More Las Vegas resort fees jump to $45 a night

Overnight stays at three resorts on the Las Vegas Strip just shot up by more than $50 due to increases into those controversial add-ons known as “resort fees.”

Rates at Aria, Bellagio and Vdara — MGM Resort’s three high-end properties in Vegas — climbed to $45 a night effective August 1. When tax is factored in, the tab totals $51.02 a night.

Prior to tax, the previous resort fee was $39 a night, marking a 15% increase.

In a statement, MGM Resorts spokesman Brian Ahern said, “We are constantly evaluating prices to ensure they properly reflect the business landscape and the services and amenities they support.”

That “business landscape” is bound to include the fact that other upscale Vegas hotel-casinos — sister properties Wynn-Encore and Palazzo and Venetian, plus the Waldorf-Astoria — already had increased their resort fees to $45 a night.

“I don’t think it matters much on the high end. That customer is less concerned about price,” Anthony Curtis, publisher of the Las Vegas Advisor newsletter said in an email.

“It’s much more obvious and biting when the difference is $55 and $85,” Curtis added, referring to a theoretical $55 room rate with a $30 resort fee tacked on.

The fees at MGM Resorts’ other Las Vegas hotels — Circus Circus, Delano, Excalibur, Luxor, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, The Mirage, New York-New York, Park MGM and The Signature at MGM Grand — remain unchanged.