Tips on Booking Cheap Las Vegas Rooms

Hotel rooms in Las Vegas are quite cheap when compared to rooms at other popular destinations. Many great Las Vegas hotel rooms can be had for $100 or less. So since Las Vegas hotels are generally cheap anyway, when I say cheap here, I mean best value for the money in Las Vegas.

Here are some things to consider when hunting for cheap Las Vegas rooms:

A hotel's standard room price is called the rack rate. This is the price you would be given if you just walk off the street and asked for a room. And it's the top, non-discounted price the hotel would charge. Usually, hotels have much incentive to charge less than the rack rate, therefore, with a little planning you can avoid it.

Hotel room prices in Las Vegas can fluctuate greatly from day to day as a factor of supply and demand. I once stayed in a room that cost $200 a night, only to get a phone message from the front desk offering to extend my stay for $50 a night. Why was that? Well, the $200 rate was charged for a weekend in which two major conventions took place, and the $50 rate was for the following Monday when everybody was gone.

The moral of this story is that cheap hotel rooms in Las Vegas can be very hard to find during certain dates, while rates scrape bottom at other times. Since Vegas is a very popular weekend getaway destination, rooms for Friday and Saturday nights are more expensive. While avoiding a weekend altogether is likely to increase your airfare, some hotels will charge you more for weekdays if you begin your stay on a weekend, and therefore, arriving on a weekday (Sunday through Thursday) can result in savings.

Conventions and special Las Vegas events, like boxing title fights, also drastically affect room prices for the worse. Therefore, if your travel plans are flexible, try checking different dates such as a week before and a week after your original schedule.

Hotels rise their prices if they think they can still fill up with the higher rates, and lower them if they think too many rooms will otherwise go empty. Yes, it's the supply and demand thing again. This perception can sometimes change from day to day. Therefore, a room booked today for a certain date, might be cheaper tomorrow. It could also be more expensive, but if it's cheaper, you can cancel your previous reservation and rebook it. If you do this, be sure you can cancel with no penalty. Be aware that some hotels charge a one night's rate penalty if you cancel even as much as three weeks in advance.

If you want to save, consider staying at smaller Las Vegas hotels and motels. Those have the "real" bargain hotel room rates in Las Vegas. In recent years, Las Vegas was filled with huge, flashy theme hotels, but perfectly good hotel rooms can be found for much less than what the big boys charge. While a fancy theme hotel on the strip may charge $100 for an average room during a moderately busy time, you can find a small hotel to accommodate you for $30 a night. Seedier places can go for even less. The downside of course is that you won't get a spiffy room with a huge casino and fancy restaurants near the lobby.