Having lived in Las Vegas my whole life and working in the valet business for over a year now, I can give you some tips to have a great valet experience and save money when going through valet.
Yes, a lot of casinos have started charging for self parking and valet services, but there are still a lot of them that don’t charge for parking. So because of that, I’ll tell you a few places to go that are still free. Are you ready? Any casino that is off the strip have free parking (the Orleans, red rock casino, The M, and all station casinos to name a few. You also have some places on or near the strip that are free. A personal favorite of mine is Mandalay Place because it is between Mandalay Bay and the Luxor and connects the two together so you can choose to go to either casino from there. The only thing is that they don’t allow overnight parking (however, if you really want to leave your vehicle overnight for a few days. You can throw the valet attendant around $50 to do so). Hooters (Now OYO) is another place to get free valet since it’s not on the strip, but rather on the side right next to a casino on the strip. Then you have some of the casinos on the strip with free parking still. For this, I’ll just name them off. The Tropicana, The Strat, the Palazzo, Venetian, The Sahara, Treasure Island and Circus Circus.
#2: ALWAYS tip the valet attendant!
It is not required, but is very much appreciated and if you keep coming back on a regular basis and always tip, they will remember you and keep your car up front depending on how much you tip. That also leads to the question of how much should I tip? I would say at least $5. If you really wanna be cheap, you could tip $2. However, if you want your car to for sure be kept up front, you would have to tip $20 upon arrival. All valet attendants work for tips because their base salary can be less than minimum wage in a lot of places. Even if you tip $5 all the time, you’re saving a lot of money (assuming your going to a free valet place) because the casinos that do charge for valet are around $16 just for two hours depending on the casino. They can get up to $30 or more for event parking too.
#3 Valet a bigger vehicle
Now this isn’t something you have to do, but if you are scared that the valet attendants are gonna do a 0-60 test in your brand new corvette, 1, you should tip them upon arrival $10-$20 so that they keep it up front and take care of it. Or 2, bring a big vehicle instead like a lifted truck or a long SUV. That is because it requires a wider turn and a lot of valet attendants aren’t used to driving bigger vehicles, therefore, they will always be really careful when going to park it. Especially because they do not want to damage it. Otherwise they would have to file a damage report and the deductible cost will be taken out of their paycheck.
#4: Be nice to the valet
This might be obvious, but they will treat your car better if you’re always nice to them. People often underestimate a valet attendant’s power. If you’re a real asshole and a valet attendant knows that and doesn’t like you. Then you might come back for your car one day just to realize it’s been towed away because the valet ticket wasn’t on it or it was “accidentally” parked in a restricted tow away area.
