I don't think any of this is anywhere near as annoying as being super rich and still obsessing over how to make every penny you can make. The amount of money that James Murren has made is incredible.

Scions of capitalism ITT

That's part of his job. He works for the stockholders. The parking fee is stupid though. Pissing off your customers when they have great alternatives and can spend their money elsewhere is not good business.

I am sure all of these conversations were had when resort fees and baggage fees first came out. Sadly the sheep will usually follow.

During convention season and other busy times they will make so much extra money that it will probably be looked on as a great business decision down the road. Have you seen the numbers airlines are pulling in these days in extra fees that five years ago were non-existent.

Sadly I have started to realize that Las Vegas is no longer the cheap vacation destination it once was, and will begin to look for alternative spots/hobbies.

The difference is with baggage most people don't fly often.tourists in Vegas for a few days don't care much about resort or parking fees.locals who go to the casino 5 days a week will.

I think the parking fees are actually bad for business.but they're not a scam like the resort fees.

The problem is that all these resorts were not built around locals and their impact on the bottom line. The casino's like the Station Casinos that cater to locals will benefit from this. However I am not sure losing the local business will overall hurt the casinos in the long run.

This article was strongly opinionated. Not exactly what I look for from news.

You mean you haven't read the more recent articles from the last few weeks? This is clearly happening.

I'm just saying the writer seemed more interested in expressing himself vs informing the public

Right they aren't built on locals but locals still add to their bottom line, and many tourist don't rent cars. The end result can easily be a wash for mgm, with them getting bad publicity and some dickhead getting a fat bonus for coming up with the charge.

What % of tourists rent cars for their stays in Vegas? 25%? 30%?

Most people I know who visit Vegas just use cabs & Ubers, rarely venturing off strip.

I rent a car when my wife and I come to town. We go off strip for meals, shopping, sightseeing, and if we want to go down the strip for dinner we'll drive. If we get drunk we take a cab back that night and pick up the car the next morning. The cab ride to/from LAS to the hotel is about $50 by itself, and that covers a fifth of the cost of the car rental.

I will tell you that the parking fees are a game-changer for us, though. We probably won't go to any MGM property to park. We can park at Cosmo for Bellagio, Tropicana for MGM/South Strip and TI for Mirage. We'll work around it. But, if every place starts charging for parking then we're not going to rent anymore and just use cabs/Uber/walk.

As it stands we're probably saving just a few bucks by renting vs cabs on our trip as it is.

As someone who's rented a car everytime he's been to Vegas, renting a car is also hella more convenient than cabs... so saving more than just a few bucks IMO. At least for the short-term I'd imagine there will be easy workarounds where there won't be too much trouble to still park for free...

This + Dozer's post. The rent car totally changes the options and that greatly enhances the experience. Orleans and Red Rock here I come !!

That might change with the astronomical prices cabs are charging now. I was there last night and most places were jammed. Basically I had nowhere to park. In the past I would have just parked back at my hotel and took a cab. These days it would be 30 bucks roundtrip. It's not a huge amount of money but something in me can't stand being ripped off. I'd rather walk a mile and waste a half hour. Which is what I did.

I do what you do and given I rented an SUV last time I was there and it cost me $145 everything in I think I see huge savings versus cabbing it and unless parking cost is extraordinary I will continue to rent.

This is as good a place for my Vegas parking rant as any.

What's up with the short parking garages? The vehicle I had this trip was a full sized van. Caesars garage has a max height of 6'10". My van was 6'9.95". Gulp. Had some anxious moments getting out after driving in and not noticing max height right away. Another place had a max of 6'9". A lot of SUVs won't fit.

If you can get in then you can get out right? Unless you had several people with you weighting it down on the way in and tried to drive out solo. lol

Percentage is probably nowhere near that high. The real impact will be to visitors from CA or AZ, which accounts for about 50% of the crowd in Vegas. Most of them drive.

Agree that MGM doesn't give two ****s about the locals.

Hadn't considered the visitors from nearby states who drive in, that's an excellent point.

don't you think there will be a cash back program at the properties?

that's how it's done at some fremont casinos... eat or game at the property and they give you cash back at the cage.

So far the attitude from MGM has been this: "We're going to take your $10 (or $17) and we're doing people a huge favor when we don't charge more so people should stop complaining and **** the critics. Oh btw if you lose a ton of money to us in our casinos already we might let you park for free. And we're so awesome so we should be doing this."

They think they are so much better than anything at Fremont.

Paying for parking at lower end properties like the Luxor and Ecalibur and even the Monte Carlo would especially be a joke. Almost more than the room at times.

Guys I'm really sorry, I think I caused this. I've been sleeping in the parking garages to dodge the resort fees. I guess it's back to the Mandalay Bay spa for me.

not with the resort fees