My wife wants to go to the Maldives in 6 years, so I'm starting to plan ahead on how to pay for it. She wants to stay over the water, so anything else is not an option. After some Google searches, it appears there are hotels with over water villas that can be purchased with points.
Anyone have any suggestions on what point system to use to start banking points to help offset the cost of the trip? So far, I'm thinking about sticking with Chase URs. The points can transfer to Emirates or United, which could help offset flying costs. The points also transfer to Hyatt, Marriott, and IHG, which I believe all have ocean villas that can be purchased with points. I haven't begun to research which ocean villas we'd like to stay in, so if I bank URs, I'm hoping those 3 have a nice options out there. I believe Hilton has property there, but I think their costs are up to 300k points per night, so I don't really want to go all in with HH point hoarding... especially since I can't do anything else with those points.
I just started to research things, so this is only the early stage of planning, but I'm looking for any input anyone would like to give, especially if you have offset the cost of a trip there with points. Even if some of the best places to stay aren't available by points, I can hopefully at least offset the plane cost, or upgrade us.
@iced wrote:The bungalows at Maldives and Bora Bora are among the most desired places to stay in the world, and point redemptions for them come at a cost as a result. There have been cases of good redemptions, particularly during low seasons or off weeks, but by and large they will either come at heavily devalued point rates, or in many cases not be offered for points at all. Your best bet is to find the hotel that has the bungalow you want and check its rates to see if it's something you can redeem points for. If you do find one for points, expect it to be anywhere from 500k to 2+ million points for a week, depending on program.
The other headwind you may face is that partial award redemptions (ie, using them for upgrades rather than the ticket outright) are among the worst values in redemption, so if you can't go big you will not get nearly as much return. When you consider than a Y to J upgrade can cost 400k points plus an additional $2k in copays for 2 people to upgrade R/T versus 600k points and maybe a couple hundred in fees for the J tickets outright, upgrades can quickly reveal themselves to be lousy redemptions. Room upgrades with points will likely not even be an option -- those bungalows sell easily for cash, so there's little incentive to sell them for points.
UR or MR is about as safe a play as you can make since it's somewhat program agnostic, but I'd say priority one is figuring out the airline and hotel you want to use for this trip and then start banking as many points with them as you can. By knowing this, you can also start taking advantage of dining/shopping programs to get additional points, plus fly those airlines and stay in those hotels between now and then to bank even more points.
Personally, I'd recommend you just pay cash for the room and use points on getting there. A week in a bungalow will only be around $7k (plus meals), which is cheaper than a pair of J tickets from the US to the Maldives that you can score for 500k-900k miles (possibly less if you get really lucky with routing and dates and find a saver award).
Thanks for your input! That sounds about right, we'll have to try and pinpoint what we want first. One of the ones my wife is looking at is not a chain, so it will be cash if we choose that one. In that case, as you recommend, my points can be used to help us get there. I foresee lots and lots of research in the years ahead, so I think I'll play it safe with building URs while we decide.
Well, checking the Hyatt option, while you can get a room for points, it's a room on the island, not an over-water villa. Those aren't available for Hyatt points. And that is common with points programs these days, you usually get a basic room for points. It's in a fabulous location, but it's not the excellent room in most cases.
I'd say just bank as many URs and /or MRs as possible and play it by ear.
Who knows what kind of promos Chase and Amex will be running 6 years from now. Chase may do a Pay Yourself Back promo that makes just putting the trip on the card and using URs to wipe out the purchase a better deal than anything! When you get within, say 12 - 18 months I'd start putting the itinerary together and seeing what works best with the points you've collected 😎
6 years is a LONG time to be planning ahead. It's hard to know what the travel space will look like by then, especially with how quickly things have been changing.
Waldorf Astoria might be one of the most famous properties there and nights can be booked for roughly 150K/night, making it 600K for 5 nights (5th night free with Hilton Amex). If you get a few of the Hilton cards for both you and your wife, you can easily rack up a million points, which, combined with the free nights you could get from the aspire, would net you roughly 2 weeks at that property.
That's just one example, but every major hotel chain has properties that take point redemptions in the Maldives, and even if the OW Bungalow can't be booked, they're usually pretty good at upgrading you (sometimes for free with status/special occasion) if you pay a set nightly rate.
[2/2019]