Have you been to Vegas? Ever wanted to see those super expensive shows? Yeah, we did too. We also couldn’t break the bank. So here is a little story about “free gifts”, and getting to see a show on a budget.
I might have sucker written on my forehead, but it’s a mislabel.
I think I looked like an easy target to all those individuals on the streets, in the shops, and in the hotels of Vegas that are “giving away free _________”. Whatever you tell them you are interested in doing, they will offer it to you. A month in Vegas though, and I really wanted to see a show! With only one income, and prices of shows over 130 dollars each – IT was not looking like we were going to be able to see a show. Budget is an understatement of this mini move from our home base for training, so when someone offered free (then later “discounted) tickets to the show Le Reve. Read my recap of the show here.
We were walking around the strip just enjoying an early afternoon walking and window shopping. * I will admit people watching is primarily what I was doing. It was free, fun, and entertaining.* Then a lady shows me a flyer for free or discounted show tickets. I see Le Reve and she ushers me inside to talk to a lady at a Vegas.com booth. So far, so good. She opens a book and starts telling us prices for shows, highly discounted, but still by no means cheap. She finds out we are in Vegas a month, and naturally her jaw drops and pushes for us to take some tickets some more. Then she finds out why we are here and that we are not up in any fancy Vegas hotel for a month, and that my husband and I are one income. Whoosh, down drops the prices because she obviously feels bad for our situation, whoosh added $100 dollars of gambling, whoosh free appetizers, whoosh two Le Reve tickets – for 80 dollars less than one ticket costs.
Hmm, what is the catch?
Oh yeah, to keep their “costs”so low they are partnered with “The Jockey Club” ( the what?!) and you have to attend an hour to two hour presentation to get your tickets. My husband immediately starts to walk away, and I immediately ask him to do it. It felt a little scammy when they said they only took cash, and that did not feel good when we were going to get it with our “watch dog” of a lady who roped us in from the street. So we get home, with a piece of paper when to show up, and what time. We scheduled out two Saturdays because we could, and took Monday tickets to “lower the price” of it even more.
Day before the timeshare she calls us to reschedule our time to later.
Back to feeling scammed, but hey she called us? What an elaborate scam. We show up early anyways. I needed to visit the words greatest Walgreens, in my opinion, to pick up a few things. It just so happens to be located below where we needed to go. I decide to go check in a few minutes early and they take us over anyways to the time share place that was literally located between the Bellagio, and Cosmopolitan. Amazing location for anyone looking to come to Vegas on a budget. On the strip, full kitchen ( we were told it used to be apartments for the rat pack according to our Timeshare “counselor”) , and rooms go for super cheap- half have views of the Bellagio fountains.
We start by checking in, reviewing our gifts, we ask for 7pm on Monday instead of 9:30pm- they change it no problem. We sit in a waiting room for 45 minutes, and it was really nice in there until- this one employee starts talking about how many chicks he is *ahem* , and all sorts of gross stuff. Immediately we were no longer going in positive. I had done a lot of googling to see what others had to say about its legitimacy of it all. I wanted to make sure we got our $100 back or tickets! Then a nice lady came and got us, sat us down in a party like room, loud music, couldn’t focus, pretty sure that was intended, and asked us about our traveling needs. I love to travel, I want to travel every day, my promise to remain silent and just get the tickets? – yeah that didn’t happen. I chatted her face off answering her questions. Then a tour of the dirty timeshares themselves. Really, they showed us a hallway with stained carpets, dirty rooms, and asked us to ignore that. I reported to her I couldn’t as I have first hand experience with timeshares not having good maid cleaning like hotels do. She didn’t like that. So then a movie, and a speaker- It was all cheesy and fun- I really was enjoying learning about timeshare points until, they said it got you into the timeshares at Walt Disney World.
Excuse me what? You are telling me that your timeshare is equal to the Walt Disney Vacation Club? I get to stay in the same place? I wanted to know numbers and HOW when we got to yet another room. Oh, time share would cost 15,000 dollars until a man gets called over, treats you like an idiot, offers free gifts, and knocks it down to 8,000. We keep refusing- he huffs off visibly angry. Our counselor pleads with us to buy, then sadly walks us over to another room and tables.
Think it is over? Us too…
Then a lady sits down, looks at our package and starts writing notes. Telling us she is taking a public relations survey and wanted to know about our experience. We actually told her about the guy making nasty comments, the dirty rooms, the rude boss, and all she writes down is notes about prices we were given, and our counselors name. Hmm, then tries to sell us yet another version of a package for less than 5,000 dollars. Yep. They just keep falling down. We glance at her and just say no. She leaves. A man sits down, says he has questions to ask us for a survey. We may or may not be nearing hour 2- and want out, so we snap at the poor guy. “ She just told us she was the survey, are you telling me you are the real exit survey now? I am so sick of being lied to”
He kind of started stuttering, and we felt bad after we left. We just wanted out and had played nice for so many minutes. We wrote all over that survey reviewing our thoughts about their procedures,cleanliness,rude employees, and got our free gift paper and left.
Later they called us to inform us our tickets were for tonight and to go pick them up at will call. Well if they were trying to screw up any plans we had – They didn’t. We didn’t have any! We had spend all day at timeshare and Mr. Olympia so we were ready to grab some dinner at Old Vegas as I have still yet to go there!
They ended up just giving us free tickets on a Saturday night saving us over 300 dollars. Thank you timeshare. If you want to see the show I went to, you can check it out here. Some of our other Vegas Adventures here, here, and here. Oh and a mini recap of our first two weeks here.
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