I attended Zorkfest 2025 last week. It was my first time attending since 2021 as the previous few have either been in hard to reach locations (Tahoe) or conflicting with other travel. Zorkfest combines learning about points and miles with casino loyalty. I reserved my spot well in advance to get the cheapest rate and then the organizers kept adding complimentary add-ons like a free yoga class (which I attended) and a trip to Five Guys on the Strip for free burgers and boozy shakes (which I also attended). There were also gambling add-ons for group craps and baccarat games (which I did not attend).

The meeting was held at M Resort & Casino, which is about 20-30 minutes south of the Strip and the airport. It’s basically impossible to hold a smaller (150-200 people) meeting at a major Strip property due to the minimum spends on food and rooms required by the major hotels. The M Resort ended up being a perfect spot to allow folks to add pre and post Strip stays along with a nice casino and good restaurant outlets.

I initially booked through Travelzork (the organizer of Zorkfest) but ended up canceling and using a Citi Strata Elite hotel credit to save $300 off the total price of $400 for two nights. I find these Citi credits fairly easy to use given that they can be used for all the hotels in the Citi portal and not just an expensive subset like Amex (FHR) and Chase (Edit) premium credit card hotel credits.

I arrived in Las Vegas Friday around 2pm and waited at the airport for the free hotel shuttle which runs every hour on the half-hour. Even though I booked through a 3rd party (Citi), there was no issue in being able to use the complimentary shuttle. It arrived on time and it took about 30 minutes to get to the resort heading south from the airport.

Check-in was fairly quick and I was informed that the only additional cost added to my pre-paid booking was the daily resort fee, which I was aware of already. The hotel had opened a brand-new wing that week and I fully expected to be stuck in the older (2009) wing due to not booking through the group, but to my surprise, I was given a room in the new wing.

It was a bit difficult to find the elevators for the new wing as they are at the far end of the casino, but once I did, I was able to find my room on the 10th floor.

My room was brand-new and fairly nice. It won’t win any awards, but it was basically at the level of a new Hyatt Regency or Marriott room. There was a single sink (no soap dish), small fridge, lots of USB-A and USB-C outlets near the bed, and a desk. If I had a minor critique, it was that the TV was small relative to those you normally see in brand-new or renovated hotel rooms these days.

My view was of the mountains rather than the Strip, which was fine with me as I don’t get these views often.

I was given a welcome gift of lip balm, which while seemingly insignificant, was actually useful in the Vegas dry air.

That evening, after the Zorkfest welcome cocktail hour, I ate dinner with some friends at the Raiders Sports Bar within the resort. The M Resort hosts the Raiders before every home game and is the official hotel for the team so there’s lots of theming around the hotel reflecting that. The food was fine, the drinks were pretty good and the prices were fair, especially for a captive audience given the distance to any other hotel/restaurant.

The hotel has a nice looking pool which was closed for the chilly Vegas winter.

I also visited the gym on my last morning and it was well equipped.

Breakfast was not included in my rate, but was provided by the conference on Saturday. On Sunday, I grabbed an iced latte and pastry at the cafe called Babycakes. The coffee was good but the pastry was dry.

When I asked about late checkout, I was given until 12 noon. I just went ahead and checked out before my 10am Zorkfest session on Sunday and stored my bags at the bell desk since I wasn’t leaving until around 4pm.

Overall, I thought the M Resort was a perfectly good place to have this meeting since the Strip was not viable for a conference this size. The casino was nice and not crowded or smoky like many of the big Strip casinos. The dealers were nice and friendly to occasional gamblers like myself and the minimums on table games were fairly low even in the prime evening hours.

While I doubt I would choose this hotel for any other reason given the variety of places available on the Strip (and usable with Amex FHR credits), if you find yourself there for a meeting, it’s not a bad place to be.

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