Advice on a Trip from San Diego to Las Vegas?

"Tony Cox" wrote in
link.net:

[snip]

McCarran is a rip for small planes; use VGT or HND.



Calling McCarran a "rip" is drastically understating the gouging you
will receive there. They gouge you on fuel, tie down, and rental cars.
(Maybe some local can identify other gouges at LAS, but I stopped looking
after I identified these three.)

I went to Las Vegas from San Jose over the July 4th weekend. In
planning where to land, I looked at AirNav for fuel prices. McCarran was
$4.35/gallon. North Las Vegas was $2.66/gallon self-serf and $2.88/gallon
full serve. (Note: These fuel prices were in effect on July 1. More
recent prices on AirNav show LAS unchanged and VGT at $2.72 self-serve,
$2.92 full serve.)

Want to tie down? Overnight at LAS for a single is $50 at one FBO,
the other charges $35 per night + $20 handling fee. Both will waive first
night fee for "quantity" fuel purchase. (I didn't even bother to call to
ask what "quantity" meant.) At VGT it is $5 per night, but no waiver for
fuel purchase. The FBO at VGT is the City of North Las Vegas and, from
what I observed, they seem to treat everyone equally well, regardless of
whether you were in a Citation or in a 172.

Want to rent a car? At LAS, you have to pay a facilities service fee
of $24 per rental, sales tax of 7.5%, government service fee of 10%, and a
recovery surcharge of 10%. At VGT, there is no facilities service fee,
sales tax is 7.25%, government service fee is 6%, and recovery surcharge is
4%.


--
Marty Shapiro
Silicon Rallye Inc.

(remove SPAMNOT to email me)