RIP Shane MacGowan.

Frontman for The Pogues who will be remembered annually for Fairytale of NY and many other things.

RIP, surprised he got to 65.  I did have to smile whilst reading associated stories this morning of a tweet to find a replacement to the lyric "you scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot."  Naturally, just leave the original alone and accept it for the times it was written in, but hopefully Shane himself would approve of one offering:  "you scumbag, you maggot, you've taped over Taggert."

Oi Oi!!

Whilst I'm here, any recommendations for fun nightspots where a 21 year old and a 48 year old will be equally comfortable would be happily received

Can casino-hop (and earn next year's offers) playing tables.  The drinking game of choice (= as long as you are still sober enough to see your cards) was always Pai Gow.  Now there's a lot of face-up Pai Gow available where the dealer sets their hand first, managed some sessions there with my daughter, very hard (but not impossible   ) to lose much, table service drinks pretty quick and then hop to next place.

Beer Bark (Paris) and Brewdog both with decent rooftop bars, various bar games on offer, not sure about that in Dec tho.

Some reasonable tribute acts playing lounges with cheap tickets, duelling piano bars (eg NYNY) quite good for an easy night out.  Casino lounge bars such as Heart in PH can be quite lively.  Usual show tickets, some free or discount on MyVegas.  After that, I guess its full on nightspots, not really my thing.

Have a great time, enjoy your daughter's 21st, she looks beautiful.

In the old days it was always wake up, check out and head to the airport.  Still getting used to the more recent change to 9pm flight departure, which gives something of a dead last day, unless ofc you are happy just to sit and grind cash on the last afternoon.  This year I added a MyVegas free night to the end of the stay, so effectively just paying RF to have a room for an extra day, store the cases, take showers etc.  And then rented a cabana and chilled by the pool all day, pretty sure this will be how I plan all future trips, was pretty good value and felt like I got back the day that I lost by arriving so late on the 1st day.

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

Virgin were doing an up to 70% bonus sale on miles. (It was a sliding scale and you only got max bonus on the bigger purchases)  I can't see the transaction in my account, but can obviously see the miles.  £3k got me 340k miles (200k miles + 70% bonus) which I think is 113 miles a pound?  They used to max you at 100k purchase, but for a while now they have been doing reasonably decent sales at some point around the end of year (or end of tax year)  I normally look at it and decide its a fair deal and do it.  I notice also that Virgin have a beta reward seat checker on their website now, makes modelling possible flight dates much easier.

As an aside, I need a second room this year and started looking on Caesars.  I was a bit surprised, has the pecking order changed?  By price, they have it as

Rio < Horseshoe < Flamingo < Harrahs < Linq < PH < Paris < Cromwell < Caesars < Nobu - with most in the middle very similar pricing.  WIth PH the same price as Linq and Harrahs, is it the standout pick?  Or has it got worse in the last few years or something?

Here is Shaq's take on it.

Imagine if you are a lesser known site that can only pay you crypto - but they take 7 dyas to process a withdrawal and you seem to keep getting the 7day low when you withdraw. 

I'm never going indirect again, with all the aggro and cancellations with short haul flights in the new world.

Exactly how I see it.  At 5pm when you are stuck at a gate in Chicago and realise you could already be in Vegas if you'd paid the extra hundo..... shudder.

www.summerinvegas.com

I've had the same situation on the way out, nearly lost the lot at Gatwick in an interview room.

Things have gotten worse since payment processing in usd became frowned upon.

If you take >$10k cash, declare it at UK airport AND on arrival in US and have some paperwork to backup source of funds.  It is no issue, unless you choose not to, and then it can be an issue.

I think how you take the money depends largely on where it currently is and in what currency it currently is.  For instance, if you currently have it in UK bank in GBP, then taking cash is fine.  If you currently have it on a poker site in USD, then withdrawing it into UK bank (Likely at a bad rate, but some sites do spot tbf) and then converting it back to USD at anothe bad rate to take the cash would be a double hit and likely 6% territoy haircut.  For those in this sort of position, using an e-wallet to withdraw and then using the e-wallet pre-pay card as ither POS (hotel bill, restaurant bill etc etc) or as an ATM is a lot better.  Obviously it doesn't get you $10k in cash for main event, but for those just general Vegasing on <$1k day, it seems to me to work a lot better than cash.

30th June you say?  If you are lining Wooly Jumper's pockets, might well see you in the Clubhouse for a latte and a pastry!

Really not sure how it works now - everything changing it seems.  Gratz on the honeymoon tho! 

How long is the wait nowadays on customer service?  Was 90 mins last time I called, but they were very accomdating and did their best to give me what I was asking for, or at least counter with workable alternatives.

I've got Upper reward booked for June and hopefully I don't need any changes now - I'm just doing my best to keep the booking in the system and not end up with a points refund.

and it sounds like you're gonna be giving me some shots Simon

Knew I shoulda said I was off 20.  I also owe you the 2nd half of that story from that particular evening, I'm sure we both had a great night, but I'd be amazed if they ended similarly 

Very similar story only I joined a neighbouring club that has a recipricating agreement with Finchley.  I went from kicking it around twice a year pre covid to 14 hcap nowadays, playing every week but not overdoing it.  If you are struggling for a game midweek shoot me a message and we can do a home&away?

I did buy some and have managed to wrestle some dates - but fair warning that it is getting harder and harder to get PE and nearly impossible in UC it seems, so definitely play around with dates before buying 200k miles!



Depending on regular cost of economy, availability seems reasonable this summer for reward seats unless you have zero flexibility.