Originally Posted by
ronbo83
One more unrelated consideration. Given that airlines (AA and UA in my experience) have raised the award charts for lay flat business class to Hawaii to almost the same as lay flat business class to the Maldives (62.5k to OGG vs 70k to MLE on AA), it makes sense for our travel to just head back to the PHM where the service has improved on each trip. We will be there later this year and the airline points redemption is virtually the same (7.5k more each way in QSuite using AA award) while the Hyatt redemption is the exact same. That is nothing against the Andaz but something to keep in mind given current airline award redemption charts for Hawaii and other boutique hotel destinations around the world.
Plus the $500 transfer cost, plus the lost time, plus, for many US residents, there's no need for lie-flat since the flight is relatively short. For us, it's just 12.5K BA miles (one-way) and five hours away.