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Do you want to learn how to book award flights to the Maldives? Those specs you see on the map off the coast of India is a bucket list destination for many. It’s typically out of reach for many of us 9-5 folks because it’s SO expensive to get there and to stay there. With flights well into the thousands of dollars flying out of a small town, and hotel stays well over $500 a night in desirable parts of the Maldives, it’s no wonder that destinations like this are more suited for the rich and famous.
But by leveraging your points and miles you can shave off a lot of the costs associated with hotel and airfare. Award flights to the Maldives are a great option.
My wife and I recently booked our business class flights to and from the Maldives using American Airline miles. A big shout out to Spencer Howard for this booking. Due to his award availability alerts, we were able to jump on this deal as the dates worked out perfectly for us. Consider signing up for his newsletter! We like to book long haul flights in business class because it’s way more comfortable and because we get a lot of value out of our miles. In this post I’ll show you how we booked our flights.
MILES WE USED
Adriana and I used our American Airline miles to book these flights. For business class, AA charges 70K miles per person for flights from the US to the Maldives one way. While that sounds like a lot of miles, both Barclays and Citi offer credit cards with 50K-70K sign up bonuses which will get you most of miles needed for these trips. The Barclaycard in particular is very appealing since all you have to do is make 1 purchase with the card and pay the annual fee to earn the bonus.
AWARD FLIGHTS TO THE MALDIVES
Using the American Airlines website to search for award space is pretty easy to do. FINDING award space on these routes can be a challenge since they are highly sought after. Being flexible with your travel dates and routes is key to finding award space. Again, Spencer’s newsletter was essential to finding the award space that we used. To start your search, just follow these steps.
First go to the American Airlines website. Then on the homepage, enter in your search criteria. Make sure to select “One way” and “Redeem miles” when you start your search. After you enter in your search information, click “Search”
Here you’ll notice the color coded award calendar showing saver award space in economy, business class and first class. Click on the cabin that you are searching for. In this case I searched for business class. Once you click on your desired cabin, notice how the days with saver award availability are shown in blue. These are the days that I’ll look at to see if there are any routes that I’m interested in. Once you pick a day, click “Continue”
Then the search results will appear. When you find your desired route, select it. You’ll be required to log in to your AA account at this point to continue
Once you log in, you’ll see your price breakdown. At the time of this writing, AA is adding on a $75 Award Processing Fee. This fee wasn’t charged to me when I made this booking back in April 2019. Even with the fee though, $90.70 for a one way business class flight to paradise is an amazing deal.
At this point, you just enter in your passenger information and follow the prompts to complete your booking. If you plan to use your AA miles to book your flights back home, you’ll follow the exact same steps, just change your departing and arriving destinations.
OUR FLIGHT COSTS
Adriana and I tag teamed our award flights with our AA miles. I had enough miles in my AA account to book 1 one way flight to the Maldives, while Adriana had enough miles to book 3 one way flights. For each of us, our flights to the Maldives from the US cost 63K AA miles and $19.30 in fees.
Now may be wondering why the award flight cost 63K miles instead of 70K miles. That’s because the Barclays Aviator cardmembers used to receive a 10% miles rebate on award bookings, up to 10K miles per year. I believe this is no longer offered.
The cash price for these flights would’ve been $13,546 for 2 people. Qatar Airways Q-Suites are arguably the best business class seats out there!
This award booking yielded us a value of 11 cents per mile!! Here’s the math
($13,546 cash price / 126,000 AA miles = 11 cents per mile)
We booked our return flights with a mix of Sri Lankan and Etihad business class flights. We had a fixed date to fly back home which dramatically reduced our options. This was the best option we found for our date. Ideally we would’ve loved to have booked Qatar Airways business class back home, or Etihad the entire way back home, but I’m content with our booking. Our flights home cost us 70K AA miles each and a total of $155.26 in fees.
The cash price for these flights would’ve come out to $7,472. The flights include segments to Colombo and Abu Dhabi on Sri Lankan Airlines business class, then from Abu Dhabi to the US on Etihad business class.
This award redemption yielded us a value of 5.3 cents per mile. Here’s the math
($7,472 cash price / 140,000 miles = 5 cents per mile)
CONCLUSION
A trip to the Maldives always seemed out of reach for us but with some planning and having the right miles, we were able to book some very comfortable flights to and from the Maldives. As you can see, searching for award space is incredibly easy. You just have to be flexible with your travel dates. Keep in mind that you could book these flights in economy for 40K AA miles each way per person. In our next article, I’ll show you how we booked our hotel stay in the Maldives with points!
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