Originally Posted by
araknis
Just curious on the flight situation you were able to work out. I have the same home airports (SNA/LAX) and have been looking at a good route to get to Maldives.
This was easily the more complicated itineraries that we came up with and had less than 60 days notice to make it happen, right in the peak spring / summer travel season. We have friends & family to visit in India, and added the Maldives as a side vacation.
Our itinerary was booked on CO miles, and as they see it our trip is LAX to DEL and return MLE to LAX. However, we included 1 domestic stopover + 1 international open-jaw and bought some extra tickets within India. So, our eventual itinerary became:
LAX > EWR (CO Business Award Saver - stay in NYC for a day)
EWR > DEL (CO Business Award Saver)
DEL > BOM paid stopover (TBD - on of the many Indian Airlines)
BOM > TRV paid connecting flight (TBD - on of the many Indian Airlines)
TRV > MLE paid flight on Maldivian (
www.maldivian.aero)
MLE > SIN (SIN Economy Saver - connection)
SIN > NRT (SIN Economy Saver - connection)
NRT > LAX (ANA Economy Saver)
The most annoying part of this trip was our inability to leverage the AA miles we banked via the Citibank AA cards. My wife and I have 200K each on AA, and could use the miles to get to India via JFK & Europe (very limited flights though). Coming back from the Maldives was a nightmare itinerary on OneWorld:
MLE > LGW (on BA - pay their annoying fuel surcharge, spend the night in London, then transfer all the way to LHR)
LHR > JFK (spend 2 nights in NY, fortunately we have friends and family there)
JFK > LAX
In the end, I had to use the Chase Continental Credit Card Sign-Up bonus to get some miles very quickly so we could leverage the better flight selection on Star Alliance. Also, my wife is a platinum on AA, and we got her status matched on Continental thus making a nice transition over to Star Alliance, even if it's temporary.
There is much better availability on Star Alliance to MLE, so bank up some UA/CO miles (which can easily be combined), and get CO or UA to match your AA status. Good luck with your flights!