadelphia, USA - Philadelphia International, terminal A
Airline: US Airways US735
Aircraft: Airbus Industrie A330-300

Change of plane required. Time between flights = 2:20

Flight 2 Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Departure: 16:05 Philadelphia, USA - Philadelphia International, terminal B
Arrival: 18:25 Las Vegas, USA - McCarran International, terminal 1
Airline: US Airways US598
Aircraft: Airbus Industrie A320-100/200

Flight 1 Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Departure: 09:30 Las Vegas, USA - McCarran International, terminal 1
Arrival: 17:13 Baltimore, USA - Baltimore
Airline: US Airways US276
Aircraft: Airbus Industrie A320-100/200

Change of plane required. Time between flights = 1:22

Flight 2 Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Departure: 18:35 Baltimore, USA - Baltimore
Arrival: 19:32 Philadelphia, USA - Philadelphia International, terminal B
Airline: US Airways US1406
Aircraft: Boeing 737-400

Change of plane required. Time between flights = 1:18

Flight 3 Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Departure: 20:50 Philadelphia, USA - Philadelphia International, terminal A
Arrival: 08:55 +1 day(s) Manchester, United Kingdom - Manchester International, terminal 2

I'm sorry it is over two posts - I couldn't work out how to get it all in one box.

It does say that the journey time for both is 15hrs 25 mins. Is the time in between flights not long enough because there are more flights with longer times to choose from?

The outbound flight is similar to the one we had in May. We had plenty of time. The return flight should be OK too, since you have no need to touch your luggage again after you check it in Vegas. It's the immigration and re-checking luggage that takes time on the way out.

I forgot to say that those flights are £778 (£389 each), so that's pretty good isn't it?

My hubby says he would prefer flights with a change of planes so his legs can have a good stretch. Now, I wonder where he's hid his credit card

£389 is very good and if you don't mind the change of planes then I would go for it.

I prefer a non-stop flight from Manchester as we already have one flight down there from Aberdeen. We have gone indirect a few times as well.

luci

If I was you due to XL going bust I would take that price and bok straight away, as people who are with XL will book up or their prices will rise.

Having just come back from Vegas and New Mexico flying indirect via Houston I would seriously consider booking a direct flight. Sure it was cheaper for us in August to go indirect, but the thought of a 3hr journey to Houston from Vegas (then 10hr quoted from Houston to LHR), knowing that if we had flown direct from Vegas we would have been a third way home was pretty depressing.

Also, I know plenty of people fly indirect via the east coast cities (NY, Philly, DC, Atlanta etc etc) but that doesn't fit with me especially when going to Vegas. Why do the Atlantic crossing for 8hrs, only to then have another 4-5hrs across to Vegas? It makes sense to me to do the majority of the journey in the one journey (you are in the air already and going flat out quicker). To be honest what we did last year worked well, flew to LAX on Virgin which was only an hour more than the scheduled Vegas flight on Virgin, and then did a 45min internal on Southwest to Vegas. That way we got over to the west coast of the USA on the bigger plane, more comfort etc etc and then had a pretty empty Southwest flight which we could stretch out on.

Cost is obviously a factor, but if it isn't over the top more to fly direct go for it. Your body won't regret it.

hi
we are going to las veas in october and have booked package through thomas cook it cost us £830 each but we are staying in treasure island.last year we flew virgin for £433 direct and stayed in the sahara we got our overall holiday including flights from belfast-gatwick with overnight hotel stay for £650 each.i personally would rather fly direct but if the flights were too dear i would consider stops.although we are glad we have booked package with the airlines going bust and also the dollar rate going down at least our hotel is paid for as we didnt pay for it until the end of our stay last year!
hope you have luck happy flight hunting!
angela

Thanks all for your replies. I did first look at package deals with the holiday companies but they were coming up at around £1,000 or more each and those in our price range were for breaks of just a few days, not a full week so that's why I decided to see if booking flights and hotel myself would work out cheaper. A direct flight would be nice but the cheapest one I've found was for £563, the difference in price between that and that of a flight with stops would go a fair way towards paying for a hotel. With Expedia, I can get flight+hotel for £510 (Stratosphere), £515 (Circus Circus) and £554 (Imperial Palace). Do you think I should book with Expedia or would I be able to beat their prices by booking direct with the hotels myself?

I know it probably looks like I'm penny-pinching but the less we pay for our flights and and hotel, the more we'll have to spend while we are there. We are on a budget because this isn't our main family holiday as we are going to Turkey for three weeks the following month.

You're not penny pinching at all. We love to get a bargain. We have a month in Vegas booked for November. It is coming out at £1,723 for both of us for the month. Now we're not staying anywhere fancy, Orleans and Bill's Gambling hall, but they are both good properties.

If you sign up for offers from the hotels and get a flight that you are happy with, you will be fine. The advantage of booking direct with the hotel is that if you find a better offer, you can re-book with no penalty. I still look often to see if I can get cheaper room deals. The bargain hunting isn't over until we get on the plane.

Don't go with Expedia unless you have checked that you definitely can't get it cheaper separately. Try Travelaxe to look for room prices too.

I agree, book the flight at a price you are happy with an check out the VEGAS HOTELS and VEGAS HOTELS WITH NICE POOLS topics.

I won't repeat myself here as all the information on getting a good deal should be in those topics.

I reckon the worst that can happen is that you end up paying the same as Expedia, but you should be able to do it for less.

BTW, out of those 3 hotels I would recommend the Imperial Palace as it's in a great location. If you stayed at the others you would spend the difference in price getting to/from centre/south strip.

However any further questions, fire away.

Pebbles, you must have got some really good deals for two of you to be going for a whole month at that price - that's amazing. Do you mind me asking how much you paid for your flights and how long ago did you book them?

At the moment, I'm more bothered about the flights than the hotel as there's plenty of time to book that, as we've now decided to go at the end of April. There's probably no rush to book the flights yet either but I'm concerned that if I don't book them early, the prices might go up rather than down.

Luci, thanks again for the links - I'm trying to read as many of the Vegas threads as I can to gain info about everything.

jaymjay,

I'm sorry I had a typo in that price. The total was £1723 and not £1123. Please forgive me.

But, to answer your question we are booked with BMI for a total cost of £756.40. I booked it on 4th January after Luci posted about a sale.

I also sign up for Kayak alerts for a weekly price rundown.