Was in Las Vegas this past week for CES - everywhere is BUSY. But we were 2 for 2 on successes.

We wanted to get last minute, same day reservations for Thomas Keller's Bouchon - it was 6pm, we called the restaurant directly and were told sorry, nothing available. I tried AMEX (asked for 8pm, table for 4) and they got the restaurant on the phone, they said if we could arrive by 7pm, the table was ours. Fighting traffic, we called the manager to let him know we were trying to make it, he said he would do everything he could to keep our table: we eventually arrived at 7:15pm and we got the table! The steak frites meal and brussels sprouts was great, wonderful service and a stellar act on the managements part.

Next day I called in the afternoon to get a reservation for a table for 3 at Jaleo inside The Cosmopolitan for Thursday night at about 8pm. The agent showed only a 7:30p available on her computer, but was able to call and get us an 8:30pm reservation. We arrived at 8:30p and was told the restaurant was running a bit behind with tables, so we had about a 20min wait. The manager came to our table to apologize and brought us a round of Rose' and two appetizers on the house. I noticed another table that was seated late and received some Rose, but they didn't get the appetizers we did. The service was great, following the waiter's recommendations we had a excellent meal.

All in all - with my colleagues from work - they were impressed by my ability to get us these two last minute reservations, with some nice special treatment by Jaleo for us it was a great way to end a long and busy work week.