Buffet overload

The latest batch of mail from my US mailbox has arrived and thanks to the global economic downturn it’s a good one.  Hooray for recession, I think.

Let’s start with one of the most peculiar Las Vegas casino offers I’ve seen.

This mailer came out of the blue from the Las Vegas Hilton.  They must have been desparately trawling back through their player databases of yesteryear to try to drum up some business.

We last stayed at the Hilton in December 2004 and have only been back since to watch several NFL games all at the same time on their giant HDTV setup.

Their excellent Sunday football party with $1 hot dogs and $2 parlay cards is absolutely the most fun you can have for $3, and it’s about the only thing left to keep drawing people in since the Star Trek Experience closed down.  Unless you really like Barry Manilow.

$115 for 2 nights, including six buffets!  Definitely good value, but it’s a pretty silly deal if you’re going solo.  Six buffets in 48 hours?  You’d probably explode.

It’s still a pretty extensive food comp even if you are sharing a room.  I guess if you have dinner for two after you arrive, a lunch or dinner the next day and breakfast before you leave on day 3 it’s easy enough to get full value from the offer but it does restrict your dining choices somewhat.

However if you can stomach it all, there’s at least $90 of buffets thrown in (it’s worth $108 if you leave on a Sunday and have brunch) making the room rate ridiculously cheap.

The reward credit promo – effectively a 4x points multiplier – is attractive.  The Hilton has some reasonable video poker, which would be a break-even or slightly better with this deal, but it’s an all-or-nothing proposition and to earn $50 in reward dollars would take $50,000 of coin-in.  That’s in the region of 40 hours of play on a 25c machine!

The best bit though?

"Offer can be used multiple times, with a minimum of 4 days between trips".

I think you’d need 4 days off to recover from all those buffets.