Starting today, Nevada residents will have to pay to self-park at most MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM) Las Vegas properties.
The announcement that at 11:59pm Wednesday free self-parking for local residents was ending came by way of an email promotion for the company’s M Life MasterCard, which it premiered in June, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
After MGM’s $90 million parking initiative was announced in April, in June the company began implementing paid parking for anyone who did not have a Nevada driver’s license. The new parking program received mostly negative reactions from customers and also prompted other Las Vegas casinos to follow suit.
On November 29, Caesars Entertainment Corp. (NASDAQ: CZR) announced that beginning December 19, it would start charging for valet and self-parking at all of its nine Las Vegas hotels excluding its Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino located just off the Strip. A day after the announcement by Caesars, Wynn Resorts (NASDAQ WYNN) said that in mid-December it would start charging for valet parking at Wynn Las Vegas and Encore, its two Strip resorts. The charge for parking at the two Wynn properties will be $13 for up to four hours and $18 for every 24 hours beyond that, according to the USA Today report.
Guests who park their vehicles for longer than four hours at MGM Grand, Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Excalibur, The Mirage, and New York-New York will pay a maximum of $10 per day. While the maximum fee for valet parking at those MGM Strip properties, as well as at Vdara and the Delano, is $18. Vehicles in the garage for under an hour won’t be charged.
At Circus Circus, self-parking will still be free but there will be a fee for valet parking. According to the news agency, in self-parking, people running an errand or picking up event tickets will still be offered a one-hour grace period.
The revenue generated from MGM’s new parking program will be used to build a 3,000-space parking facility. The $54 million structure will be located near the T-Mobile Arena and is currently under construction with completion expected by summer 2017, according to the report. Upgrades and enhancements to the tune of $36 million will also be made by MGM Resorts to its existing parking facilities that include 37,000 Strip parking spaces, which it spends $30 million annually to maintain.
M Life rewards program members who achieve Pearl status can get free parking.