In these doom-laden, credit-crunched times, with endless predictions presaging the death knell of foreign travel, we challenged Les Oliver to visit Las Vegas, the spend, spend, spend capital of the world, on the cheap . . .

All lit up: Las Vegas at night. PICTURE: Las Vegas News Bureau/LVCVA

I have a confession. I went to Las Vegas and never gambled. Saw topless dancers though I never visited a strip club. Watched world-famous shows at top class theatres – and much of it didn’t cost me a penny.

I also got a tan for free.

The aim was a recession-beating holiday on a budget in the spend, spend, spend glitzy holiday capital of the world.

But to get the most for the least you first have to do your homework. And most important of all you need to get on the Internet and check out the deals and plan it all well in advance.

Getting there: Our business class flights were free – we had collected enough points through supermarket spending on the credit card to pay for the trip with air miles. It wasn’t entirely free, of course . . . we still had airport taxes to pay, but club class travel would normally have cost a few thousand pounds had we been paying the full amount.

We flew to Los Angeles and picked up a hire car for £120 for the five-hour drive to Vegas. Having the rental car was cheaper than a return flight from LA to Vegas and meant we had the use of the car while we there.

Petrol is also far cheaper in the States than at home – we paid $2.24 a gallon – about 38p a litre.

Entertainment: Top of the list for free entertainment is the fountains at Bellagio. At regular intervals through the day and every 15 minutes in the evening (the best time to see it) the lake in front of the hotel comes to life.

The $30m famous “must-see” experience is a display of water jets shooting high over the lake and synchronised to music and lights in a balletic performance.

You can catch a bus – $3 one way, $7 for 24 hours, or, recommended, $20 for a week – downtown to the Fremont Street Experience. It’s an amazing free lights and music show soaring in a gigantic screen that is the arched roof of the arcade five blocks long.

Also at Fremont you’ll see people dancing to the music of live bands on stage and see street performers – it’s all great entertainment and again, all free.

Back on Las Vegas Boulevard (the Strip), Treasure Island, another big casino resort hotel, features a free pyrotechnic pirates’ sea battle that can be viewed from the street. It’s on four times nightly, every 90 minutes, but get there early because of the crowds.

Of course, Las Vegas is second to none for big name shows with performers like Elton John, Cher, Bette Midler, Barry Manilow and Tom Jones, but unless you are prepared to pay premium prices you are unlikely to see them, even by planning ahead.

Lights, music, action: The five-blocks long arched roof is the big screen at the Fremont Street Experience

There are options, however: Tix4Tonight sells Las Vegas discount tickets for most shows. The outlet is located behind the giant Coke bottle at 3785 Las Vegas Blvd.

Same-day half-price tickets are available at various outlets around town. You can also get two-for-one discount coupons from various casinos, and some hotels offer theatre discount packages.

I counted no fewer than six shows by the world famous Cirque du Soleil, but the one that intrigued was the headliner, O, which, as the name phonetically suggests, is themed on water.

It is an incredible dreamlike display of music and movement by world-class performers involving breathtaking acrobatics and surreal synchronised swimming and diving in, on, and above a 1.5million-gallon pool constructed in the stage.

The technology is equally awesome. The pool contains seven unseen hydraulic lifts, which can be lowered and raised so the performers can dive into it from 50ft above the stage one minute and apparently walk on water the next.

This is an aquatic extravaganza with acrobats, trapeze artistes, dancers and divers and divas of the highest order. It has been playing to a packed house in a 1,800-seat theatre at the Bellagio now for almost 10 years.

Sexy, smutty, sensuous, crude, funny, balletic, erotic, entertaining. Cirque du Soleil’s Zumanity was all of these and more.

Not for the easily offended, the show at New York New York, one of Las Vegas’s top hotel casinos on the Strip, is a provocative celebration of sex. You have to leave your inhibitions at the door – this is Vegas, after all – the dancers have very little on, some are topless and there is some swearing – but no one walked out in disgust.

It’s seductive, naughty and a bit tacky, but most of all, it’s fun. Tickets for both shows are available for half-price or less.

Contortionists in the Cirque du Soleil’s performance at Bellagio

A free bus ride away is the Rio casino hotel which is definitely worth a visit. It’s consistently voted one of the best value hotels in America, with fine restaurants. More important to trippers on a budget, it’s visited by thousands for its free Masquerade Show in the Sky.

A mardi gras-style fiesta of music and dance, its fantasy floats glide around suspended from the ceiling while performers sing and dance on the stage below. In the evening, as with many of the Vegas family attractions, this becomes an adult show with topless girls.

Food and drink: This is one way to keep the costs down, as our room offered kitchen facilities. We also sampled one or two of the all-you-can-eat buffets at casinos on the Strip. Here, prices varied greatly – the top places like Caesar’s Palace and Bellagios costing a lot more than the food at Terribles Casino, near our hotel, where the buffet was $9.99 plus tax. We paid about £15 for two with unlimited soft drinks, tea or coffee.

Also good value was the Gold Coast Casino. It’s a bit off the beaten track of the Strip, next door to the Rio, but there’s a free shuttle bus from the Strip (outside Bill’s Casino) direct to Gold Coast where there’s a choice of about half a dozen cuisines including seafood, Mongolian, Chinese, American barbecue, Italian, salads, and a dessert section almost as big as all of them put together. The meal was better and cost less than £20 for two, again with free drinks.

Accommodation: For the budget-conscious you can stay at one of the many inexpensive establishments designed to attract the gambler. You probably won’t be raving to your friends about the room, but it serves the purpose. We wanted something a bit better.

There are thousands of hotel bedrooms in Las Vegas, but relatively few with a fully-equipped kitchen, according to my pre-trip online researches. The one we plumped for, because it offered these home-from-home facilities rather than just a bed for the night, was Candlewood Suites, a 276-bedroom hotel about a mile east of the Strip.

With a large lounge/kitchen complete with hotplate, microwave, dishwasher, large fridge/freezer, a separate bedroom and a bathroom, we had the option of a lazy lie-in when we wanted and breakfast in the room. We also had occasional evening meals in after stopping by a nearby grocery store.

There was a TV in the room and another in the bedroom, CD and video/DVD players and guests have a wide choice of DVD films you can borrow free from reception.

There’s also a gym, swimming pool, guests’ laundry and small unmanned snack shop operated on an honesty basis – you help yourself to what you need and leave a note of how much you’ve taken, paying for it when you check out at the end of your stay.

Travel: Les paid for his trip with reward point miles, collected largely from credit card spending.

Accommodation: Candlewood Suites, 4034 Paradise Road, NV 89169, a member of IHG hotels, rates available at www.candlewoodsuites.com. Free nights are available between specific dates. See GetAFreeNight.com for details.

Entertainment: Mostly free. Cirque de Soleil: O at Bellagio performs Wednesday till Sunday at 7.30pm and 10.30pm (no performances Mondays and Tuesdays). Full-price tickets are available 120 days in advance from $93 www.cirquedusolil.com but cut-price tickets are available from discount outlets. Zumanity at New York New York performs Tuesday, Wednesday and Fri-Sun at 7.30pm and 10.30pm, full ticket price from $69.

More information: www.visitlasvegas.com, the official Las Vegas Tourism website for special deals, clubs, restaurants, shows, and maps.