How to master Harry Reid: the British business traveller’s guide to the convention capital’s five-minute airport

Harry Reid International sits barely five miles from the Las Vegas Strip, which makes it the most conveniently placed major gateway in America.

Here is how to make the world’s busiest convention city’s airport work for you, not against you: which terminal, the trusted-traveller programmes, the lounges, where to sleep and the connection trap to avoid.

There is a moment, familiar to anyone who has flown into Las Vegas, when the aircraft banks over the desert and the Strip appears below you, close enough, it seems, to read the marquees. It is not an illusion. Harry Reid International, renamed in 2021 from McCarran in honour of the late Nevada senator, sits about five miles from the Strip, a drive of ten to twenty minutes, and that closeness is the single fact that shapes everything else about flying here. You can be off a transatlantic flight and checking into your resort before your fellow passengers at other American gateways have cleared the car park.

To the British eye, Las Vegas reads as a holiday city of casinos and shows. For the business traveller it is something more consequential: this is the convention capital of the world, host to more major trade shows and conventions than any other American city, from the vast technology and consumer-electronics gatherings to events for every industry imaginable. The result is an airport, one of the ten busiest in the United States with close to fifty-five million passengers a year, that moves business travellers in their millions through a compact, constrained site, and does so with a soundtrack no other airport on earth can offer. Harry Reid is the only major US airport with thousands of slot machines inside its terminals. The chime of the reels greets you at the gate, a fittingly Las Vegas welcome and farewell.

British Airways and Virgin Atlantic both fly here nonstop from London, and for the UK flyer the airport is, once decoded, delightfully simple. This guide covers the terminals, the short hop to the Strip, and the things every US arrival demands: the immigration queue, the trusted-traveller programmes, the dollars and the tipping.

Which terminal? Terminal 3, every time

Harry Reid has two terminals, Terminal 1 and Terminal 3, and for the British traveller the choice could not be easier, because there isn’t one. Terminal 3 handles all international flying, along with some full-service domestic carriers, so British Airways and Virgin Atlantic both depart from there, and it is where you arrive from London, clearing immigration at its 60,000-square-foot Customs and Border Protection arrivals hall before baggage claim. Terminal 1, the original and larger building, handles the bulk of the domestic carriers, including Southwest Airlines, which runs a major operation here across its A, B and C gate areas. Terminal 3’s own gates are lettered D and E, with the E gates serving the international flights and their customs facility, and an airside tram linking the two gate areas. The official Harry Reid airport site carries live terminal maps and airline allocations if you want to double-check before you fly.

The wrinkle, and it matters later in this guide, is that the two terminals are not connected airside. If you are connecting from an international arrival at Terminal 3 onto a domestic flight from Terminal 1, you must travel between them on the free inter-terminal shuttle bus, which runs every fifteen to thirty minutes, and then re-clear security. If you are being dropped off for a flight home to London, head for Terminal 3 and think no more about it.

To the Strip in ten minutes

Getting from Harry Reid to wherever you are going could hardly be easier, because the airport is so close to the action. The Strip, where most of the hotels, casinos and convention venues cluster, sits barely five miles from the terminals. There is no rail link to the airport, the city’s monorail serving only the Strip itself, but with everything so close it scarcely matters. A taxi from the ranks outside the terminals reaches the Strip for around twenty-five to thirty-five dollars before the customary tip, and ride-share services such as Uber and Lyft operate from designated pick-up areas at demand-based fares. Many Strip resorts and the convention centres run their own shuttles, and for the budget-minded the RTC public bus network serves the airport, with routes to the Strip, the convention centre and downtown for a few dollars, slower than a cab but honest value.

The rule for the regular is straightforward: a taxi or ride-share to the Strip for speed, a resort or convention shuttle if your hotel runs one, and the bus only if economy is the priority. This is one of the shortest and simplest airport transfers in America, a sharp contrast to the hour-long haul into Manhattan we describe in our JFK airport guide for UK business travellers.

A word on hire cars, because Las Vegas rewrites the usual logic here too. For a business trip centred on a Strip or convention-centre hotel, you may need no other transport at all; the venues, restaurants and meetings sit within walking distance or a short cab ride of one another. A car earns its keep only if your trip takes you beyond the city, to the suburbs, the business parks away from the Strip, or, as many visitors sensibly do, out to the spectacular national parks of the surrounding desert, from the Grand Canyon to Zion and Death Valley, for which a car is essential. The rental-car centre is a few miles from the terminals, reached by its own shuttle bus. For the Strip-based traveller, though, a hire car is usually an unnecessary expense, given the closeness of everything and the cost of resort parking.

Immigration, security and the programmes that tame them

Now for the part the UK traveller must master. Every British visitor needs authorisation to enter the United States before travelling: for most business and leisure trips that means an approved ESTA under the Visa Waiver Programme, applied for online well ahead via the official ESTA application site and valid for two years, though some travellers require a full visa, so check your circumstances early. On arrival at Harry Reid you clear US Customs and Border Protection at Terminal 3, and here the airport’s leisure volumes tell. As a busy holiday and convention gateway that often receives several long-haul flights together, its immigration queues can be substantial at peak arrival times, followed by the customs declaration.

The single most valuable thing a frequent visitor can do is enrol in Global Entry, the US trusted-traveller programme open to UK citizens, which lets you skip the main queue at an automated kiosk. It requires a UK background check, a US fee and an interview, so apply months ahead, but it transforms the arrival, here and at every American gateway.

Departure security is a separate matter, run by the Transportation Security Administration, and at a high-volume airport the checkpoints can be busy, so allow time. For the UK traveller flying home it is a standard screening, but for anyone connecting onto a US domestic flight, TSA PreCheck, included with Global Entry, opens a faster security lane, and CLEAR, a paid service, moves you to the front of the queue. And one Las Vegas note that is entirely serious: the slot machines begin the moment you clear security, but the flight will not wait, so mind the time.

Where to wait well

Harry Reid is not a hub in the manner of the great connecting airports, so its lounge offer is more modest, but Terminal 3, where the British traveller flies, has a comfortable option. The Club at LAS, an independent pay-to-enter and membership lounge, operates in the terminal, accessible by advance booking, a Priority Pass-style membership or with certain premium tickets, and offers complimentary food and drink, wi-fi and a quiet place to work or rest before the flight home. It is the natural base for the BA or Virgin passenger without an airline lounge of their own, and after a bruising convention week, a couple of hours of calm before a transatlantic departure is worth a great deal. The airlines and their partners provide premium-cabin lounge access where applicable, and Terminal 1 has further lounges for the domestic carriers. The usual discipline applies: know what your ticket or card opens, and confirm it is in Terminal 3, before you build your timings around it.

Beyond the lounge, dining at Harry Reid is a lively, crowd-pleasing affair befitting a convention city: a wide spread of national chains, bars and a number of better sit-down options, including outposts of well-known Las Vegas and celebrity-chef names, so a decent meal before the flight home is easily had. Shopping is geared to the visitor, with duty-free, the practical essentials and a vast array of souvenirs from the kitsch to the surprisingly stylish. For the working traveller the value is the familiar safety net: the charger, the adaptor or the US plug you forgot, replaceable airside. Do your eating and buying in Terminal 3, and keep an eye on boarding, because the distractions of the concourse, slots included, make the time slip away.

Where to stay: not at the airport

Las Vegas rewrites the airport-hotel chapter of this series entirely. There is no need to stay at the airport, because the Strip, with its tens of thousands of rooms, is five minutes away, and that is where the business is: the great resort hotels, the convention centres and the meeting venues are concentrated along and around it. The choosing logic is not proximity to the airport, which is a given, but which part of the Strip or the convention district suits your trip. For a convention at the Las Vegas Convention Center, book near it; for a trade show at one of the resort venues, stay there; for a general trip, anywhere along the Strip puts you in the thick of it. Downtown, the old Las Vegas, offers a cheaper and different flavour of the city a little further out. And with the desert’s great national parks within driving distance, this is also one of the easiest cities in America to add a day or two of leisure to a working trip, a subject we cover in our guide to combining business travel with leisure.

The connection trap

Harry Reid is overwhelmingly an origin-and-destination airport, a place people fly to rather than through, so many British travellers will have no connection to worry about. But where you are flying onward within the United States, the usual American rules apply, with a local twist. There is no airside transit in the US: on arrival at Terminal 3 you must clear immigration, collect your checked bags, pass through customs, then re-check the bags and go through security again before your onward domestic flight, even on a single ticket. The Las Vegas wrinkle is the two-terminal layout. If your onward domestic flight leaves from Terminal 1, as many do, Southwest above all, you must add the inter-terminal shuttle bus to the sequence.

The guidance follows naturally. Book a long connection, never a tight one. Global Entry speeds the immigration stage and its included TSA PreCheck speeds the re-screening. Hand luggage only, where the trip allows, removes the reclaim and re-check entirely. Clear each stage methodically, and only then relax.

The regular’s playbook

The habits of the seasoned Las Vegas flyer, distilled:

• Apply for your ESTA, or visa where required, well before you fly; it is mandatory for entry.
• Terminal 3 is your terminal: British Airways and Virgin Atlantic both use it, coming and going.
• If you cross the Atlantic often, get Global Entry; it transforms the immigration queue.
• Allow real time for arrival when several long-haul flights land together.
• Take a taxi, ride-share or resort shuttle to the Strip; it is only minutes away.
• Stay on the Strip, not at the airport, and choose your hotel by your venue.
• Hire a car only for trips out of town or to the national parks.
• Budget for tipping: 15 to 20 per cent, plus the Las Vegas extras for servers and dealers.
• Use The Club at LAS in Terminal 3 for a quiet hour away from the slot machines.
• Connecting onward? The terminals are not connected airside, so allow for the shuttle to Terminal 1.

The bigger picture

The defining story at Harry Reid is success straining at its limits. Las Vegas has boomed, adding professional sport, ever-larger conventions and major events to its established tourism and gaming economy, and the airport has grown with it, running close to the capacity of its constrained site beside the Strip. The airport has invested in modernising its terminals and technology, but with little room to expand, the region is planning a supplemental second commercial airport south of the city to absorb the growth Harry Reid alone cannot. For the British business traveller, the near-term reality is a busy, lively gateway whose great virtue, its closeness to the Strip, still makes it one of the most convenient in the country. Get the American arrival right, as you would at any US gateway, and the rest, much like a well-planned departure from Heathrow at the other end, takes care of itself.