Introduction
This is part 1 of 2; booking and outbound. Read part 2, the ruturn flights here.
I’ve not done as much flying as I would have liked this year (2025). This is due to a few factors, the clients that send me to interesting places didn’t have as much need this year, and work has generally been a little quieter than usual, so less travel funds as well. Hense why this trip, as you will see, was on a tighter budget than normal. I wasn’t going to do this trip at all, but work did pick up in autumn, and in October I decided to book a trip to Vegas in December. This is for a tradeshow that is normally good for business for me to attend. As I said, the catch this time is I needed to keep the budget as tight as possible, whilst also not breaking my own personal rules of sitting on planes for many hours in uncomfortable seats.
Ticketing
I’ve been to Vegas a few times in the past few years, I wrote a report on my experience last year when I managed to fly in business class most of the way, for a very reasonable price, going via Europe. And the year before when I managed to do it in first class, also for a very reasonable price. Read those articles here:
Vegas in business class: More flights, better seats, less money.
Vegas in first class: BA First to the US
This year was not going to be the same, I looked up all the routes I’ve used before, and the prices just didn’t seem to be dropping to a level that makes it affordable. In the past I was lucky enough to book the trip back in January, often in the sale. So, I played the usual game of exploring routes starting from and arriving at different airports, all using Google flights to get the right combinations.
It took a lot of searching, but I stumbled across a route, operated by Delta, from Dublin to Minneapolis and then connecting over to Vegas. This route appealed to me as going from Dublin didn’t feel like I was going backwards to go forwards, and it didn’t involve anything like last year, i.e. flying to Munich just to fly back to London to then fly to Vegas. Again, to keep pricing down, the route I booked was out in premium economy, for a day flight, and back in business class for a night flight. The final booking was Dublin to Minneapolis to Las Vegas, out on a Saturday leaving at 9:45 in the morning. And the exact reverse return leaving on a weekday morning and arriving early the next day into Dublin. The outbound leg in premium economy was on an A330 to Minneapolis and then in economy to Vegas on an A321. But, given that it was a premium economy ticket, I got the extra legroom seats included for free. It’s only a 3-hour flight to Vegas, so not too horrendous for economy. Delta do quite a nice thing, they give you Sky Priority when you book in premium economy, which gives me the queue-jumping option to check-in at the priority desks. And then I will be able to go through fast-track security. It doesn’t include a lounge, but that’s no problem. I have a number of Priority Passes to use up (thanks to my Gold AMEX), so I can get myself into a lounge in Dublin and Minneapolis if I want to. The other advantage of this route is Dublin offers pre-clearance into the USA at the airport, meaning I clear immigration before I fly and land as a domestic passenger. Certainly, a huge advantage to most, as getting off a long flight and queueing for immigration is certainly not pleasant. I wasn’t particularly fussed as I’d just renewed my global entry, so queuing to get in wasn’t likely to be a problem for me.
The return trip was the same in reverse, but this time in business class, or Delta One as they call it. This would mean a “first” class seat on the A321 from Vegas and a full lie flat bed for the overnight flight to Dublin. As for lounges, there is nothing in Vegas, but I could always use another Priority Pass if I wanted. Minneapolis is of course a Delta hub, so there’s a proper lounge there.
I know some of you might be thinking, “hang on a minute, you’ve been going on about status matching this year, surely you have status for this trip?”. Well, yes, I do, but I chose not to use it! If I attached my SAS status to this trip, I would have been given points there, just before my status expires. However, I do have a reasonable collection of points with Virgin, but they need topping up if I want to get any use out of them, so I chose to associate my Virgin account with this booking to collect the points. This account doesn’t have any status, so no free lounges for me.
What did this cost?
For the trip from Dublin to Vegas in Premium Economy and return in business class, this part of the trip cost me £1500. To give you an idea, the BA equivalent, flying direct from Heathrow to Las Vegas, out in Premium, back in Business would have been about £2500.
Positioning
The final part of the equation is of course how to get to Dublin. That was easy, book with British Airways, use some Avios and a voucher, which worked out as 18,500 Avios and £25 for a return trip in business class. I booked the outbound to arrive the night before the flight to the US, just in case of issues or delays. My return was then booked later the same day after landing from Minneapolis. This route, with the outbound the night before, would mean a night in the airport hotel in Dublin, but the cost of that was far less than the cost of flying from London to Vegas, so worth it.
Heading to Dublin
Heathrow to Dublin, on BA, in Club Europe (business class)
First, I had to get to Heathrow, as this is a “budget” trip, I decided to take the bus. Also, I was planning to fly hand luggage only, so I wasn’t going to have big bags. My other half dropped me to Worcester Park, and I took the SL7 “Superloop” bus to Hatton Cross. Getting out there to get a free tube ride direct to Terminal 5. For more information on getting to Heathrow, see my article on it here.
Upon arrival I went straight to the “Club” check-in area, bypassing the actual check-in desks to go straight to the fast-track security area. I had decided to try and do this entire trip as “hand luggage only”, since I was only away for 4 nights. I noticed a sign on the way into security telling me how busy the lounges were, I’ll come back to that. Security was fast, unlike last time, and they had the new machines, so no taking anything out of my bags.
Once through I was planning to head straight to a lounge for some dinner. There is a business class lounge right by the exit to the fast-track security, which of course most people head to. I had noticed on the sign on the way in that this lounge was busy and the second business lounge at the south end of the building was quieter. So, I went for a bit of a walk through the full length of the terminal to reach the other lounge. (knowing full well I’ll be walking all the way back later as the Dublin flights generally go from the north end with other domestic flights).
The lounge was not quiet, but there were quite a few seats to choose from, so I found myself a spot and went looking for food and drink.
Given it was December, BA were offering a full turkey dinner. Knowing I’d probably get something on the flight I decided to go light and looked for the smaller options. They had plenty of things like pork pie slices, sausage rolls, cheese & biscuits etc. to choose from. There were 2 types of prosecco on offer, so I grabbed a glass of rose and sat down with my snacks. To my disappointment there were no Christmas sweet treats, surely some mince pies could have been laid on?
This is my first time back in the business class lounge in the main terminal since losing my gold status and it was quite pleasant. I did visit the “B” gates lounge earlier in the year when I went to Doha, read that here. The first-class lounge was never significantly different anyway, but the new furniture and lighting made it feel a little more up to date. Still a very grey colour pallet, BA does need to work on this if it wants to come close to other airlines lounges.
After a pleasant wait I headed, as predicted, all the way back to the north end for gate A7. It wasn’t long before boarding and I was in group 1, so I headed on board to get comfortable. The flight was busy and I hadn’t been able to secure 1A on this occasion, so I was in 3A. Not a problem, plenty of space for my smaller bag to go under the seat in the middle and my main bag overhead. Once in flight there was a choice of salad, I opted for the chicken and bacon, which was very nice. And they offered plenty of drinks before and after eating, which is always nice on a short flight.
Arrival into Dublin was quick and easy, a brief glance at my passport and I was through. No waiting for bags, so I headed out to the coach pick up point for my shuttle to the hotel. There was a timetable there and I had 20mins to wait, so time for a few phone calls and the shuttle bus arrived dead on time. 10 minutes later I was checking in to the Crowne Plaza Dublin Airport.
The hotel itself was very nice, it had clearly recently been renovated. I was upgraded on check-in, thanks to IHG status and I headed to my room on the executive floor. This meant I had executive lounge access. The lounge was accessible 24 hours a day, with soft drinks in a fridge and some hot drinks on the side (see photo below). Unfortunately, the free alcohol had finished, and breakfast would start just as I was leaving, so I didn’t really get to use it to it’s full potential.
The room was very nice and as I was on an early start, I headed straight to bed.
Flying to the states with Delta
Dublin to Minneapolis, on Delta, in Premium Economy
I had planned to allow myself at least 2 hours at the airport, so I woke in time to catch the 7am bus. The flight was scheduled for 9:45, so this gave me plenty of time. I didn’t pay for breakfast in the hotel, but if I was willing to risk it, I could have had breakfast in the executive lounge, starting at 7am. I decided I’d rather be through security and find food then, so I checked out and headed out for the bus. By 07:10 I was walking into the terminal. Being hand-luggage only, I didn’t need to check in, but I wanted to be sure there wasn’t going to be an issue, so I headed to the Delta check-in area. Luckily there were Delta employees outside the queues to offer help, I chatted to a guy there, who assured me my bag was absolutely fine and yes I could use fast track with my Premium Economy ticket. I also asked him about Global Entry, after he gave me a warning about queue times, he said I should be fine then and I’ll be through in no time. I headed off to security and found the fast-track lane straight away. My boarding pass did indeed let me through and I was back loading my bags into a tray at a scanning machine. Again, it was the new type, so nothing out of the bag. However, my bag did trigger an alert, so it was searched. Turns out my box of business cards shows up as a dense object. They opened it to check, did a drugs swab for good measure and I was on my way. I did note that I took the same 2 bags, with the same contents, through 6 security checks on this trip and this was the only occasion I was stopped.
Next to find a lounge for breakfast. Delta’s lounge offering is conveniently located on the other side of US immigration, but I didn’t have access on this occasion, plus there was some concern about it being closed for renovation. The “Priority Pass” lounge is the Liffy lounge, located before the US border. I headed here, knowing I had plenty of time, to find a member of staff outside the door guarding it. She indicated that they were quite full, but they might be able to accommodate one person, she checked with her colleague inside and I was let in. They scanned my priority pass and then asked if I was flying to the US. They insisted that I leave at least an hour and half for US clearance, I wasn’t going to have yet another conversation about Global Entry, so I just nodded and headed in. The lounge itself was small, but pleasant. My photo makes it look empty, but it was about 75% full and most empty seats were reserved. There was a good selection of cold breakfast items on offer and a pancake making machine. I had to try this, so I enjoyed some fresh pancakes for breakfast.
I had decided not to heed the warnings of the staff and waited until about an hour before my flight to head down, hoping my global entry was in fact going to be quick. I needn’t have worried. After a couple of quick checks, I was in the main queuing area for US immigration and there was indeed a separate line for global entry. However, there was nobody here, apart from the immigration officers, not even anyone in the normal queue lines! Everyone had told me before this trip, the queues in Dublin are huge, but this was not the case. I had completed the global entry process on my phone, so I skipped past the check-in machines, went up to a desk, had a camera pointed at me and I was through. So yes, global entry here is quick, but on this occasion, any form of entry would have been quick.
Once through immigration I was into the departure gates for US flights. This section of the airport was a long wing with aircraft on both sides and two levels of gates. My gate was supposed to be upstairs, so I headed for the escalators. I noticed a sign saying, “if your gate is upstairs and this door is closed, you should wait here until the door is opened”. I assume they can close off sections of this wing to make the American zone bigger or smaller depending on what aircraft are going in and out. This indeed was the case as I got upstairs, turned around to walk back the way I’d come on the upper level, to find a big glass door closing off one section of the gate areas, including where my gate was. There were a lot of people waiting here and we just stood around with no information or announcements for quite some time. It was quite amusing watching people arrive, coming up the stairs and charging through the crowd saying, “I need to get to my gate” to then realise there were big clear glass doors at the end, which was why everyone was standing around. Boarding time was getting closer, and people were getting noticeably more agitated. Eventually they announced that they would be boarding from a gate downstairs. So, we all turned around and walked back down the escalator. It turned out to be exactly the same gate just directly below the gate that we were supposed to board from upstairs. However, this gate was not set up for a large, long-haul aircraft. It didn’t even have any seating, there was a sign up saying, “If you want to sit down, please sit at the gate next door”. I was about to be sitting for 6 hours, so I was not interested in sitting down, I stood around near the gate and eventually some staff arrived, who laid out some queue lines with indication of which queue to stand in. I got into the Sky Priority queue and waited for them to call my zone. Eventually we started boarding and I was on my way to my seat. In the end we were only 25 minutes late leaving the gate.
The seat itself was a pretty standard premium economy seat, there was a nice large screen in front of me, with a reasonable selection of movies on it. What happened to the days when airlines would have movies that hadn’t been released in the cinema yet?
There was a small pillow and a blanket as well, which I shoved down the side of the seat as I wouldn’t be needing these until later. I had a fairly chatty American man sat down next to me and after some pleasantries I promptly got my headphones on so that I could watch a film and not have to talk to him for the rest of the flight. Luckily, he fell asleep fairly quickly after take-off.
I was quite interested to find that I had the option to pre-order my meals before this flight, something I’ve not seen in premium economy before. BA used to do this in business class, but I’ve not seen it for a long time with them. I had pre-ordered a chicken dish and it came with a starter, dessert, bread roll etc. I remember the food being quite nice, but now as I look back, I don’t know why I didn’t take any photos of it? Apologies for that.
The flight itself was fairly uneventful, and I stayed awake for most of it watching TV. They offered a second meal before landing, and I was quite pleased to see it was a proper meal, not like BA with just a snack in a box. The approach into Minneapolis was quite spectacular as everything was covered in snow.
As we were landing as a domestic flight, we were dropped out into a fairly busy domestic terminal building. Note that in America, often when you fly domestic you leave the plane through the same door that people board the flight from, so you often walk past all the people queuing to board the next flight. Not like the UK that keeps arriving and departing passengers separate. I don’t think this gate area was properly designed for wide body aircraft, it was very crowded around the gate area as we disembarked.
Minneapolis and another lounge
Even with the slight delay I still had just under 3-hours’ time to kill here, I decided to wander off and look for a lounge. The Priority Pass lounge here was called the Escape Lounge and it was about a 10-minute walk away from my gate. Getting into the lounge was no issue, it wasn’t particularly busy. The lounge itself was simple but very pleasant. There was a nice selection of hot and cold food, I grabbed myself a snack meal, realising this is probably my 4th meal of the day. One thing I particularly liked about the lounge was its big open windows giving good views of the aircraft. I whiled away my time here and before long it was time to head over to my gate for the final flight to get to Vegas.
Minneapolis to Las Vegas, on Delta, in Economy Plus
It turned out the gate I was going out from was right next to the gate I’d come in on. And the A330 was still parked there, so I got a nice shot from my window before we pushed back. This flight was on an A321 and as mentioned I was given an economy plus seat for no extra cost, due to my premium economy ticket. I was quite surprised to see that the seats had an IFE screen in the back of them. Ever so slightly smaller than the one I had on the premium economy flight, but with the same system on it. I wasn’t expecting to be able to carry on watching things on this flight, and I was quite glad that I could.
Given the cold weather there was a requirement for de-icing, which felt like it should have delayed us, it took ages. Even the pilot seemed surprised when we landed slightly early, assuming that delta have put de-icing into their timetable. The flight itself was very present as we headed away from the snow and into the rockier terrain of Nevada to get into Vegas. I was offered a light snack and a drink on this flight, as I had had plenty to eat, I only had the drink, enjoyed my extra legroom and relaxed my way all the way to Vegas.
The hotel in Vegas
I don’t normally talk much about the hotels I stay in, as they’re all fairly much the same, but on this occasion, I feel I need to tell you about why I chose the hotel I was in and the problems I had with it.
In past years, on this trip, I’d stayed in Resorts World, which is very conveniently located across the road from the convention centre, so it’s a short walk to get from there to the centre. Resorts World itself is very pleasant in terms of a hotel, but it has a soulless and clinical feeling casino floor downstairs. On a business trip it’s perfectly fine, there are some overpriced restaurants and bars there, and a food court for more affordable choices. But the whole place feels cold and it has no soul at all. However, the 3 hotels that are contained within it are all Hilton brand, so it’s good for my points and of course with my status I usually get upgraded as well. Last time I was even put in a suite.
However, this year the prices were through the roof, and I couldn’t afford to stay here anymore. So, I needed a new option. If you look around Vegas there are of course some very cheap hotels, I would be very careful about staying in some of those. Even some of the big hotels, usually the older ones, offer you extremely cheap deals, for example Excalibur or Circus Circus. Both these hotels are now heavily dated, and I didn’t want to risk those after seeing many bad reviews. One option that did come up that took me by surprise was Harrah’s, which is right in the middle of the strip, and it has a monorail station which takes you to the exhibition halls. It’s an older hotel but it had recently been refurbished, and the newly refurbished rooms were reviewed very well online. The price was good and the review said it will be clean and nice rooms, so I went for it.
After checking in I went to my room and discovered that it was located immediately outside the air conditioning plant for the entire casino. It literally sounded like a jet engine in my room, I took a video of it to prove it, in case I needed evidence later on. I went back to reception to complain and ask for a new room, but they said they were full. Unfortunately, this conference that I go to, as well as bringing plenty of people into town, is at the same time as a national rodeo event which brings even more people in. The apologetic lady at reception offered me a set of earplugs and asked me to come back first thing in the morning, as she said she would definitely be able to move me on the second night. Being a well-prepared flyer myself, I have plenty of good quality earplugs in my suitcase, and they did indeed manage to cut out the noise so I could get a good night’s sleep. Not that I’ll be mentioning that when I submit my complaint. The next morning, I headed to reception first thing and found the same lady from the night before, she did indeed manage to move me to a different room. I was even lucky enough that the room was available there and then, so I was able to move my stuff across. I didn’t even have to return to reception as she gave me new keys for the new room, told me to keep the old keys and just to leave them behind when I left the old room. The new room was in a different tower, on a much higher floor and was significantly quieter, meaning my last two nights were much more comfortable.
Overall, the rooms were nice and the hotel was clean, so I wasn’t too upset about the price I paid, if I’d been in a quiet room from the start, it would have been absolutely fine. I do not understand how it’s possible they can sell that room to anyone, it was far too noisy to reasonably sleep in. I did submit a complaint when I got home and I got a full refund for my first night in the hotel, which I was happy with.
This is part 1 of this trip, for the return section, please read part 2 here.
