B3nder

Updates from my stay 5 night stay at end of january:
1) booked base 2Q, asked about upgrade at check in and was moved to Ruby 2Q. I did tip $20 at check in (stupid vegas practice, but has seemed worth the couple times I've done it).
2) first room had minor stuff broken like the reading lights by the bed and the minibar was broken/in heater mode (the counter was hot). Not that I'd use the minibar but that was weird. The room had a sewage smell and part of the carpet corner was turned up, I assume it had been wet and was to be dried. I went down and requested a new room, said it smelled.
Second room was OK. One of the two TV's didn't work but I didn't need them. They had the two remotes in the room programmed to work with the bedroom tv, no remote programmed to work with the living room tv.
3) Ended up using 3 resort credits. My resort credit reset during stay, I had them pre-charge for the first $250. And the other person staying in the room had their credit reset the same day as me, they also pre-charged $250.
However, the day before checkout the hotel did an unnecessary and unexplained partial refund of ~$70 to CC..... Thankfully, Amex didn't reverse the statement credit from the refund posting. So at checkout I charged ~$310 to finish to clear out the bill.
4) Their FB credit options were not great but could have been worse. Basically a "coffee shop" or a "juice bar" by the gym, or a smoky buffet restaurant (didn't try that one). Best options I found was a lettuce free greek salad thing which was packaged where the bottle drinks were and fruit or packaged items from the juice bar. I tried quad espresso once but it was expensive af and tasted like ..... In violation of Hilton FB terms, they also do not apply FB credit to gratuity or to sales tax. So be aware. The after-stay survey got this nonsense indicated. Decide if the overpriced crap is worth the $3-$6/day and use up the whole credit before sales tax if you decide it is.

I thought the ice cream place in the lobby was decent, I went there 4 or 5 times to finish up my 2nd $250 resort credit.
Final stay costs the 5 nights, including the Ice cream and the overcharges where they didn't apply FB credits came out to ~$760 (I figured out the FB credit stuff before the last day and planned accordingly). Received $600 statement credit on my amex (using 2 years' resort benefit) because there was an amex offer for $100 back after $500 spend at hilton hotels in las vegas and nevada, other person received $250 statement credit on their amex from their resort credit.

There was a Virgin hotels lamb shaped stress ball on the nightstand, you can take as keepsake, I got a fresh one that was still wrapped from the housekeeping for myself.

It took them over 30 minutes but then they "found" the rate code over the phone to book through hilton for my trip and said no BRG because they found the way to book it even though it was not able to be booked normal way by them and wouldn't show on hilton site. That was vs Virgin website though, not amex.