Last month, my boyfriend and I decided to redeem our myVEGAS loyalty points for a free two-night stay at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. If you are not familiar with the myVEGAS app/game, I’ve made a very detailed blog post about it here if you want to learn how to get free rooms yourself. It’s a great way to earn free hotel nights at MGM properties without having to spend any money. It just takes a bit of time and patience, but I think it’s well worth it. Also, I’m not going to get into too many details of the Bellagio since I assume everyone knows what hotel I’m talking about, but concentrate more on the details of the myVEGAS deal. 

 

How to Get Free Rooms on the myVEGAS App Game

If you don’t know what the myVEGAS app is, make sure you check out my detailed blog post on the game and how you can start earning free rooms. Otherwise, I’ll cut right to it! A couple of months ago, I decided to take 125,000 loyalty points from the game and redeem it for a comped night at the Bellagio. My boyfriend also plays the game so he redeemed his loyalty points for one night too. That way we could link our reservations and stay at the Bellagio for two nights. Unfortunately, it looks like this past weekend, the myVegas app has raised its redemption rates and it now looks like you need 150,000 loyalty points for one night at the Bellagio.

 

Dates You Can Redeem for at the Bellagio

During the middle of the pandemic, the calendar was wide open with free nights, including weekends! They just released the calendar for the summer and it looks like it’s back to just Sunday-Thursday dates only. So, if your schedule can only allow for Friday and Saturday nights, then this deal probably won’t benefit you. But if you are working from home or living the nomad lifestyle, this would be a great way for you to save money. Also, staying on non-busy days may give you a better chance of getting an upgrade to a better room or view.

The calendars below are what is currently available as of this blog post. The comps do change often depending on availability so make sure you check the calendar right away to see if your dates are there or not. Remember, once you pick your dates and redeem your reward, you cannot get a refund. But if you check the calendar and don’t see your dates, all you have to do is go back into the app under the rewards section and select cancel. It should refund your loyalty points right away.

 

Trying to Get an Upgraded Room

For our trip, we ended up staying Sunday-Tuesday. Surprisingly, the hotel was still extremely busy. Summer months usually bring in more crowds, but I was genuinely shocked that there were that many people still. Since I have Mlife Gold status, I thought I would try to see if I could get upgraded to a fountain view room. The receptionist said that they were all sold out, but we could pay to get an upgrade. In my mind, that obviously did not make sense. It’s either you’re all sold out OR we have to pay to upgrade. Either way, we decided not to pay the extra money since we weren’t going to be in the room that much anyway.

 

Was it Really Free to Stay at the Bellagio?

Even though the price of the room was comped, we were still required to pay the resort fee + resort fee tax. The resort fee was $45.00 and the tax $6.02 making it a total of $51.02 that we were charged per night ($102.04 total). This kind of sucks because these resort fees aren’t cheap, but looking on the bright side, we ended up saving $345.02. If we had to pay full price for the two nights, it would have cost us $447.06.

 

Review of the Bellagio

I feel like the Bellagio is one of those hotels that will never age. Everything about the lobby, casino, restaurants, and shops is really well maintained. Also, the garden conservatory changes themes five times a year which always gives the hotel something new to look at and visit. We don’t stay at the Bellagio a lot because it’s usually out of our price range or the room is too small for the size group that we often have. This time it was nice that it was just my boyfriend and me so we got to really experience the whole hotel.

// Check-In //

Our flight landed around 11:30 a.m. and we got to the hotel around noon. Check-in time wasn’t until 3:00 p.m., but we were hoping to get an early check-in. There are two towers that make up the Bellagio: the Main Tower and the Spa Tower. Since we were checking in early, the only room they had available was in the Spa Tower. If we wanted to stay in the Main Tower, we would have had to wait. Since we wanted to get the vacation going, we decided to just take the room in the Spa Tower.

// Room //

In regards to the room, we did not get the newly renovated rooms that they are currently working on. The new rooms look absolutely gorgeous and definitely more modern than what we got. Again, I shouldn’t complain since the room was mostly free and we got early check-in, but it still would have been nice! I would say the room we got was updated enough with bright white and blues, but what made the room look dated was sadly the phone and electrical outlets. They all had that yellow color you get when plastic ages over the years. I felt like that would have been such a quick and easy fix to make the room look more up-to-date. The bathroom was nice but had that old Italian marble feel which made it look a little old and dark versus fresh and modern.

// Pool //

The pool area of the Bellagio was really nice and had multiple pools that you can lounge around in. There are two large main pools and a couple of smaller pools with fountains in the middle. We tried to look for the jacuzzi, but couldn’t find it. Overall though, I think I like the pools at the MGM Grand better. In regards to drinks, they were super expensive! I couldn’t believe how much they were. We ended up just pouring drinks from our room into Hydroflasks and bringing them down to the pool. I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to do this but the security guard didn’t stop us. With that being said though, we did end up buying the large Dole Whip cocktail because it just looked too good to pass up. It was super strong so make sure you mix that baby up!

// Casino //

The casino at the Bellagio is always a fun place to play at. I didn’t play anything, but we met up with some friends who ended up playing Pai Gow so I just watched them instead. The casino wasn’t too smoky and the cocktail waitress came by often, which is always appreciated. Table minimums are higher than most of the hotels on the strip. I think on average they start at $25 minimum.

// Restaurants //

Even though we didn’t eat at any of the restaurants this time around, we’ve eaten at Spago before on a previous Vegas trip using our $100 F&B credit through the Chase Luxury Hotel and Resorts program. Most of the restaurants at the Bellagio are more on the fine dining side than the casual side so your choices will be limited if you are looking for something fast and easy. We did have a couple of cocktails at the Petrossian Bar & Lounge next to the lobby which I highly recommend if you want a nice place to sit, relax, and listen to a pianist.

 

Tips for the Bellagio

1. Main Tower vs. Spa Tower: If you plan on going to the pool often, definitely stay in the Main Tower. During our visit, the only entrance to the pool was on the Main Tower side. Not sure if there was or will be an entrance from the Spa Tower side, but it was a trek every day to get to the pool. If you care more about the gym, spa, lobby, Ubers/Lyft, the Spa Tower is definitely closer.
2. Bellagio Water Fountain Schedule:
   • Monday-Friday
     • 3:00 pm – 8:00 pm: Every 30 mins
     • 8:00 pm – Midnight: Every 15 mins
   • Weekends and Holidays
     • Noon – 8:00 pm: Every 30 mins
     • 8:00 pm – Midnight: Every 15 mins
3. Garden Conservatory: If you want to see the gardens, make sure you check the calendar of when their dark dates are. Their dark dates are when they are changing out the gardens so there’s nothing for you to really see except construction. We didn’t know that we booked on their dark dates so we ended up seeing them breaking down the last exhibit.