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Getting to Seychelles or Maldives with miles/points

Getting to Seychelles or Maldives with miles/points

Old Apr 21, 2017, 4:14 pm
  #1  
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Getting to Seychelles or Maldives with miles/points

Two of us are planning a trip to southern Africa for early 2018 and are interested in also visiting either the Seychelles or Maldives using miles/points. I will likely want to leave southern Africa by way of JNB (but CPT is also workable) but flying through another continental African city enroute to either Seychelles or Maldives is not a problem. I have miles/points with members of each alliance (Delta, BA, American, United, Alaska).

Has anyone had success (or have information about) using miles to get to either island destination? Are any of these possible ways to get there bookable or at least explorable (for planning purposes) online? I'd prefer to travel in J but Y might be okay if it's the only option.
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Old Apr 21, 2017, 6:18 pm
  #2  
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Have you looked at which airlines fly to the Seychelles or Maldives?
Look at the airport web sites and the wikipedia airport entry. They will list airlines and maybe routes.
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Old Apr 21, 2017, 10:39 pm
  #3  
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I did my trip to the Seychelles in 2015 on the great Etihad mistake fare deal...the $644 RT from JFK to there wasn't as good as $344 IAD-MNL-IAD or $208 ORD-AUH-ORD, but I still had to do it and was glad I did.

Had looked at other approaches like trying to tack it onto an Africa trip via Kenya Airways and Skymiles points, but it looked like actually booking would be a real pain. There's also that Ethiopian carrier and Air Seychelles flying to a few places.

Realistically, though, EK and EY now tower over the other options and are probably most realistic by far. Maybe you can use AA miles via EY, but I'm sure if it were me there'd be some segment messing up the price or availability and requiring a two-ticket strategy. Hopefully the Seychelles government doesn't allow the ME3 to flood the place with visitors, but that's how many people are getting there these days.

With the Maldives I'd look at getting someplace with easy access like KUL and then taking a ULCC for the last segment.

You're lucky in a way that it's not as easy as people may think to get to these places, as they're fragile and too many visitors will ruin them.
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Old Apr 23, 2017, 10:38 pm
  #4  
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EK with AS miles or QR with AA miles will be your two best bets for MLE and SEZ (EY is of course a good option but requires two awards as noted above if redeeming AA miles - but you only need one award if using QR - QR and transiting DOH to get to Africa which makes it a great option for AA redemptions to Africa - you'll need to search for space using BA Avios website, QR space doesn't show on AA website).

EK is of course EK but they jacked up the redemption rates so it'll cost a pretty penny to redeem AS miles for EK J or F these days (if Y, I don't think the pricing has changed).

DL there are a few threads that can help you but MLE is definitely doable, I believe AF just announced a new CDG - MLE flight which will help for SkyTeam award availability to MLE. There are some nuances (search the DL forum) around having to search segment by segment and I'm not sure if you are allowed to go East to get to MLE but if you are, KE is a good option for Y and J (and of course you can combine with a DL flight to ICN to start).

Another thought, if you want to leave Africa from JNB, I would recommend using your AS for a CX J redemption (assuming you are looking for J, if not Y works too) and go JNB - HKG - BOS (based on your profile saying VT). You can add a free stopover at HKG too if you want - it's one of the best values still out there (only 62.5k/person).

To me the ideal booking would be (again assuming BOS being first choice due to VT):

BOS - DOH - SEZ / MLE (AA award redemption on QR)
SEZ / MLE - JNB (paid flight or potentially UA award on SAA)
JNB - HKG (potential stopover if you have time) - BOS (AS award redemption on CX)

Or the reverse.

The above would be:

150k AA (75k x2 for J)
60k UA (30k x2 for J) or cash (or someone might have other ideas for better award redemptions intra-Africa)
115k AS (62.5k x2 for J)

Last edited by Duke787; Apr 23, 2017 at 10:44 pm
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Old Apr 24, 2017, 12:38 pm
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Other options with UA miles would include (in some cases combining with other partner(s) on the way) ET to SEZ and AI to MLE.
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