[bav]

Your desire to play middling limits will greatly curtail your game selection. Mirage does 10/20 and 20/40. Bellagio and Wynn offer 15/30 and 30/60. That's about it for your choices of where you can find games. Get a Strip map and look at what's near those (and realize things are WAY WAY farther apart than they look on the maps... Tropicana to Flamingo is 1 mile). Wynn is kinda isolated up north and has fewer of these games than Bellagio. Mirage 10/20 is sorta hit-n-miss. Safest bet is Bellagio for 15/30.

I wouldn't want to fiddle with a poker rate. You have to play typically 6 or 8 hours a day in that specific room to get it. Few tourists, especially with a wife and/or inlaws in tow, can do 8 hours a day of poker at all, let alone in a single room.

Visit hotels.com, travelocity, expedia, or whatever other sites and enter your stay dates. Cross off Bellagio, Venetian, Caesars, and Wynn--you apparently can't (won't) afford them. Though you could consider it since I imagine the added room cost won't be outrageous compared to the total cost of your vacation. And if you happen to be coming during a slack time, like shortly before Christmas, they can actually be surprisingly affordable.

Down a notch but still high quality and near(ish) the right poker rooms: Mirage, TI, Paris. Mirage is close to Mirage. TI is close to Mirage and Wynn. Paris is close to Bellagio.

Down another notch, but perfectly fine: Ballys (great for getting to Bellagio), Harrahs (across from Mirage), Flamingo (kinda midway between Bellagio and Mirage), PlanetHollywood (near Bellagio), and as a wildcard Bill's Gamblin' Hall (which sounds awful, and it is kinda old but folks claim the rooms are very nice).

And that's about it in the "acceptable to bring wife and inlaws to" range that's going to put you near one of Wynn, Mirage, or Bellagio. You could toss in Monte Carlo...it's not an outrageous walk up to Bellagio, but folks have claimed the construction going on for Project City Center can often be heard in the rooms.

All of these places 'cept Bill's have poker rooms but barring Wynn, Bellagio, and Mirage you'll likely be stuck with 2/4, 3/6, or 4/8 limit and NL1/2.

Guess I'd tend to aim for Bally's because of it's nearly ideal location across the walkway from Bellagio and nearly perfect mid-strip location making it easy to walk most anywhere.