One of the reels on our Flip The Switch Facebook and Instagram pages that got the strongest reaction was around the topic of paid parking. We’ve shared the fees (and some of the ways you can side step them in the past), but it’s a subject many of you are not fond of.
And the consensus is clear: most of you don’t think you should have to pay for parking for the privilege of spending money at a casino.
But during my latest trip to Las Vegas, I had a moment where the paid parking scenario affected me and many others in a way that wasn’t even monetary.
I was at Bellagio for a conference, and because I have Pearl tier with MGM, I am able to use my card to avoid the parking fee. That’s great, but unfortunately for me at a time I was attempting to exit the garage, so were hundreds of other cars.
When you have a multi-story parking garage that was built in the days before paid parking, with traffic flows not designed to account for it, the gates become a frustrating bottleneck. Furthermore, MGM’s parking system routinely seems to struggle. After about 15 minutes of waiting, someone came out and raised the gates.
However, this creates another problem – because MGM still had my car registered as parked, not having been carded out, when I returned, I had to call the attendant to reset my card.
In a vacuum, I was one person this impacted, but with the gates up it was likely dozens or hundreds for one bottleneck. Now imagine how often this happens when there’s a big event, concert, etc. where thousands of people are parking at various casino hotels owned by MGM.
Now, the more charitable viewpoint might be that by having the parking fees, it also helps reduce some of the crowding these garages would see for those attending events, ensuring hotel guests have spaces.
But that’s not really the case necessarily either, as I’ve had multiple stays at the hotels by Allegiant stadium that even with event parking fees, they’ve had to throttle who can get into the parking lots, checking for room keys and only letting those in once an individual garage hits a certain capacity.
And it’s probably likely that enough visitors have the Pearl tier at MGM (or similar at other properties to get free parking, like at Caesars) to neutralize some of the benefits as well.
The parking gates and accompanying traffic at MGM properties have cumulatively eaten hours of my time. On one occasion, just trying to get back to the garage at the property I was staying when an event was happening at Allegiant ate up 90 minutes of time I would’ve spent spending money on the property floor.
Things are only likely to get worse once the A’s stadium opens on the former Tropicana site, putting another venue that can hold tens of thousands of people in what is already a busy area. And it’s probably not the final stop for the strip, with an NBA arena being bounced around as a topic next.
Despite all the news about declining tourism, Vegas remains a very busy place. Parking fees are annoying, and the retrofitting of parking garages not designed to handle paid parking is even worse.
Personally, as a Las Vegas local, I will not visit a strip location that has paid parking. Oh, wait, I think that might mean nearly ALL strip properties! (Fortunately, my spouse has the military ID that gets us free parking at MGM and Caesars properties, but it still keeps us from visiting them on principle unless family comes to visit!)
It certainly makes sense, especially when locals friendly options start with free parking (and usually a better deal across the board)…
Personally, I can’t understand why people would pass up the chance to go to The Venetian. You get to pay 60 resort fees and 30 parking charges. You also can indulge in 6-5 Blackjack and Triple Zero Roulette. Unless of course you’re playing 100 or more per hand. The Venetian has something that no off strip property has. It was built with imported marble! Think about that.
My favorite pasttime is getting spun around in the Grand Canal Shoppes and somehow end up right where I started.