Originally Posted by
dr58
After trying and failing to put together an itinerary/award strategy, I thought I might draw on the wisdom of this esteemed crowd to see if anyone out there could help me.
I am trying to plan a Maldives trip for two sometime late next year/early 2014 and would like to book as much as possible through miles/points. My trip options (timing, airline choice, etc.) are pretty open at this point, but I am shooting for premium cabin tickets and some kind of over-water accommodations. Willing to pay an upcharge for the latter if needed.
For hotels, I've been thinking Conrad Maldives Rangali Island, Park Hyatt Maldives, or W Retreat & Spa Maldives, but only because I have mid-tier status in those programs (SPG Gold; HHonors Gold; Hyatt Platinum). I'm certainly open to other options.
Credit is good, with very few inquiries and only one card right now (Chase Sapphire Preferred). Other than ~150,000 Chase UR points, my points balances are not very high and are spread across a few programs (40,000 HHonors points; 50,000 US miles; 10,000 SPG points). Not much anticipated paid travel between now and the contemplated trip.
Anyone see a path to doing this? I'm struggling to figure out a way to do both air and lodging without needing ~400,000 points, or alternatively how to earn that many points over the next 18 months or so.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
It should be easy for you to collect enough hotel points. How many nights do you want to stay? Don't do the W. Award nights are ridiculously expensive.
Hilton points are very easy to come by. On the same day, you can apply for 2 Citi HHonors Visas, 1 Bank of Hawaii Hawaiian Airlines card (miles transfer to HHonors), 1 Bank of America Hawaiian Airlines card (ditto), and 1 of the AMEX HHonors products. If Virgin has a good bonus, you can do one of those cards, too (those miles transfer to HHonors, as well). This should net you enough for 5-7 nights at the Conrad in the beach villa, and you can upgrade to a water villa for a couple hundred dollars a night, depending on the season. The Citi cards are churnable, so you can collect 100,000 points every 65 days if you keep doing those.
If you have elite status or a Hilton Amex, you can book awards at the Conrad at a discount. For example, I just booked 6 nights for 37,500pts/night, instead of the usual 50,000pts/night.
For airfare, you have enough time to earn the points, too. Look into which alliance you want to fly and then focus on credit card signups. You may want to go with Star Alliance, since your UR points will transfer to United. You could look into British, but I have a feeling it will take many more miles on British than it would on United.
I recently booked flights on CX using AA miles, but only as far as Colombo. From Colombo, though, flights are cheap to MLE.
In sum: (1) start churning the various HHonors cards, and (2) choose an airline alliance and sign up for the relevant credit cards.