Planning our First  vacation with our baby boy to none other than Las Vegas!

Started planning: 11/22/2016

Where we are staying: Cosmopolitan Hotel and Casino 2 rooms using 23,943/Per Room for 2 nights =47, 886 total points

(Points Value Redeemed: $359.15 USD per room)

This is a pretty decent redemption since it is a Sunday-Tuesday

My wife and I picked the Cosmo, since it is off to the side of the main strip and comes highly rated on Traveladvisor Top #24 out of 264  In the past I have gambled at the Cosmo and partied at the Marquee club,  but never stayed the night. I really like the Cosmo because it also has a monorail that goes between the Monte Carlo, City Center, Mandrian, Vdara, Cosmo, and Bellagio.

The main reason we wanted to go to Las Vegas was because we had just signed up for the Chase Sapphire Reserve Card and at the time earned 100,000 points my spending $4,000 in 3 months. The credit card is pretty sweet btw many cool perks that make it my new favorite credit card

So you might be asking yourself… how did we meet the spend for this card? We spent 4k in 3 months using that card for everything we could, i.e. we paid our car insurance for the year (which helped out for a good chunk of it). Plus it earns 3x points for restaurants (and we love to dine out) which helped! Planning ahead and of course using this card to buy gifts for Christmas worked well in our favor.

Rather than hoard the points for an international trip, I figured we wouldn’t be traveling much anyway with a new baby, so why not use them! We are bringing along babysitters aka our child’s grandparents, but don’t feel too bad for them they get a free trip to Vegas!

Now that the hotel is paid for we still need to worry about paying for Food and entertainment.

I’m on a big Dave Ramsey kick right now and following his total money makeover  (loosely) and trying to use cash as much as possible during the trip. We are currently trying out the envelope system to help curb our spending.

I came across a cool little savings app called Qapital, here is the my personal referral link (you get $5 money and so do I)

Qapital works essentially like Acorns where you can round up your transactions to the checking account to the nearest dollar, but my favorite option is that you can create rules using the IFTTT app when you perform certain actions will save you certain amounts. My favorite is the walk 7,000 steps and save $7 Our goal is around $700-$800. Note that it does not invest anything for you so best for short term saving goals.

Another way to get in the Vegas mood is by downloading the My Vegas blackjack game or slots on your phone which is FREE!

Itunes   Android   to earn credits to use in real casinos, the best redemption on these is for the 2 for 1 deal on buffet or shows, personally we are saving for the Beatles Love show

And to help you earn even more points you visit this site every few days to copy and paste a code into the app for free chips.

Once we have our money saved, we intend to tackle maybe one or two buffets. I have heard by word of mouth that both the Cosmo and Bellagio have good ones. Then maybe we will try a few choice restaurants in the vicinity. My wife really wants to try the“BURGR” joint by Gordon Ramsay (not to be confused with Dave Ramsey) at the Planet Hollywood hotel which is right across the street from where we will be staying.

Lets see how this all pans out!

Cheers!