Hi! I have planned my honeymoon to maldives too and it actually was easy. I am flying MIA-JFK-AUH (layover for several days) AUH-MLE (stay several days) MLE-AUH-CDG (stay for several days) CDG-MIA.

I highly recommend you to save the chase UR points to pay for the maldives hotel since all of them are expensive, and right now the best redemtion rate is the park hyatt maldives for 25k a night. You could get the hyatt CC next year.

This year focus on getting citi AA CCs. My trip cost me 400k AA miles, which sounds like a lot but you guys could do 2 75k citi executive, 2 50k citi and tranfer the 60k spg points to AA NOW because there is a promo and you will get 90k AA miles for that. You will end up with more than 360k AA miles which is enough for the same trip in first class without the layover in AUH, but it will include the layover in europe. I am doing mine in first class (Etihad A380 and 77w)