The Mandarin Oriental Boston is that wonderful combination of “affordable” and five star luxury. But, before we delve into things, let’s just take a peak.

Happy New Year! The last week of the year is traditionally the busiest of the year in Las Vegas. Officials expect that there were somewhere between 300,000 and 350,000 people on the Vegas Strip celebrating the end of 2016 and beginning of 2017. News and visitation don’t usually meet together. Even though there were a lot of people in Las Vegas, there wasn’t too much news looking forward into the new year.

Some like it hot. Some like it cold. From an Indoor Beach Bash at Tropicana, to New Year’s Day polar bear plunges, January in Atlantic City offers something for everyone.

Wynn has plans in place to install a white Amazon Echo in every room in his Las Vegas property, starting with the Tower Suites and working down to every last room. The purpose, not your everyday household Echo skills, but specialized tasks to operate curtains, lights, and the TV and AC. All things that the touch panels in both Wynn and Encore already do. The thought it amazing, voice control of your room for the ultimate luxury experience. Here’s the Steve himself talking about it.

It’s a very special holiday edition of Vegas News! Since I’m writing this during one of the holidays, there will be a little less opinion and observation than usual.

The boutique sensibility of Lucky Dragon continues into the players club. The Dragon Club is a no frill, no-nonsense casino players club that caters specifically to gamblers.

I’ve just started noticing Christmas music in casinos so I guess it’s officially the holiday season. Las Vegas is usually quite festive for the holidays but the big news last week from the north end of the Vegas Strip doesn’t fit the bill.

Welcome to the Miles, Points and Travel Hacks Weekly Round-Up for the week of December 11th Each week we sift

Las Vegas has evolved in ways that you would have never expected 10 years ago. Restaurants and dining are now generating almost the same amount of revenue for casino operators as gaming. Today, the action in Las Vegas takes place in more locations than just casinos.

Imagine brightly coloured coral, manta rays, green sea turtles and hosts of tropical fish. This is what it’s like to snorkel in the Mexican Caribbean!

Each week we sift through all of the posts, blogs, PR, hyperbole and rumors, boil it down and share the best stuff with you. Sales and more sales everywhere, but great deals are few and far between. But, there’s an internet that needs to be fed with new content. So, let’s get going.

Act now to earn up to 999 free Miles & More miles through a promotion when you sign up for a trial of two weeks to the digital version of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung — otherwise known as F.A.Z — daily newspaper.